Lining the Front Vise Jaw

Earlier this year I added silicone shelf liner to the bench vises so that It could be flipped into play as needed by anchoring it between the wooden jaw and the metal moving cheek. The benefit of the liner is it prevents wood and material from any slippage in the vise during tasks such as sawing and planing when needed. Whereas many tasks don’t need this, I like the convenience of keeping it anchored for use. It works and it works well, but I found that because of the pressures in the vise by different tools, it needed replacing every few weeks. Though the shelf liner is cheap to buy, it’s not always convenient to replace it so frequently and so, although I still use the liner for positive grip with awkward or heavy work, on the back jaw face,I tried out a flip-in-flip-out leather liner for a few weeks and this works great too.
I don’t like lining the jaws permanently with glued-on lining like cork or leather because glue and other hardening liquids as well as impressed particles can damage the wood or cramp my working style. Adding the leather works great. I anchored it between the metal and wood jaw, so that it can be flipped in and out of service as needed. To make for a better fold and fit I folded it in to the vise, sprayed a light misting of water onto the leather and stretched the leather down into the vise to stretch the leather over the two top corners. This then made permanent folded corners in the leather. I left it over night to dry out and now the leather just locks into place when I flip it in and out.