Hi All,

I'm currently building a Roubo style bench and am trying to decide on what sort of work holding to employ at the end of my bench. I use bench and joinery planes a lot, so I know I want my dog holes close to the edge and want some sort of work holding mechanism. I will have a planing stop on the bench. I have a couple doe's feet, but never really got the hang of using them very well - can't seem to get them 'tight' enough onto the workpiece to prevent it from moving a little while planing, but enough to be annoying.

I purchased the wood for the bench top from a guy who was in the process of building a bench but gave up. It's 5" thick hard maple. At the time of purchase there was already a cutout in the front right corner, about 3" wide and 20" long. This ruled out using a benchcrafted vise, so I had my mind set on the Veritas quick release sliding tail vise. At $420 CDN it's pretty pricey, so I'm wondering if the quick release wonder dog might be a better bet. I have a regular wonder dog I use currently - while it's okay, I find it slow and the head is a bit thicker than I'd like.

I just came across HNT gordon 6" tail vise while looking into this issue, and it's a bit cheaper, but seems like functionally it would be similar to the benchrafted 'wagon' style vise. It also looks a lot better than the Veritas inset vise, and it seems to be a faster thread. Anyone have experience with this vise?

Really, what I'm wondering is whether the full tail/wagon vises such as Veritas QR and Benchcrafted have any real functional advantages over the inset vises/wonder dogs in common use.

Any suggestions or thoughts on what works for you for workholding in that position would be appreciated.