I'm thinking of building a new bench with a tail vise. I've never used one, though I currently have a traveling dog. While inconvenient to opperate, I appreciate what it does. My question is, assuming that a good face vise of some sort makes the jaw redundant, what role does the tail vise play other than carrying the dog? My plan at this point is to build a leg vise on the front and some sort of travleing dog as a tail vise.
Thanks,
CB
Hope it helps.
Killers by day, lovers by night, drunkards by choice-but Marines, by God.
-Phil Crow
Some time back over in ABW a fellow posted a series on his workbench. It was the slickest one I had seen till now. Metal Lathe turned threads almost Buttress Pattern threads for both vises. I lost the photos in a HD crash or I would take the liberty of posting them with credit to the builder of course. Tales of a Boatbuilder Apprentice
What sort of tail vice ? I've got the Tage Frid bench design; Scandanavian style vices with a big dog-leg shoulder vice on the left and an L shaped tail vice to the right.
My observations:
- The shoulder vice is near useless. It won't hold anything less than
4" square in section. Handy for large part-assembled pieces, but not for stock you're first working on.- The travelling dog is wonderful. This is my main means of clamping.
- The end of the tail vice (the notch in the front edge of the bench) is useful, but not large.
- I don't use the "tail" of the tail vice at all. As Frid points out, this is a moving dog, not a clamping device. Stressing the back corner of the vice frame strains the rectangular alignment of it.
My thoughts on tail vices:
- You don't need it. The dogs will do most of the work.
- The L shaped wooden vice isn't designed to take a force on the back edge. Just don't do it.
- A tail vice of any sort is useless, if your bench is against a wall like mine is.
- Two rows of dogs would be worth having, and that needs a vice design that can take a skewing force on the back corner.
- If you're really after a tail vice (and I'm sure that some tasks will find them useful), then look at a two-screw metal vice design like the Veritas.
Hindsight:
- If I built this bench again, I'd keep the tail vice, but I'd set up two rows of dog holes, not one. I did a small round table top recently
- it was a real nuisance to hold, but two rows of dogs would have made it easy.
- I'd skip the shoulder vice in favour of a cast iron face vice.
- I'd make hardwood dogs, rather than buying metal ones. These were the commonplace chromed rectangular dogs; they're hard on an edge if you hit one, and the chrome plate was rubbish that flaked off in razor shards.
-- Die Gotterspammerung - Junkmail of the Gods
I just posted pictures of my solution to the tail vise question as well as a post-mortem write-up of my bench-building experience in ABPW
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