Dad had one on the end of one of his benches, made from roughsawn 2x8 or so. Acme screw I suspect was rescued from a jack, there was a stack of fender washers and wood rings to support the screw against the wood. There was a 2nd smaller screw near the bottom that helped with adjusting the angle of the top jaws for larger pieces, I seem to recall chucking spacer blocks in on occasion. It was sufficient for cutting up wood with a handsaw or drilling with a single speed b&d drill or chiseling. It was lacking if you were trying to bend metal rods or pound over sheet metal or some such, but we also had a mechanics vise and a cast iron wood vise (one of those with the handle that ratchets and turns half way to lock)...eventually.
Dad's was painted, which seemed to help give it a hard surface and last longer. I suspect the wood was something like Hemlock, I don't think it was hardwood, which certainly would have been a step up. The nice thing about the jaws being made from wood is that it didn't matter if you cut too far, you wouldn't kill the edge on the handsaw. There were more than a few nicks in that top surface.
So depending on what you want to do, and the care and materials you chose to make it from, they can work very well or they can be pretty miserable.
If you want to buy one rather than scrounge and make one, a number of finer woodworking outlets sell both whole woodworking benches with that type of vise as well as a "vise screw kit" of screw, nut, and handle to make you own. Depending on how old school you want to go, you could also get a tap and die for making threads in hardwood and make a screw and nut out of something like maple.
As to the other type of leg vise, I found one at a fleamarket decades ago near closing time for a bargain, the seller didn't want to pack it up again.
