Adjustable-Width Vise Spacer

If you want to hold a big panel or something in your vise, sometimes you have to clamp it off to one side of the vise because the vise hardware gets in the way. When you do that, it's a good idea to put a spacer in the other side of the vise to keep the vise from racking.  So you have to find something as thick as your workpiece to use as a spacer, then hold it with one hand while you hold the workpiece with your other hand and then somehow snug up the vise with your nose or your knee.

Growing a third arm would go a long way towards solving this problem, but I hear that takes a long time. Also, people who aren't quite as tolerant as they should be towards biological diversity will point and laugh and look at you like you're some sort of three-armed freak.  So that's no good.

Maybe you would be better off to just build this little gizmo.  It lets you make any size spacer you need by rotating the leaves in and out of the way. The 3/4" thick blocks on each end of the bolt keep the thing from falling through the vise while you position your workpiece with one hand and tighten the vise with the other.