Face vs tail vice?

**IanW** · 9th December 2013, 05:41 PM

Originally Posted by hellofellow

....... many of you say you can only hold a board flat with the table in a tail vise? I can t see why this is?

Also many of you say you can only face plane on a tail vise? Again why is this? For example in the picture above, I see no reason why the face vise could not hold a board flat with the table and face plane?

As Auscab says, a bit of book-learnin' might be of help....

What we are saying is that for face-planing the average sort of board you would use in furniture-making, itr needs to be supported by a flat, & preferably straight, surface, i.e., the bench top. You want the board to keep still while you plane it. For larger boards, a piece of wood nailed to the bench to act as a stop will do. Shorter or lighter boards tend to move about, and stops don't cut the mustard when you have to do some serious work on a board, like attacking it with a scrub plane, which you generally use at an angle across the board to get the high spots levelled. You could use G-clamps but that would be a pita, as you would have to move them to get at the whole board. The solution is some sort of 'dog' system, to hold the board securely while you plane away along or across the board. Whether that dog system is provided by a traditional L-shaped tail vise, an ordinary face vise attached to the end of the bench, a 'wagon' vise, or even folding wedges doesn't matter - the main difference is the degree of convenience. Most of us like to get the job done in reasonable time, & for pros like Auscab, speed & convenience are vital, so you opt for what will suit your own purposes best.

Yes, you can hold a short, thick, board in a front vise for face-planing, but most boards you might wish to use in cabinetmaking will simply sag out of each end of the vise. Apart from the impossibility of getting a plane to 'bite' on the end of a springing board, you would have an awfully difficult time of making it flat & straight!

Cheers,

**pjt** · 10th December 2013, 12:07 AM

Here's a few pics of my tail vice
tail vise.jpg tail vise dog holes.jpg
The first is my tail vice, essentially just a moveable dog hole into which I can place a dog, along the front edge of the bench top is a row of holes which I can place a dog, with a twist of the knob I can clamp a board to face plane or edge plane just like IanW says above and can be done within seconds irrespective of length, (within the length of the bench). I could do this with just a face vice but for lengths longer than about 300mm I have to consider supporting the board along it's length and that becomes tedious and time consuming.

Pete

**hellofellow** · 12th December 2013, 12:35 PM

Thanks all( particularly for your patience)

I will not deny, a few good books would be fantastic and will honestly look into finding some, although not entirely sure where to begin ( haha- another thread).

Thanks all, the penny finally dropped when you said the longer boards will just sag at the ends, that with the dog system the board is supported by the table. Feeling rather stupid, but again thanks so much. I say this regularly on this forum, but all of you together really do help, and definitely help someone new like myself lean a lot.

Cheers guys

**GraemeCook** · 12th December 2013, 06:07 PM

Originally Posted by hellofellow

Thanks all( particularly for your patience)

I will not deny, a few good books would be fantastic and will honestly look into finding some, although not entirely sure where to begin ( haha- another thread).

Authors that I like at the moment on general woodwork are:

Tage Frid "Teaching Woodworking" (several volumes,
Alf Martensson "The Woodworkers Bible"
Desmond King "Shoji & Kumiko Design" (several volumes) [very specialised, but spirational.

Best books on work benches. vices, etc, in no particular order are:

Chris Swartz "Workbenches - Their Design and Use"
Scot Landis "The Workbench Book"
Lon Schleining "The Workbench - A Complete Guide to Creating Your Perfect Bench"

All should be available from your local library, perhaps through interloans - All are worth buying, in my opinion. Others will defineitely have different ideas.

Also there are a lot of short free videos on the web. I generally like Paul Sellers stuff - but google will find many others. A couple of example:
Paul Sellers cuts a mortise and tenon joint by hand, in oak - YouTube
Building a Workbench with Paul Sellers Archives | Paul Sellers

Thanks all, the penny finally dropped when you said the longer boards will just sag at the ends, that with the dog system the board is supported by the table. Feeling rather stupid, but again thanks so much. I say this regularly on this forum, but all of you together really do help, and definitely help someone new like myself lean a lot.

Cheers guys

We have all sought and received excellent advice on this forum. Of course, some advice is more appropriate than others. The only stupid question, .... is the one you did not ask!

If your board is a little bit bowed, cupped or twisted, then it can still wobble on your bench even if it does not overhang the ends. The process of eliminating that wobble - getting one side perfectly flat - is called jointing, and is one of those early skills that you need to master.

Fine woodworking is a never ending learning process; the more that you learn the more new questions arise. But it is fun.

Fair Winds

Graeme

**GraemeCook** · 17th December 2013, 07:08 PM

Good Morning All

In a previous post I mentioned that if you had a bench with benchdogs then you could hold boards firmly without using a vice - by using parallel wedges. The technique has been around for at least 200 years !

I have now worked out how to post a SketchUp drawing to illustrate the method, I hope. My previous attempts to post it failed. Hopefully it is self-explanatory.

Parallel Wedges -.jpg

Fair Winds

Graeme

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