Vice positioning - general concensus

[Matt Carus]

I'm planning out building my first 'proper' workbench and so I've looked at a lot of different plans on the web. Vices tend to be positioned on the front left-hand side of the bench (presumably for right-handed people, which I am, I can see that left-handed people might want it positioned on the right), however when I'm using my workmate bench I always position the work on the right-hand side, which means that having the vice on the right makes more sense to me.

Am I missing something, or am I just doing things wrong?

Matt

[Jeff Leimberger]

Matt,
If you plan on using the bench for jointing boards, put it on the left. The vise gets in the way otherwise. Christopher Schwarz states that it is just obvious why it is on the left for right handers in one of his books and had a response to a question in PW that it holds better. I call BS on that as the force is the same no matter which way you plane. Anyway, as a lefty the reason for the typical vise location is obvious to me as a bruised hip can attest.

[Steve Eure]

I too thought about location of the vise when I built my bench. I don't use hand planes much and was not going to do much jointing, so I put my vise on the right side. It works better for me there.

[Tom Bender]

It can depend on where the bench sits in your shop. My bench is in the center so I can work from all sides. My vise is across the end so it works from both sides. To saw a board to length I usually saw with my right hand and catch the offcuts with my left. Planing goes either way.

[glenn bradley]

As always, the answer to these types of questions is, what works best for you. You’ve seen many responses here from many people, all are different as you might expect. The standard layout, if there is such a thing, for a right-handed person is the face vice at the front left corner and the end vice at the right hand end. Variations are as numerous as the differences in woodworkers.

[Matt Carus]

Thanks all, I think I'm going to go with the vice on the right but built it in such a way that it'll be easy enough to move if need be.

[Prashun Patel]

If you are using the vise to hold material while cutting, then positioning on the left allows you to support the cutoff with your left hand as you saw with your right.

[John Gornall]

My solution to this issue is 2 vices - one on the right and one on the left - big boards held in both