Floating vice jaw
Shaped work is awkward to grip in the standard bench vice, as it lacks the parallel faces required by parallel jaws for secure clamping. Pattern makers who routinely handle such work use an expensive, purpose-designed vice with pivoting and tilting jaws, but if we’re lucky we might improvise by filling the gap between work and vice using a suitable offcut from the scrap pile. A more convenient alternative is to shape what is effectively a floating jaw which, when placed between the vice jaw and the work, adjusts automatically to fit. Plastic versions of this can be bought but the frugal woodworker with a 4x2in offcut to hand may baulk at the idea of buying in plastic what can easily be made in wood. Ten minutes shaping with the ½in gouge and a rasp should do it.