Screw Vise Application

[Peter Gavin]

I am going to order the hardware and build a bench, but I have a question about the vise I use at the end of the bench (the front vise is pretty self explanatory). How do you use, or what are the advantages of, the screw vise I see on benches which look like a box that are part of the end of a bench but move in and out perpendicular to the face (I hope you can decipher what I mean). It seems to be a popular choice on 'high-end' benches, but I don't see the advantage over the typical face vice mounted on the end (assuming that you can mount bench dogs on both styles). Save me from making a mistake I'll regret for the rest of my life (or until I build my next bench).

Thanks

Peter

[Dennis McDonaugh]

Peter, You're talking about a tail vice. The big difference between a single screw tail vice (what you're talking about) and an end vice is racking. The end vice is an adaptation of a front vice and typically has two steel or wooden rods and a screw mechanism. If you clamp something between bench dogs on front of the bench, the whole assembly will rack because the dog in the vice has to be at the end of the vice. You can't clamp anything real tight and you could damage the vice if you tighten it too much. I stick a piece of wood into the opposite end of the vice and it limits racking to some extent. I Keep several different wooden fillers in a drawer for this purpose.

[Pam Niedermayer]

A tail vise also allows you to clamp things like drawers very easily, no screw gets in the way.

Pam

[James Mittlefehldt]

When I built my bench I used the Veritas twin screw vise for the end instead of a tail vice. It is the complete width of the banch and as advertised does not rack, I put four rows of dog holes in the bench and corresponding holes in the vice jaw which is 8/4 maple. with bench dogs and the veritas bench pups I think they call them I can cover pretty much all my clamping needs.

I would put a picture on but apparently the file is too large.

[John Dingman]

I used the Twin Screw Vise as a face vise and the sliding tail vise. They both work fantastic and they give you the best of all worlds. Here's a pic.