Vise Question

[Joe O'Leary]

I'm preparing to build Chris Swartz' Holtzapfel workbench. For an end vise I have an old Abernathy cast iron quick-release vise which works with a cam and follower.

The bench will be 3 1/4" thick, but from the bottom of the mounting plate to the top of the inside jaw is only 2 1/4. Do I compromise anything by having the face 1" below the benchtop. Of course it will be mortised in.

Joe

[harry strasil]

Well, if you don't like it that way, you can always cut out some more to make it flush.

[Johnny Kleso]

I had the same issue and morticed the bottom of the bench..
Now if I want to change vises its and issue..
I would just add some wood jaws if its only and inchh and remmember if you have something in the vise less than an inch deep not to go crazy clamping..

[george wilson]

I just added wooden jaws to make the vise flush with my bench top. behind the jaw next to the bench top I added a spacer to fill in the gap between the jaw and the bench. I didn't want to hack up my bench top to install a vise.

[Joe O'Leary]

George, do you have a picture? I searched the "Show us your bench" thread, but couldn't find a picture of oyurs.

Thanks, Joe

[george wilson]

I don't have a picture of my cluttered bench. When I put the vise on(a Record knock off),it was about 1/2" short of reaching the top of my bench. I added wooden jaws,which stuck up above the cast iron jaws 1/2". the jaw nearest the bench was about 1/2" thick,and 1/2" too low to reach the top. This left a 1/2" square area to fill,so I just added a 1/2" square piece of wood. I have rounded the figures to simplify. I didn't even glue the piece in. It was a snug fit,so I just pressed it in.

[Joe O'Leary]

Got it, George. Thanks.

[Steven Herbin]

I built my "Holtz" bench at Kelly Mehler's school in 2009. We just mortised the vise into the end of the bench so it was mounted flush to the bottom of the top (doesn't sound right does it?). There are some pictures on Kelly's website which show the mortises. The chop was made level to the top of the bench. So the top 1" of the vise is wood to wood contact. I put some suede on both faces to ensure better holding.

The bench is the best tool I own.

[Joe O'Leary]

Thanks, Steve. That was also part of my question. Now another.

Swartz talks about his wish to have the dog holes closer (~ 2 1/2") to the front edge of the bench to make using molding planes and the like easier.
How do you do that and still have them centered on the end vise's dog?

[george wilson]

If the end vise's dog is more than 2 1/2" from the bench's edge,you need to make the other dog holes in line with it. If you don't,when you go to clamp wood between the dogs,the off center vise dog will apply a skewed clamping action to your wood,which could be problematic.

[Pam Niedermayer]

If the end vise's dog is more than 2 1/2" from the bench's edge,you need to make the other dog holes in line with it. If you don't,when you go to clamp wood between the dogs,the off center vise dog will apply a skewed clamping action to your wood,which could be problematic.

Let's say the vise dog is 1" from the bench end. You seem to be saying it will line up fine regardless (within reason) of the other dog hole placement. Why is this?

Pam

[Joe O'Leary]

Pam, I think George is saying that the dog on the end vise's chop needs to be in line with those on the bench. My question is, how do you do that and have the dog holes only 2 1/2" from the bench front without moving the end vise far into the right front corner of the bench.

Joe

[Chris Vandiver]

What George is saying is that the centerline of the dog holes need to line up with the centerline of the vise dog, no matter what.

[Chris Vandiver]

Pam, I think George is saying that the dog on the end vise's chop needs to be in line with those on the bench. My question is, how do you do that and have the dog holes only 2 1/2" from the bench front without moving the end vise far into the right front corner of the bench.

Joe

You could install a thick wood chop to the movable face of the vise and locate a dog hole closer to the edge of the bench, if need be. I don't think you'd want to move the vise so that it overhung the bench edge!:)

[george wilson]

Chris and Joe are correct. I'd want the dog holes and the vise's dog to be in line.

[Pam Niedermayer]

Chris and Joe are correct. I'd want the dog holes and the vise's dog to be in line.

So would I, my natural inclination. So why the "2-1/2"" phrase? It doesn't seem to matter how far the vise's dog hole is from the end of the bench, it should be in line.

[Adam Cherubini]

Schwarz talks about his wish to have the dog holes closer (~ 2 1/2") to the front edge of the bench to make using molding planes and the like easier.
How do you do that and still have them centered on the end vise's dog?

When you use molding planes, you need a fair bit of force pushing the plane into the stock sideways. For these tools, the end vise does very little. How they are supposed to work is you squeeze the board with enough force that the friction between the dogs and the end grain of your project is sufficient to resist the sideways force you need for the work. When the stock is small or thin this doesn't work at all.

Ditto for surface planing. When you want to work slightly across the grain, you impart a similar sideways force. You also impart a sideways force when you skew the plane.

End vises used in these ways are just plain bad engineering. If you have a sideways force, reacting it with friction is plain stupid. Better to react it with a direct load path like a planing stop. If your bench is against the wall of your shop, it's better to simply throw a piece of stock between the wall and your work piece, effectively turning your bench into a huge sticking board. I have 3 hold fast holes thru my bench that I use to support boards in this way when I'm away from home (no wall) or I don't have stock thick enough to make up the distance between the wall and my work piece. Works great, no need for an end vise.

I'm not sure what the use for end vises was historically. None I've seen or used work well for the jobs woodworkers install them for nowadays. They may have been used for veneer work or for clamping glued up parts of something similar. What we know is that good work was done without them.

My advice is to leave it off. They hamper sawing at the bench, which in my mind, is way more important a function for a hand tool woodworker than anything a tail vise can do.

Adam
P.S. I can imagine a few instance where tail vises would be very helpful- where having very little contact to the workpiece is desireable. It could be that woodworkers use them for their palm sanders, for hand sanding boards they just coated out with polyurethane etc etc. If this is the case, woodworkers should say so and not be ashamed of what they are really doing. Pretending this is a feature that works great in a hand tool shop is wrong in my opinion. Guys spend a lot of time and money integrating these things that don't actually work in the real world.

P.P.S. Passion aside, my engineering is sound. To make a tail vise work better, keep the line of action of the screw lined up with the dogs on both ends and consider toothed dogs to increase the coeficient of friction between the dogs and work piece. Remember that stiffness is the design goal, not strength for the attachments, dog designs etc etc.

[Frank Drew]

Pam

Perhaps the misunderstanding is from saying the dog is x inches from the end of the bench, when what's meant in this instance, I think, is distance in from the front edge of the bench.

Adam,

I'm not sure if you find tail vises as problematic as end vises, but I got great use out of my tail vise over a couple of decades plus and never had any particular trouble keeping the work where it belonged, although in general I take your point about sideways force against linear pressure.

[george wilson]

I use my tail vise,too.

[Steven Herbin]

I don't use the "built-in" dog on the vise. I just cut a dog hole in line with the bench dog holes on the chop and use that. The steel dog would have to be cushioned anyhow, so I don't even bother with it.

I'm adding a second row of dog holes farther from the edge so I can use both sets for anchoring hooks and other fixtures. So when I do that, I will cut another hole in the chop in line with the new dog holes.

I'm only sorry that I didn't install the Benchcrafted Wagon Vise. I didn't know about it at the time. 2 other people in the class installed them. I poo-poo'ed at the time, but now ... Oh well, next bench will have one.

[Joe O'Leary]

Steven, that Benchcrafted Wagon Vise looks really nice, but also looks like a bear to install. I'm not planning an endcap for my bench. Is that a mistake?

Joe