Thread: Vice plans

That is a really good link Matt , thanks.
A good tool for getting the understanding of how they all work

With the two types of vices I used, The face and the traditional Tail vice ,there are some ideas going on in these drawings that are different to the designs in the Landis Workbench book.

With my face vice I had the book and an original face vice on a Redgum Antique bench in our workshop to go by, I will have to show off the Redgum bench here as well, it's a nice oldie .With the book and the old bench here the guide rails come through the front jaw of the vice and are double wedged.
On my bench the tenon's that come through are reduced from the rest of the guide rail so there is a shoulder, the mortice was slightly tapered and wedges driven in. This part is built to never come apart unless it's done with a saw. I don't like the idea of screws in there , they cause problems.

And the tail vice in the book is taken from the ripper Shaker bench on the cover. It looks a little more basic than these drawings and is still working well by the looks of it . I like his dovetailed plate that the vice runs on in the link though ,it looks like it needs to be beefed up a bit underneath where the front is attached to the back with that stick and pin or screw.

Nice leg vices as well , I had a bench here for a while with one fitted, they are nice to use , very powerful . If I ever do another for the workshop I will do a leg vice.

Rob

Hi Rob,
Yeah, it's good for me to see the cross sections and a variety of angles to help me get my head around it all.

I'm set on a traditional tail vice but I have days when I'm sure I'll have normal a face vice and days when I'm sure it'll be a leg vice. Today I'm thinking a leg vice and maybe a moxon.

I don't have the Landis book but think I might have to invest it and one of the Schwarz offerings too.

I am very wary of that dovetailed anti-sagging guide for the tail vise - it is likely to filll with crud and be a nuisance, I feel. I made my tail vise after Tage Frid's design in a very early FWW magzine. He advocated a tongue on the front cross-piece that slides in a groove cut into the side of the bench top as an anti-sag device, so I followed that. It gets a bit of crud in it occasionally, but it mostly clears itself, which I doubt would happen with a dovetail 'valley'.

tail vise.jpg

After 26 or more years of use. I have very little sagging, but I am getting a bit of sideways slew when I tighten it up hard. I've checked everything & there is very little wear or moveement I can induce by wriggling it, so I can't figure out why it is slewing other than very minor wear of the fixed guide bar. There is remarkably little wear in the moving parts, considering how many times they have been back & forth!

Tail vise under red.jpg


The outer edges of the jaws are also pretty beaten-up. They've been crushed by clamping small objects close to the edge, & also accumulated little traumas from accidental meetings with rasps & saws, etc. I included a sacrificial strip of wood on the bench side, but thought the leather facing would be sufficient protection on the vise face. Sometime shortly I will replace the leather facings and add a couple of new sacrificial pieces - that ought to see me out, if past performance is any guide.... :U.

Can't recommend tail vises too highly - best part of my bench!

Cheers,

What Ian sez. This is my copy of Tage Frid's vice. Notice the tongues and grooves , everything is supported.

http://i686.photobucket.com/albums/v...i/P1220002.jpg
http://i686.photobucket.com/albums/v...i/P1220003.jpg
http://i686.photobucket.com/albums/v...i/P1220007.jpg
http://i686.photobucket.com/albums/v...i/P1220010.jpg
http://i686.photobucket.com/albums/v...i/P1250004.jpg
http://i686.photobucket.com/albums/v...i/P1250005.jpg

This tail vice is up for sale on eBay

eBay Australia: Buy new & used fashion, electronics & home d

I wonder where the rest of it went

That ball end screw is worth it. I have one on my vice, that's only the second one I've ever seen.

It's great to see all these vices! That's a couple of votes for the Tage Frid, it certainly looks robust and Ian's has clearly stood up to the punishment.

Does anyone have any opinions regarding leg vs face vice? I'm a hand-tool guy and am more interested in holding boards and panels for hand tool work than machine jigs ie the opposite of what Ellil is building

I've never used a leg vice...

Originally Posted by Berlin

That's a couple of votes for the Tage Frid, it certainly looks robust and Ian's has clearly stood up to the punishment.

Matt, while the structural layout came from Frid's article, he himself simply copied traditional tail vises, & acknowledged that. I think this basic pattern has been around for a few centuries, at least.

Originally Posted by Berlin

....Does anyone have any opinions regarding leg vs face vice? I'm a hand-tool guy and am more interested in holding boards and panels for hand tool work than machine jigs ......

Well, I haven't used a wooden leg vise, but I do have opinions...

A vise is a vise, so for holding long boards on edge with an out-rigger support like a sliding 'dead-man', and similar tasks, it's six of one & half a dozen of another. The case for a leg vise starts with its being sturdy & easy to make. You have a wide choice of screw types (I've even seen cam-operated leg vises) & you can keep it dead simple, or you can go for as sophisticated a style as you like, such as automatic pivot-point adjustment.

However, there are a couple of disadvantages. The first is possibly minor, but having to have legs flush with the front of the bench is a pest - I like a style that keeps toe-stubbing bits back out of range. The more serious disadvantage in my view is that I like to have wide jaws on my front vise, & that's harder to arrange on a leg vise. One solution is the shoulder vise, favoured by European woodworkers. It has a couple of useful features, but the down side is that the jaws & screw stick out way beyond the front of the bench - it would be a real nuisance in my narrow-gutted shed.


Here's one reason for wide jaws that might appeal to a hand-tool guy. I can hold a traditional saw clamp easily and at a convenient

Saw vise red.jpg

And another: The moving jaw takes a couple of dogs, with a spread that is very handy for holding wide, short pieces like chair seats.

chair seat.jpg

There are many other situations where the extra-wide jaws of my front vise come in handy, not the least being that they distribute force over a wide area and are less prone to squashing & bruising semi-finished parts in softer woods.

Not making a leg vise doen't automatically mean you have to buy a metal vise, you can still make your own. It's a bit more complex than a leg vise, but well within the capabilities of your average bloke. I used water pipe for the guide rods on mine, but you could use steel bar or even wood. I'm planning an all-wood vise on a future bench, just for the challenge, but pipe or steel tube is a more sensible choice, because it doesn't swell & shrink the way wood does.

Front vise red.jpg

So, those are the reasons why I prefer the style of front vise I have.
There is a case to be made against this style, too. Those bars get in the way, so if you regularly want to claamp wide boards vertically, you are better off with a twin-screw vise, and so on. Every tool has its pros & cons, & it's a matter of choosing what suits you & your work-style best.......

Chers,

Hmm, Ok. Truth be told even though I'm keen to hear opinions both ways I was probably always going to make a face vice because it's what I'm used to and for the very unpragmatic reason that it looks nicer in my plans. The GOOD reasons you've given have sealed it

One thing I've meant to ask you before, Ian is what advantage do you find in having the inside jaw proud of the apron? I know Paul Sellers has his set up like that too.

Cheers
Matt

That's not a chair, it's an idiosyncratic Telecaster.
https://www.woodworkforums.com/attach...chair-seat.jpg

Originally Posted by Berlin

........what advantage do you find in having the inside jaw proud of the apron? I know Paul Sellers has his set up like that too.

I put a liner there for two reasons. The first is to protect the bench. I'm not always careful what I squeeze in my vise, & it's far easier to replace a jaw liner than a bench apron. The second reason is that I prefer softish jaws, so they don't mark stuff & get a better grip than very hard woods, so I use something moderately soft. In this case it was some scraps of Black Walnut which is quite a bit softer than the Rock Maple of the apron. (It's not sacrilege, the Walnut had some defects that made it unsuitable for furniture). The liner causes the piece I'm working on to stand a little proud of the front of the apron, but that doesn't matter in 99% of situations, & if for some reason I do have a problem, it's no big deal to put a chock in between.

When I first made the bench, I made the jaw liners stand about 20mm above the bench tops, to prevent saw cuts & other mishaps on the top. However, I quickly discovered that that was a nuisance on this style of bench, because I couldn't have long boards overhang the apron, which I frequently need to do so fences of tools, or the tips of router bits won't foul the bench top.

Originally Posted by Ball Peen

That's not a chair......

Nope, it's just a plain old unfinished seat, but it growed into a chair, eventually....!

Child sized match e.jpg

Cheers,

Originally Posted by auscab

This tail vice is up for sale on eBay

eBay Australia: Buy new & used fashion, electronics & home d

I wonder where the rest of it went

I bid on that………did anyone here end up getting it???

None of these are anything like my vices!!!