From The Filing Clamp To The Vice. 2000 Years Of Clamping Devices In The Craft

Alex. R. Furger

Archeologia technica, vol. 36 (2025)
Pages: 43–68
Language: English
Type of article: scientific article
DOI: https://doi.org/10.61574/AT.2025.43

Abstract:
In all crafts, the hands must hold not only the tools, but also the workpiece. If a job required both hands, very often the feet also helped to grip the object to be worked on. Where an object was too small or the required clamping force too great for the craftsmen’s fingers, a mechanical clamping aid was needed. With pliers and tongs, also in the form of long “tweezers”, made of wooden branches and later of bronze and iron, it was possible to grip workpieces, or crucibles and other objects, albeit not for extended periods. Since antiquity, clamps useful for holding and gripping small workpieces have been known to jewellers, fine smiths, coiners, comb makers, inter alia. In Roman times, such clamps were made of iron. In the Middle Ages, the crafts practice in this field shifted from middle Europe to the Viking north where the clamps were made of antler and bone. Since their construction and handling are extremely simple, it is not surprising that such devices are still available in the today’s goldsmith trade. The paper traces the path of development not only of these small clamps, but also of larger for-mats (in medieval shipbuilding) and parallel developments of clamps and fixing aids in the crafts. It finally leads to the first vice, which was invented quite late – and probably in Nuremberg.