Thread: Advice needed re vise throat and opening sizes

The Veritas regular vice has a clamping capacity of about 205mm, from this you subtract your front jaw thickness, so unless yours is about 80 odd mil thick you may need to re-calculate.

As for vertical clamping capacity, this will depend on the placement of the vice, and the width of the jaw. If yoy need more vertical capacity the Veritas large front vice has an offset screw which will allow for greater capacity.

Don't you also have to subtract from the maximum opening, the thickness of the rear jaw/skirt?

Richie,
Front vices are usually used for holding smaller bits, or larger pieces on their side so you can shoot an edge, for example. Wide pieces are best got at when lying flat on the bench top - preferably snugged-up between bench dogs, or some other hold-down device. In the type of work I do, I rarely need to hold anything wider than 100mm in the front vice. Planing, mortising, chopping out dovetails etc, are much easier with the piece lying flat on a solid surface.
If you are talking about the Veritas vice which is shown with a solid wood jaw about 60mm thick, it should be more than adequate for most situations you are likely to meet in everyday cabinet work. If you are contemplating much more exotic stuff, then maybe you should consider one of those fancy patternmaker's vices, although I don't think they open any wider than most.
Being a typical sucker for gadgets that sound good, I've always thought one of those would be nice to have, but for the once every 2 or 3 years when I would actually make use of its rotating and tilting mechanism, it's pretty hard to justify the cost!
Cheers,

I agree Ian, I wouldnt be too concerned with the front vice set up, as long as it's decent size, solid as a rock and smooth. The carbatec $89 work sweetly.

Ritchie, if you are worried about about clamping capacity why not go for the Veritas large front vise. For an extra 35 bucks you buy an extra 100 mm of capacity. It also has the centre screw offset as I mentioned before.

I have just been down your road, I liked the Veritas vise, but in the end went for the big Record. Fairly $$$ but, I won't need to worry about breaking the casting on the monster. I reckoned I could clamp a 50mm piece of wood in the big vise, but not a 200mm piece in the smaller Veritas should the need arise.