Thread: Ignorance about the function of the tail vice

Perhaps the primary usage is securing a board between dogs for planing faces.

The dog holes are only along the front edge

Originally Posted by ClintO

I have always been fascinated by the tail vices and never really understood the purpose. When I closed the vice the face on the front edge of the bench closed up. It has a couple of dog holes on it so it can obviously be used to secure a workpiece on the bench.

that's the way a tail vice should be used, clamp squarish work (like a chair leg) between teh jaws, or long flat work between the dogs

The bit that I cant understand is why, when the front face of the vice is closed, is there a gap of about 100mm between the other face and the end of the workbench?

if this gap was not there people would clamp stuff between the skirt and the end of the bench and blow the vice apart

Hi ClintO - As already said - the primary function is to secure boards between dogs for planing, etc. If you've never had a system like this, you don't know what a valuable bit of the bench it is! My tail vise gets used ten times more than the front vise.

The other very useful function is clamping small objects (or occasionally, large ones!) in the small jaws. Very handy when shaping small objects like saw handles & the like, because it presents the edges you are working on to you, instead of at 90 degrees if you were to clamp it in the front vise.

Your question re clamping in the side-arm isn't a dumb one at all - I certainly wondered about it, too, before I made my first traditional tail vise. You could clamp something lightly in it, but it's not a good idea. This part of the vise is designed & made as a compression member, to distribute the load from the screw when the vise is tightened (the screw is offset from the jaws & dogs - see pic.) . I've used a dovetail on the one shown, but some use a straight lapped joint, which is just as effective for the intended purpose. But it's not a large joint, & has a big offset, so if you were to put much tension on it, as you would by tightly clamping something in the side arm, it would probably not like it. Of course, you could build it so that it could operate in tension as well as compression, but in practice, it is not a very convenient place to clamp anything, so would not be worth the trouble, IMO.

Cheers,

Many thanks for that