Replies

1. 
   RalphBarker | Dec 17, 2009 01:47pm | #1

   I think your vise layout would be considered a "right-handed" bench. Except, that is, when you plane the other direction, holding the plane in your left hand. ;-)

1. 
   donr | Dec 17, 2009 04:38pm | #2

   I am not sure how you hand a vise, but I put one on the left side and one on the right side of my bench, and find that I use the left side vise more often than the right one. I am right handed. Most of the time, I have a jig in the right one and use the left one to hold work that my right hand would be holding. I had never thought about where to put just one vise...good question

1. 
   RalphBarker | Dec 17, 2009 08:20pm | #3

   I believe it depends on what form your vices take (pun intended, of course). I think the traditional/Euro design for a right-handed worker is to have a front vice on the left end and a tail vice at the right end. That's based on a preference of pushing the work into the vice when planing, I believe. If one uses what would otherwise be a front vice across the end of the bench, that's another story.

   If an individual's vice layout differs from the tradition, however, I doubt they would be visited by the Vice Squad.

1. 
   polarsea1 | Dec 18, 2009 01:27am | #4

   I always thought it had more to do with sawing a peice of wood. A right handed person would want to hold the cutoff with his left hand so the end vise should be located at the left side of the bench end.

1. 
   G-Sepp | Dec 18, 2009 06:22am | #5

   this thread is probably about my other bench thread.

   my face vise is on the right side of my bench firstly because the left end of my bench is against a wall.

   but i think it depends on what you use it for, i use mine mostly for cutting off wood with a handsaw. it means i can't hold the part that i am cutting off, but i can use my left hand to support myself on the bench. wich i think is more important than being able to hold to piece itself.

   for all the other operations i do there is nothing that is hindered by the fact that the vise is on the right.

   but if you use a frontal vise to handplane, then i do think it should better be on the left. but anyway a top vise would be better at that anyway, or a right-end face vise.