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  1. #1
    Join Date
    Jan 2009
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    Default Some tail vice advice please?

    Acquired a rather substantial left hand screw. Has a boss at one end, through which passes handle/tommy bar. Boss is mushroomed over and handle hole squashed somewhat. Previous owner must've belted the tripe out of. Lord knows why. Nut is slightly conical with two bits of iron approx 6" x 1/2" x 1/2" welded on and bent in a sort of a gooseneck shape. Yes, all a bit odd. Bear with me as I am just setting the scene. Shank between boss and threaded section is smooth.

    Here is my plan. Use the screw for a wagon style vice. Pass it through a 3" thick hardwood end-cap. For a garter I plan to turn a groove in the smooth section of the shank and then drill and tap a hole in from the bottom of the endcap to engage the groove and hold the screw in place, allowing the dog block to slide back and forth in the slot in the top of my bench. The far end of the screw I hope to have resting in a bearing of hardwood, bored out and greased. Am I making sense yet? What I want to know is an idea on my groove, and garter screw. Recommended size, depth, materials? Most importantly if you think it will work.

    And, so to the end cap. Top is pine, end cap is well seasoned old hardwood. Am planning a dovetail at front corner but undecided on rest of it. Have thought about breadboard end, ie tenon and mortise, but am also thinking about big deep screws. Ideas? What measures should take to cater for cross grain movement at this end? Am I thinking to much into this build?

    Any ideas or general ridicule gratefully accepted.

    Cheerio,
    Virgil.

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  3. #2
    Join Date
    Mar 2004
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    Brisbane (western suburbs)
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    Virgil, your suggestion should work ok, if I've understood your description correctly. The one described in a recent issue of Popular Woodworking might be worth a look? Dimensions are not all that critical, you just have to design it so that the screw pushes the part carrying the dog effectively, without causing it to slew & jamb. A couple of long bolts through the end-cap, into nuts captured in slots under the benchtop, should take the load easily.

    My first attempt at a tail vise was a travelling-dog system like this. I used a short acme screw and the nut was screwed to the end-cap, which meant the screw stuck out when wound back. But it was placed up high, so the 'push' was right behind the upper part of the dog-carier. It's much more convenient having the screw captured in the end cap, but then you have to organise it so the screw goes either under or beside your dog hole, which makes for a more off-centre arrangement.

    A travelling-dog is a huge advance on nothing, but mine had a few shortcomings apart from the screw sticking out from the end of the bench. Having only one dog often means a lot of winding back & forth when working on different lengths - you always seem to have to wind it to one extreme or the other (Murphy rules!). I did think about using multiple dogs like on the PWW example linked to above, but I decided I really wanted a traditional tail vise - they just looked so cool! They seem like a complex thing on paper, but once you get stuck into it, it soon becomes very clear what does what, & they are quite a simple thing to make. You can use finger-joints instead of dovetails if cutting large dovetails in hard wood doesn't appeal to you. My vise turned out remarkably well despite my initial fears (& is still working well almost 30 years later). You need a fairly major bit of surgery to fit the system you are contemplating anyway, so maybe you could give a full tail-vise some thought. Your screw could just as easily serve for a tail vise as a travelling-dog setup (although a right-hand thread is more intuitive in that role). Michael-M did a great job on his, & has some useful tips for a fisrt-timer. They are a big advance on a simple travelling-dog. It's not just having several dogs to choose from, you get an extra set of jaws to use - which I find extremely handy. I use my tail vise more than 80% of the time - the front vise often sits untouched for days on end!

    Cheers,
    IW

  4. #3
    Join Date
    Apr 2001
    Location
    Perth
    Posts
    10,810

    Default

    Hi Virgil

    The plan is good. One question - since you say that the existing one is kaput, what are you going to do for a nut?

    The components for a wooden wagon vise are in the link below. This was a recent build I did -quick and dirty, but it works well ...

    http://www.inthewoodshop.com/ShopMad...nAWeekend.html

    Regards from Perth

    Derek
    Visit www.inthewoodshop.com for tutorials on constructing handtools, handtool reviews, and my trials and tribulations with furniture builds.

  5. #4
    Join Date
    Jan 2010
    Location
    Range View, Australia
    Posts
    656

    Default

    This is a half way vise. Not as versatile as a trad. tailvise but more useful than a wagon wheel. ( a one trick pony ) This bench has been in service since 1981. This is a very easy build.
    Attached Images Attached Images
    Cheers, Bill

  6. #5
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    I like that, Bill, looks like it's well-used & used well. I s'pose it's a bit simpler than the 'normal' traditional tail vise, but you're a man of no mean skills, so was there a specific reason you did it this way?

    BTW, my bench is 4 or 5 years younger than yours, but has collected just as many cobwebs underneath and a few mud-dauber wasp houses as well....

    Cheers,
    IW

  7. #6
    Join Date
    Jan 2010
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    Range View, Australia
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    Quote Originally Posted by IanW View Post
    I like that, Bill, looks like it's well-used & used well. I s'pose it's a bit simpler than the 'normal' traditional tail vise, but you're a man of no mean skills, so was there a specific reason you did it this way?

    BTW, my bench is 4 or 5 years younger than yours, but has collected just as many cobwebs underneath and a few mud-dauber wasp houses as well....

    Cheers,
    Cheers Ian, kind words.

    I left behind, in Calif., a dream Tage Frid trad. bench. It was made of " piano action" maple, dovetails all round, tusked tenons, the works! This bench was only meant to be a stop gap. Along the way I built a few T.F. benches for others and finally one for myself.
    Cheers, Bill

  8. #7
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    Bill, when I came home from a very lengthy stay in Canada, I'd not long built a Rock Maple bench, originally inspired by Frid's bench in a very early FWW mag, but more like the one Frank Klausz did about 10years after Frid's. When we left, my bench was only about 4 years old, & I was enjoying it even more than I'd hoped, so there was no way it was not coming too! Fortunately, we were repatriating enough personal belongings to make a container economical, and I found room for the bench, plus about a cubic metre each of Cherry & Walnut I'd acquired at exceptionally good prices (it was very useful to fill any voids in the container). The wood is long gone, apart from scraps, but the bench still does yeoman service 25 years on.

    I've built several similar benches since, in fact I'm currently building my seventh bench in that style (for someone else) - we must both have 'sucker' written on our foreheads! The current bench is mostly made from some Spotted Gum I harvested about 15 or 16 years ago. It came off a stony ridge, & it's closer to stone than wood - I reckon it has a Janka score somewhere between carbide & diamond by the way it takes the edge off any cutting tool. It's also extremely heavy, & my ageing body is not enjoying manipulating the necessary large baulks of wood - pine is looking better & better as a bench material if I am silly enough to make another!
    Cheers,
    IW

  9. #8
    Join Date
    Jan 2010
    Location
    Range View, Australia
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    I wouldn't want to make another either! That's why the old timers oversee the young fellas. I did just that last week, we made " strum sticks ". A quick and easy luthier project to get his feet wet. He brought the small one, we copied and made ours larger. One will be a banjo for me to learn " clawhammer " style on. His dog's name is Lilly, after Dennis Lilly.
    Attached Images Attached Images
    Cheers, Bill

  10. #9
    Join Date
    Nov 2007
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    Albury Well Just Outside
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    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by IanW View Post
    ...... pine is looking better & better as a bench material if I am silly enough to make another...


    Let me know and I will put my order in. Maybe a group buy.

  11. #10
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    Quote Originally Posted by Christos View Post
    Let me know and I will put my order in. Maybe a group buy.
    In yer dreams, Christos! One every few years has been quite enough to remind me that each bench involves a lot of heavy lifting - I've already lost count of how many times the top has been rolled over, or taken on & off the bench, & it's just a bit over half done. The thought of a production run makes my blood freeze.....

    Cheers,
    IW

  12. #11
    Join Date
    Mar 2009
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    Brisbane, Australia
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    52
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    293

    Default

    BWAHAAHAH I am never building another bench ever!!!! lol!

    Come over to my place if you want to do some heavy lifting!!! Why do you think its taken me so long to build this blinking thing!!!

    I have flipped the top at least a dozen times, hauled it to Wood n U where they had to holla for help to get the top on and off the trailer...

    Once the vices and end caps get glued in place that's it.....when I move its being sold with the house....

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