Veritas Twin Screw-Any Long Term Impressions? Modifications?

[steve swantee]

I have had the Veritas TS Vise as a face vise for a couple of years now. I have found that the screw handle nearest the center of the bench seems to always be in my way when doing various tasks, and I had briefly even thought of selling it and buying a regular face vise instead. Tonight I was looking at my bench and decided to remove the screw handle. Then I went a step further and drove out the roll pin and removed the cast iron head from the screw. Now the machined end of the screw only pokes out about an inch past the cover plate, and to make sure workpieces don't slip on the right side where I removed the screw head, I adjusted the vise so It puts a tiny bit more pressure on that side as it closes. Seems ok so far, so we'll see how I like it after some use. I figure if I still don't like it I can put it back together and swap it out for a regular face vise.
Anyone else have any impressions of the TS vise, or any modifications you've made to suit the way you work?

Steve

[Mike Allen1010]

Steve,

I have exactly the same experience/problem with regard to the handle nearest the center of the bench always being in my way.

I never thought of taking off the handle and a cast-iron head as you described but it sounds a good idea.

I would be very interested to hear how this works out for you; does it make it easier to move around the front edge of your bench like when joining/planing long edges and how well does the vice hold workpieces without slipping.

Thanks in advance for sharing your idea and your experience.

Mike

[Glenn Kiso]

I had a bench with the twin-screw vise, and personally, I hated the thing. Cursed at for over 5 years. Now it may have not been installed correctly, so I'm not blaming LV or the quality, but the racking and amount of screw/unscrew to move the jaws in and out was far beyond annoying for me. It was always difficult to keep the jaw parallel and inevitably as I tighten side over time the handles would skew. Last year I ordered the bench hardware from Benchcrafted to make a Split top roubo. Hopefully by the end 2011 I'll have a new bench.

[Matt Winterowd]

I just made some remarks on the twin-screw configuration as a whole on this thread:http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?161521-Twin-Screw-Face-Vise

As for removing one handle, that is how the Lie-Nielsen is configured out of the box: http://www.lie-nielsen.com/catalog.php?sku=cdsv