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  1. #1
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    Default Building a traditional tail vise - part 1

    Be prepared - long posts!

    I am a strong advocate of the ‘traditional’ style of tail vise, because I think they offer much more than the ‘travelling dog’ system, aka ‘wagon vise’, that has become so popular of late. The latter are far better than nothing, of course, & often much easier to retro-fit to an existing bench, but if you are starting from scratch, I think a tail-vise is worth considering. I was intimidated by the apparent complexity when I fist saw them, but once you get down to the actual making, they are really quite a simple device. The first vise I made worked well, and is still doing yeoman service 30 years later.

    This WIP is for a vise I have just finished, and being the 8th example I’ve made, I expected it to be fairly easy. It would have been, except that I chose to make it out of some of the toughest Spotted Gum on the planet, so a lot of time was spent sharpening blades!

    A tail vise is really nothing more than a simple frame that rides on a fixed beam under the bench. These are the 4 esential bits of the vise proper: V1.jpg

    The dog-board is glued in after the main structure is assembled. You do need to take care cutting the joints so that it ends up square & without any twist. None of the dimensions are particularly critical, & you can up-scale or down-scale it to fit your own needs. The front piece (the pale bit in the pic) should be the same thickness as the front piece/apron of the bench proper, so that the dogs align. There are a couple of rules of thumb I follow. The first is to have at least twice as much travel in the vise as the distance between dog holes on the bench. The second is to have the dog holes in the vice at a different spacing, preferably half the distance of the bench dog spaces, to minimises the amount of winding back & forth when you are switching between objects of different lengths, as so often happens when making anything with multiple parts. I also keep the screw as close to the dogs as I can, to reduce the tendency to slew the vise when it’s tightened up.

    These are the bits for the vise itself, and assembled in a dry-fit. V2.jpg V3.jpg

    The dog-board is made as a separate piece . I used a router and a very simple jig to cut the slots, then finished the ‘steps’ with saw & chisel. The guide bars are two degrees off square, which slopes the dogs enough prevent them from popping out under pressure. (The same jig was used for cutting the slots for the bench top, after swinging the guide bars two degrees in the opposite direction).
    V4.jpg

    The screw needs a retaining mechanism so that it draws the vise back when unscrewed. I use a ‘garter’ which is a thin piece of tough wood (in this case, Bull-oak) that fits into a shallow recess in the end piece & is in turn covered by a wooden pad screwed to the vise to hold it in place.
    This pic should be self-explanatory: V5.jpg

    Glueing up the vise is a tense operation, with much checking to ensure it’s dead flat & square. I used Titebond 3, mostly for its long open time, to give me plenty of time for getting clamps on & making any adjustments, if necessary. V6.jpg

    .....
    IW

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  3. #2
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    Default Tail vise - Part 2

    In this instance, the vise frame came out of the clamps square & flat.

    Now it can be put in place on the upturned bench, to mark the position of the screw hole in the end-cap. I used the the same Forstner bit that drilled the hole in the vise to mark the centre of the hole on the end cap: V7.jpg
    I am using a wooden screw, so the end cap has to be tapped as well as drilled. This is easier to do with the cap removed.

    The tapping-size hole was drilled, and then my behemoth of a tap run though. Spotted gum is tough stuff, & it took two people & a lot of grunting to drive that tap through!:V8.jpg

    The end cap is initially cut to just fit the vise over it without the dog board in place. After tapping, the end-cap is trimmed, & the dog-board can be glued in. I do it this way because the screw hole is very close to the edge (as you can see here after it was trimmed), & I worry it could split out during tapping if I cut it to final length before tapping. V9.jpg

    A cross-piece holds one end of the beam which actually supports the vise. I don’t know how the old-timers attached this part, but coach-screws do a very satisfactory job in hard wood like this. One end of this beam is fixed in a trench in the cross-piece by a coach-screw, & the other end by an extra piece of wood screwed to the end cap (the bit in the background of the pic). The beam both supports the vise, & prevents it from slewing: V10.jpg V11.jpg

    This part of the assembly is crucial to a good working vise. I mark out & cut very carefully, leaving just enough wood proud of the scribe-lines to allow for some paring to get each part fitting either firmly, or as a sliding-fit, as appropriate.

    After a few assembly/dis-assembly cycles to pare a bit here or there, the vise moves back & forth freely, without binding or slop, and the screw can now be fitted: V12.jpg
    IW

  4. #3
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    Default Tail vise - part 3

    With the vise set up, the the dog board is glued in place:
    Again, it’s nice to have plenty of clamps to make sure the webs between each dog hole make good contact.
    V13.jpg

    When the glue was cured, the vise parts & bottom of the becnh were oiled: V14.jpg

    The last construction step is fitting the cap which brings the vise top level with the bench. I prefer to screw the cap on rather than glue it, because it makes it much easier to dismantle the vise should that become necessary down the track. I used a scrap of Blackwood for the cap, a wood that is easier to work with than Spotted Gum for this operation!: V15.jpg

    If you prefer to glue the top on, you need to use some means of locating it very accurately, so that it will go back in the exact position after you mark out & chop the mating dog-holes. A couple of small dowels will do the job. In my case, the edges of the holes were scribed from underneath, cap unscrewed, & the openings carefully transferred to the top (remembering to use a bevel set to the slope of the dog holes to tranfer the lines to the top!). V16.jpg

    The waste is then drilled & chiselled out from each side, stopping just short of the scribe lines: V17.jpg

    Then the top is re-attached, & the edges of the dog holes pared & smoothed to mate perfectly with the dog-board holes underneath:V18.jpg

    The only task left is to glue a filler strip to the right of the cap, to level it with the rest of the vise: V19.jpg

    And that’s it. A bit of wax on all moving or rubbing parts, and I have a smoothly-operating & solid vise... V20.jpg

    No great skill required, just careful, methodical work.
    IW

  5. #4
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    Default

    Outstanding Ian!!!

    Is this for the bench you are currently building? I would love to have a sticky beak!

    If the Lie Nielson doesn't work out I will give this a go.

    BW

  6. #5
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    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by IanW View Post
    No great skill required, just careful, methodical work.
    You are too modest Ian. An excellent job and thanks for the WIP.
    I couldn't quite make out how the beam is attached to the other end of the vice. Are they small dovetails?
    Oh and what is the screw diameter?
    Those were the droids I was looking for.
    https://autoblastgates.com.au

  7. #6
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    Exclamation

    Now I know how it's done!!

    BUT.. I don't intend to do it!!!

    Great WIP Ian and thanks for the postings.

  8. #7
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    Quote Originally Posted by Milo View Post
    .....Is this for the bench you are currently building? I would love to have a sticky beak!
    Hi Bryan, yes I think I'd started on it when you were here, but it was mostly just a pile of hardwood at that point. Not quite finished, got to do the legs & fit a front vise. I got a good crack at it this afternoon & have the legs ready to mortise. Still tossing up what to do about the front vise, I was going to put a small Record on it, but it seems a bit wimpy, so I may make a vise similar to the one on my own bench..

    Quote Originally Posted by Milo View Post
    .....If the Lie Nielson doesn't work out I will give this a go......
    Can't see it not working. After the trouble you've gone to so far, I reckon you'll get the sucker working,or else!

    Cheers,
    IW

  9. #8
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    Quote Originally Posted by NCArcher View Post
    You are too modest Ian. An excellent job and thanks for the WIP.
    I couldn't quite make out how the beam is attached to the other end of the vice. Are they small dovetails?
    Oh and what is the screw diameter?
    Nope, NC, no false modesty - it really isn't all that difficult if you just go at it step by step.

    The inside beam is attached by finger joints at the front of the vise & a single large dovetail at the other end. If you look at the second pic in the first post, the beam is sitting just in front of the screw, and you can see the finger joints on the left clearly, & just make out the dovetail on the right, if you squint a bit (edit: the second & third-last pics in post 2 show the dovetail more clearly)....

    It's a two inch screw. I tossed up whether to use a 2 incher or a 1 1/2 inch screw. Both my taps are 4 tpi, so theoretically, you develop a bit more squeezing power with a two inch screw, but I've used the smaller diameter screw several times and it seems to work well enough. In the end I decided to use the 2" mostly because I had a couple of spares in that size ready to go.

    Cheers,
    IW

  10. #9
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    Default

    Thanks for sharing
    Now I know how it's done
    and like my friend further north I don't intend to do one for myself
    regards
    Nick
    veni, vidi,
    tornavi
    Without wood it's just ...

  11. #10
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    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Sawdust Maker View Post
    .... and like my friend further north I don't intend to do one for myself..

    No worries. They're not for everyone. Only those of great refinement....

    IW

  12. #11
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    Default

    What a great thread.

    Very informative and inspiration.

  13. #12
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    Very nice work Ian! The trad tail vise is the King of tail vises. With all this hand work, yours is a royal flush!
    Cheers, Bill

  14. #13
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    Thanks for all the nice comments, folks, and the (gentle) digs. I confess am a little bit enthusiastic about the virtues of tail-vises, Artme.

    I hope my WIP might help to de-mystify the process a little, for anyone thinking of incorporating one in a future bench-build. You can use different joinery (for instance, many use finger-joints all round instead of dovetails) and more or less hand work, but the principle stays the same.

    But I won't deny you can live without one - just not as conveniently...

    Cheers,
    IW

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