Thread: The bench that goes with the tail-vise

Originally Posted by Siggykc

I spent time at Frank Wiesner’s bench and it is much more like the Tage Frid design, albeit made from Fraser Island Satinay. He has used that since the late 1970s to this very day and it is rock solid - perhaps also due to our wonderful hardwoods being so bloody robust.....

Siggy, that sounds like the bench he used to bring down to the TWWW show years ago. I guess it was a compromise between being hefty & being moveable.

When I belonged to the Woodcraftsmans Guild, we used to do demos at various venues, so I made myself a 'portable' bench, that would look the part & be much better to work on than a wonky table. It was roughly the size of the Frid bench. It was made from reclaimed hardwood generously donated by a skip parked beside a building on the campus that was being extensively remodelled. (A mate who worked in that building was chatting to the foreman one day & he remarked on the "magic skip" - they spent the day filling it & every morning it would be half empty again... ). That skip provided the raw materials for 3 woodwork benches plus a whole lot of other projects. It wasmostly spotted gum & tallow wood (perfect stuff for the moving parts of a tail vise):

Small bench.jpg

I don't have a good comparison for the size other than the old plough plane sitting on it (it's the full-sized one, not my model ). I did weigh it at the time, but have forgotten what the figure was. It has gone to a new home so all I can tell you is that it grew heavier each year. Twenty five years ago, it was easy to manage, I could lug the top on my own & put it in the back of my hatchback without busting a gut. However, as time went by, it became less & less easy & eventually I struggled to lift the top onto the legs on my own.

As luck would have it, a project that went a bit wrong provided the answer. I started out to make a small auxiliary bench that I could sit on my regular bench. Initially, the idea was just to have something solid with a 'Moxon' vise & provide a higher surface for jobs like drawing & setting out. Well, as related here, the project got a bit carried away with itself and morphed into a small bench in its own right. Here it is beside my regular, Klausz-sized bench:
Heights cf.jpg

Perhaps you can get a better idea of the size in this video we made for AWR on the "mediaeval" tap.

That bench went to the woodshow a couple of times, too, but we didn't do anything the last few years before the pandemic shut such activities down altogether. Now it sits beside my main bench and I use it for sawing dovetails & tenons (after I clear enough junk off it to actually use the vise!).

You should definitely post your tail-vise build in the bench section (there's a thread devoted to home-built vises). The tail vise intimidates a lot of people because they look complicated. I was drawn to the idea the first time I saw one, but felt it was beyond my skill when I made my first bench devoted solely to woodwork (I had few tools & a moderately-demanding job & was also studying part-time & had 2 small kids so not a lot of time to spend in the 'shop'!). Instead, I made it with a simple "travelling dog" system, analogous to the HNT Gordon 'tail vise'. That made me realise what a useful system clamping dogs are, but it doesn't provide the extra set of jaws oriented perpendicular to the front of the bench. So when I saw Klausz's article in FWW ('84?, '85?) I resolved to take courage & give it a go. As I hope you are/have discovered, it's really not complex at all once you get your head around it, and worth any amount of effort. I spend >90% of my bench time using the tail vise, either for clamping boards flat on the bench top, but probably more often using the vise jaws for holding small oblects I'm working on like saw-handles or plane stuffing.
Tail v use3.jpg

These days I don't know how anyone manages without one!.....

Cheers,

Hey Ian,

Haha, I am 100% sure it was that bench he took around to the Woodcraftsman's guild, as he always told me how he would load it onto the trailer and drive it down with Robert Dunlop where they had an absolute ball at shows. When i did ask him how he determined the dimensions, he mentioned they were simply dictated by the size of the rough sawn timber that he could get, loosely following ideas and plans he had seen - as the wooden screw (as you would know) requires slightly tighter packaging in the tail vise, compared to a metal screw. He did also comment that before he moved into his current location, he was living in central Toowoomba and had a much smaller workshop on Cavell St. As he was working there with a couple of guys, they were a little tighter on space, so the depth of his top including the tool tray was around 535mm as I measured it, but it's overall length is 2100mm.

Did you ever hang out with Robert? Frank always had an admiration of Robert's more contemporary and cutting edge approach to joinery and always remarked on how well he was trained by Charles Kuffer in the 1930s. He too had a bench of the "European cabinetmaker's" styling, infact I saw a picture of it and the tail vise looks identical to the Klausz configuration and styling.


I was originally trained by my father on a German style workbench (as he is a German...surprise, surprise!) but I stupidly fell for the marketing pull/social media of the "Roubo" bench made famous by popular American authors. Very quickly I learned that the functionality of such benches really was lacking especially with the tail vise (and also because my bench was only 1500mm in length)....and I realized that though the champions of this bench are popular authors, they are not formally trained joiners or cabinetmakers working in production environments, so they can tolerate inefficiencies for the romanticism of using a bench like the Roubo.

Whilst I too am no better, and an amateur in my own right, it was just hammered into me as a kid being trained by my dad that efficiency is everything, and that if i had a minimal amount of evening time in the workshop, to make best use of it by being efficient. So, this i guess spurred my realization that I should build a new bench.

I understand how people can use a wagon tail vise - yes it can hold boards for planing the top surfaces flat, but it is so single dimensional in that respect. I have always found that I held boards in the 2nd set of jaws more frequently than between the bench dogs, such as when using a spokeshave to shape a leg for a table or even cutting dovetails on a long board...before I learned about using a shooting board, I would "shoot mitres using the tail vise and the workpiece clamped at the appropriate angle.
I just think that perhaps in current times people do not realize the multiple uses for a tail vise, not because they are dumb or untalented, not at all.....it simply comes to the fact that most folks havnt been shown or trained in how to use it - its a simple knowledge gap.

Whilst I do agree that the tail vise is perhaps not rocket science to build, I do think that the Klausz design (which I think is very well engineered with regards to him simplifying it and making it a very reproducible design) is still a little intimidating/timeconsuming for an amateur, especially because workbenches in Australia are moreso seen as an afterthought, not as an ergonomic tool that is worth putting that extra effort into making just right (people I've met here tend to find it more normal to invest hundreds of hours into building an infill plane or two, yet only spend a couple of weekends on building a workbench - not a dig, just different priorities).
From my research into Norwegian, Swedish, Dutch, Danish, German and Czech benches I had found some very replicate-able benches where the guide bar system requires even less care in producing. Infact Lief Karlsson makes his benches using this simplified guidebar system affixed with screws where the guide bars require cutting less channels to run within as they run parallel and directly against each other, thus "guiding" each other. However this does require some half decent spacial awareness, which I've found is something less common these days due to the growing trend of the use of CAD.

Even still, an open jawed tail vise can still be built even more easily using steel hardware that is widely available in Europe (i think it is German made), and far cheaper than the fancy Roubo wagon vise hardware from the US (which, as a mechanical engineer, I cannot fault it's extremely high quality and tolerances...I too bought and used said hardware). It is basically the standard vise found on all Ulmia benches made since the 1970s.

Oh, I did post a blog/thread on this forum regarding the Roubo workbench I built - which was my first workbench, perhaps you saw it a couple of years ago when i wrote it.

A Roubo of "small" stature, for the inner suburban gent.

Gosh it took a lot of time and effort to write up for someone not so linguistically talented as me. So I wont be doing one on the current built, but I will post some pics and a short para of size, materials and time spent.

I did wonder about the face vise as it is a Canadian patternmaker's vise (not the Dawn/Record design we have here in Australia). Yeah Vic Tesolin did a short tour of it, and Karen mentions how you spontaneously said something generous along the lines of "I've got some bits of timber, lets build you a bench to get you started!".
You know, when I saw the video and the scale of the items she makes, and her standing beside it, I think dimensionally it is absolutely just right. I was brought up by my dad to use a bench hard, but to look after it too, and it is evident in seeing Karen's bench that she very much treasures it. Haha, it does look like a footstool in heigh compared to big Vic!
I do find it really refreshing and nice to see a workbench made from "scrap" material lying around, in a way that the maker has been able to utilize what he/she has to make something beautiful - that in itself is a skill, as anyone with a wad of cash can buy premium timber and turn out a beautiful project. You did wonderfully mate! And the fact that it was built in 1987....that will stick in my mind as I was born in 1987, but the bench has aged better than me!
Lovely how you also used a wooden screw on the tail vise. I can imagine it must be glazed nicely and running beautifully smoothly!

Originally Posted by Siggykc

......you also used a wooden screw on the tail vise. I can imagine it must be glazed nicely and running beautifully smoothly!....

Last time I visited Karen (at least 10 years ago now, & she'd not long moved into her log 'shop), the wooden screw was still doing its job & she hasn't mentioned any problems since, so I presume it's still ok. Hers was the second tail vise I made, and because it was a small bench, I made a 1.5" screw instead of the 2" I made for mine. The screw as well as the end-cap are hard Maple.

I guess for the sake of completeness, I should show you the taps I made to tap the nuts for the benches & for the router jig I used to thread the screws:

wood tap.jpg

I struck & chased a thread on a maple blank with the cobbled-up thread-chaser you see beside the tap. I then tapered the start of the thread over about 6 turns, drove in 14G screws in a spiral along the tapered portion, then clipped them off & filed them into 'cutters' to match the thread land. I was even more surprised than you probably are that it worked! Mind you, I would not try it on spotted gum or ironbark, but it managed the maple without failing and hard maple is pretty tough stuff.

I used that tap to make a couple more things including a small bench for my son. I made the end-cap on that bench from cherry (reclaimed pallet wood - the whole thing was made from scraps & looke a bit like a zebra). After a few years, the thread in the end-cap stripped. Out of the hundreds of wooden nuts & screws I've made, that's the only one that has ever failed. The cherry was far from choice being pallet material, & probably deteriorated during its former life. I have hand clamps with cherry jaws that have seen some pretty rough use and none of those have failed.

A friend who has a full-sized metal lathe has made me several taps since, so I have not had to use the original wooden things since coming back to Oz., but a few years ago, out of curiosity, I made my first ''medieval' taps, which I subsequently wrote about for AWR. Linda made this video of one in use at a TWWW show.

After making the old-style tap I realised how silly I was making those first taps, but at the time my prior experience of tapping was all with metal, so my imagination was limited & there certainly wasn't the plethora of information available at the click of a mouse like there is now. The old style tap takes a bit longer to tap a nut, but requires very little effort (& let's face it, taking 5 or 10 minutes longer is no big deal!). It's far easier to make the tap itself once you figure out the principle of the thing (cutting good threads 'freehand' on a wood lathe takes a bit of practice & is likely to chew up a few good blanks (damhik!)). It's also far easier to use because it cuts the thread in incremental steps while driving my 2" 4tpi tap through hard wood takes a LOT of effort - I can't do it on my own any more.

And the beauty of making such taps is you can have any pitch you like & it doesn't have to be a "standard size" or thread pitch. Provided you use the same tap to make the nut for your router jig (or threadbox, if you really want to go un-plugged), the two parts will work seamlessly. I dropped the idea of threadboxes decades ago, for two reasons, a) they are finicky things & must be made very carefully to work properly & b) our really hard woods tear the edges off the cutter in no time at all & it starts chewing up your screw blank like a crazed crocodile. With a carbide cutter, the router jig will effortlessly crank out metres of perfect thread in just about any wood. I would have said ANY wood, but there are a couple of very hard woods I've tried that crumbled rather than cut cleanly. But but if you have set it up properly, it will make near-perfect threads in most woods from balsa to lignum vitae.....
Cheers,
Ian

Originally Posted by Siggykc

Paul you're not at all wrong! Are you in Toowoomba too?

Siggykc

Iam am using the "country" license of local. We are 80Km from Toowoomba, but regard it as nearby.

I first became aware of Frank Wiesner from an AWR article years ago and then I was in a Toowoomba shop that specialises in old furniture fittings and they had an adjustable round stool made by Frank. It featured a large diameter screw thread as the adjustment. I am not sure now but it would have been 2½" or even 3" diameter.

The other thing I should have mentioned is that his speciality is book binding presses.

You definitely received a treat in those handles made in such exotic timbers.

Regards
Paul

edit: Frank wrote about eight articles for AWR and the first in issue No.9 included full details plans and components of a traditional European style workbench. The diameter of the wooden screws for the front and tail vices was 63mm.

Hey Paul,

Yeah i think that counts as local! haha! 80km is certainly a lot more local than me (I am in Melb).

Oh yes, I worked with him for several weeks on a batch of those stools as well as some bookbinding equipment in Spotted Gum, Blackbutt, Vic Ash, Sally Wattle and Camphor.
One pair of stools (which i believe was sent to Bungendore) Frank decided to sell as a matched pair because they were from the most spectacular Camphor boards that we had ever seen - the variation in color from purples, reds, browns and white streaks was absolutely jaw dropping.
That stool was so iconic, that when Fine Woodworking published that article online which I wrote, Frank actually had a couple of inquiries regarding the stools from the US within 6 hours.
What is most incredible, is the amount of hand work that actually goes into the stools and the rate at which Frank still works at. It all comes down to him being so efficient and calculated in every action he does, so that he does not waste any time or effort both physically and mentally, and I think is what sets the really good professionals apart - in the way that a top chef can maintain the exact same high quality over 300 meals a night.

I'd encourage anyone to call ahead and drop into Frank's workshop for a chat regarding anything technical and woodworking related.


Cheers,
Siggy

I have actually watched all the videos AWR made regarding you and tapping/threading wood screws.

Thanks for putting a concise writeup here, in this thread, i appreciate it. It is fascinating to me how people can tackle this problem. Yes, im aware that a 2.5" tap and die kit is available for the ungodly amount nearing $1800, but it's the backyard ingenuity that is so fantastic about what you have done. I did notice all your clamps are wooden screw clamps, so i dont at all doubt it when you say that you've made hundreds of screws (and nuts).

Tell me one thing. One evening I and Frank were hanging out in front of his fireplace, and he went over and picked up a marking gauge that had a threaded shaft and a wooden lock nut. Thus the user adjusted the gauge by turning the main block up or down the shaft then locked it in place with the wooden lock nut. He mentioned it was made by an old friend from the guild whom had an interest in toolmaking and wooden screws.....was that you?


Karen's shop looks absolutely wonderful, a real goal to aspire to having such a nice space. It's so clear that she really enjoys her time in there and all her tools, including the vintage power tools she has. She must be eternally grateful for you nudging her down the woodworking path! A wonderful story.
I guess the beauty of maple is that it typically hasn't got that many internal defects as a timber the way we have gumveins and checking, and the fact that a few other wooden screw makers like Lake Erie Toolworks choose maple is a testament to it being a good choice. Sometimes i would doubt the strength a wood screw can have, but heck, there are benches 400 years old who's threads are slightly chipped (perhaps from things dropping on them, not from clamping), but still function perfectly well!

Frank uses soap on his threads, what do you prefer?

Cheers,
Siggy

Just a quick picture , though its hard to see, there are a few ideas borrowed from a couple of different benches, although half the parts are missing in this photo (guidebars etc) and nothing is yet glued.

Tail Vise.jpg

Originally Posted by Siggykc

...... One evening I and Frank were hanging out in front of his fireplace, and he went over and picked up a marking gauge that had a threaded shaft and a wooden lock nut. Thus the user adjusted the gauge by turning the main block up or down the shaft then locked it in place with the wooden lock nut. He mentioned it was made by an old friend from the guild whom had an interest in toolmaking and wooden screws.....was that you? ....

Nope, not guilty this time..

Can't think who it might've been, either. I joined late in the life of the guild, and nobody in my time was into wood threading so I assume it was someone before my time. I have an abiding interest in marking gauges & have made most types out of interest. Do you by any chance have a picture of it? If not, perhaps it gives me an excuse to drop in on Frank next time I'm in Toowoomba (which is pretty often as my better half's son & daughter live there)...

Originally Posted by Siggykc

...... Sometimes i would doubt the strength a wood screw can have, but heck, there are benches 400 years old who's threads are slightly chipped (perhaps from things dropping on them, not from clamping), but still function perfectly well!

Frank uses soap on his threads, what do you prefer?....

I think it's perfectly reasonable to doubt the strength & durability of wooden threads - I most certainly did before I became familiar with them! However, if you could see the way I heave on my tail vise screw sometimes, and the amount of pressure you can apply with handscrews I think you'd be reassured they can cop a LOT of pressure. The most common cause of breakage with handscrews is people trying to tighten them hard with the jaws off parallel. This puts a lot of bending strain on the inner screw & they will snap all too readily.

And yes, I certainly have heaps of 'handscrew' clamps & bar clamps all made entirely from wood. I use them all the time & much prefer them to metal clamps - they bruise the work less and you don't get nasty stains on the job if glue gets between clamps & workpiece (& perhaps best of all they are largely made from short offcuts & cost me nothing but time. This is my wall of handscrews: handscrews.jpg

And that was after a heavy cull - they've since increased again by another 1/2 dozen or more because I came across some more wood I hadn't tried threading before..

I soak the parts of new clamps in Danish oil and when they are thoroughly dry, I apply a good coat of paste-wax to the threads & jaws. Ordinary furniture polish works well, but my favoured brew is paraffin wax dissolved in gum turps. Apply it sparingly so it dries quickly or it'll pick up dust & become a grinding paste. I like paraffin because it is a better lubricant than waxws high in bees' wax, which can be a bit sticky. I recommend re-waxing the threads every year or two, both to keep them running smoothly & to prevent spilled glue from sticking to them. Soap is fine, it was a much-favoured lubricant for woodworking tools in generations past, it's essentially just slightly modified fat. Plain old Sunlight laundry soap was the one my dad liked to use...

Ian

Originally Posted by IanW

perhaps it gives me an excuse to drop in on Frank next time I'm in Toowoomba (which is pretty often as my better half's son & daughter live there)...

Absolutely! haha, he would love it! Unfortunately I didn't get to take a photo of the marking gauge.

With regards to the hand screw clamps, I'm actually very keen on making some for my own use. Did you write a thread on this forum how you made these screws? I'm guessing at this diameter you used a tap and die, but i could be absolutely wrong.
I've got a bunch of Spotted Gum and Jarrah strips that I could use potentially for the jaws and the screws.

Originally Posted by IanW

I recommend re-waxing the threads every year or two, both to keep them running smoothly & to prevent spilled glue from sticking to them. Soap is fine, it was a much-favoured lubricant for woodworking tools in generations past, it's essentially just slightly modified fat. Plain old Sunlight laundry soap was the one my dad liked to use...

Absolutely, I think actually the suggestion you made regarding Parrafin in Gum Turps is the way to go. Frank had a tub of soap he had softened with a bunch of water, and a toothbrush and would slather a little bit on and let it dry.

Hey Ian,

I forgot to post this picture taken well over a year ago when a friend photographed it on his medium format film camera, making the bench look glorious.
This is the tail vise. It is my design, using various ideas from tail vices I have seen.

The complexity, and something no one will ever see unless they knock it apart, is the way it all locks together. I had only 2 large steel screws from a piano that was ripped apart, and so I used a series of tapered sliding dovetails in various planes and orientations such that I didnt need to use several coach bolts, and that the piano screws were strong enough. This series of complexities made this the hardest part of the entire build, especially as it was a last minute decision due to the covid lockdown preventing me going to the shops, so the joinery was mostly cut in situ.

Guide bars are all plain, straight grained, quarter sawn cocobolo which has a wonderful oilyness. Garter is made from the same stuff.
2208_MM_SIGGY-226.jpg

Cheers,
Siggy

Looks good Siggy. The coccobolo should make excellent 'sliders' and outlast several generations of users!

They do wear in time, of course, I've seen a very old bench ~200years old or so, with a tail vise that was well-worn & a bit wobbly, but still working, so they don't last forever (but obviously outlast a few owners!). There is no visible wear on any of the moving parts of my bench which is getting close to 40 years old now, so I reckon it will see me out very comfortably. I have noticed the screw 'rattles' a bit during very dry weather, so it must have worn a bit. That's the one part I expected to fail, if anything was going to, but it can still cop me leaning on it with full force. The screw is Brazilian rosewood, which seems like sacrilege, but when I made it, it wasn't a CITES proscribed wood, and I had this chunk someone gifted me & I couldn't think what else to do with it. The vise itself is hard maple (Acer saccharum).
Tail vise.jpg

For the benches I've made in Oz I've mostly used tallow wood (E. microcorys) which is very tough & noted for it's oiliness, so they should last even longer.

Our vises are basically the same - the three heavy members are dovetailed together, for maximum structural strength, but we've chosen to arrange the guide bars a bit differently. The slots for the bars on my vises are usually cut partly into the end cap and partly into the wooden caps that hold the vise in place:
Tail vise.jpg

The actual arrangement depends on the material I have to work with, but it ends up functionally the same:
Tail vise under.jpg

For reasons I have long since forgotten, I decided not to use the "half" garter" system both Klausz & Frid used, and opted for a "full" garter to retain the screw:
Tail vise bits.jpg

But they all follow the same principles. I hope you get as much good use out of your 'new' vise as I've had from mine...

Cheers,
Ian

Hey Ian,

Wow, a Brazilian Rosewood Screw? that has got to be quite unique! It is quite interesting how when Cites comes into play, these timbers become almost like gemstones. I had heard that a lot of the cattle farms in Brazil had farm buildings such as barns, and also fences that were made of the stuff. How times change! Sounds like a similar story in regards to how I acquired that chunk of that "fancy" timber from a friend, and it's dimensions were really uniquely suited to this - so why not.

You're absolutely right, our layout is similar. I was originally going to use the "Tage Frid" layout, as I was familiar with it from my time with Frank Wiesner (he uses that layout on the benches he builds), but there were some shortcomings that I found the "Frank Klausz" guide bar layout solves - and so I mish mashed them both together to get what was best from them using what I had. Note: I used inverted commas there, as I'm quite sure other's were using those layouts for many decades, but Tage and Frank were the ones who popularized it in Fine Woodworking and other books.
What was unique to my design was the way I anchored them down by means of a half dozen interlocking parts by means of tapered sliding dovetails, floating tenons etc, that are all mostly hidden when fully assembled.
I attached here some pics my missus took as I worked on it over a month or so. It's still not fully visible in the photos, but may still be of interest. Early on I did post a video on Instagram about how the parts come together.
As said earlier, it was moreso a complex exercise in joinery rather than a performance enhancer.

Side note: You might also note that the tail vise is on a "stepped" portion of the benchtop. The nominal thickness is approx 75mm, but due to the diameter of the wooden screw, the portion where the tail vise integrates is approx 48mm thick. With these complications, i was pretty proud to have cut it all in situ by hand. The 2nd last pic shows the 2 large piano screws at the top beside the roll of masking tape. All the load bearing countersunk screws are set in solid brass countersunk washers, to prevent any splitting when i torqued those screws down.

IMG_7094.jpgIMG_7081.jpgIMG_7599.JPGIMG_7600.JPGTail vise capture.jpgIMG_9896.jpgCB82B224-C0E9-4EE4-87E0-FC32193C053D.jpg

Aha, I confess I didn't fully understand your verbal description of how you assembled your vise, Siggy, but the pics tell the story nicely (well, certainly to anyone who's made one of these devices )

That's a nifty way of securing the guides - might steal it if I ever make another bench (unlikely, but remotely possible). The most adventurous I've been was to make an all-wood (apart from a few screws) front vise:
Front vise parts.jpg Front vise assembled.jpg

That was a fun project - it works reasonably well too!

Cheers,