Questions on wagon vise....

[Rick Cicciarelli]

Trying to figure out the whole wagon vise thing. I love the benchcrafted vise but there is no way I am spending that kind of $$$ for that. I know plenty of folks have made up a wagon vise using the $30 screws available from LV but I am trying to figure out the setup. Some of the ones I've seen folks put together using the screws from LV either are set up with the screw backing out of the bench (requiring more clearance on that side of the bench), or alternatively, they have them set up so the screw remains in place, but it is in the way of the hole in the bench for the wagon vise. So my question is this: How do you set it up so that the handle remains on the side of the bench (screw does not back out of the bench) but also allows you to put a reasonably sized board into the hole in the bench for cutting dovetails. I know the benchcrafted vise allows you to put a board down into the hole (so the screw much not be in the way I assume) and the handle remains on the side of the bench. What am I missing here??

[Charlie MacGregor]

Rick, I believe the screw is offset from the gap and the dog block travels the gap beside the screw rather than over it.

[Jim Koepke]

I'm with Charlie on this. The board in the gap has to be thinner than the space between the walls of the slot and the screw.

In the wagon vise that you want, there is a nut fixed in the "wagon" block. The screw is fixed at its end. It could also have a garter near the crank handle.

Otherwise there isn't a garter at the handle end, only in the "wagon." The fixed nut would be in the bench at the handle end.

The limit on the size of board in the slot is one reason the wagon vise feels limited to my way of thinking. The way it holds stock for face planing is great. Maybe there will be a way to have three or four vises on my next bench. Maybe even five if one is a floating face vise.

jtk

[Jeff Bartley]

Rick,
The Benchcrafted wagon vise is expensive, yes, but it's worth every penny! I looked at building one from scratch and in the end realized I'd be further ahead if I just bought one from Jameel. He's done a fantastic job with this vise; everything is tops right down to the hardware to secure the guide bars to the bench.
Jeff

[Michael Sobik]

I made a DIY wagon vise, shamelessly copied from Jameel's design. There's some pictures in my old bench thread:

http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?105713-A-Roubo-is-born-(yes-another-bench-thread)/page2

The dog block is offset from the screw. The slot is completely open with no part of the screw impinging on the slot. By the time you take into account the cost of the giant Acme threaded screw, the welding and machine work, and other hardware, it's just as expensive to build it as buy it from Jameel. I have been very happy with mine in use. I use it both for dovetailing and for clamping flat to the bench.

[Yuri Sadykov]

you can see how I did wagon vise following link below. I used Lee Valley vise screw.

http://www.forums.woodnet.net/ubbthreads/showflat.php?Cat=&Number=5325413&page=1&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=

[Frank Drew]

I'm sure a wagon vise works as well as a traditional tail vise when clamping between dogs, but IMO it looks less versatile for all-around clamping due to the limited size of the slot.

[Neil Zenuk]

Since just making my own wagon vise, I've been meaning to get this down on sketchup. Hopefully uploading the straight sketchup file is ok. The U shaped channel is miter track extrusion, and the guide rails are UHMW plastic that fits perfectly into the extrusion. Tried to keep the dog block as close to the front of the bench as I could.