Hey folks.
First, thanks to everyone who posted in the thread I started last Friday night.
Now for a new post. I’m planning my third bench and have been doing some serious thinking about the vises I’ll use. On my first bench I had only a face vise. I made the wooden screws with a Beall wood threader and had a nice twin screw vise. On my second (and current) bench I have a LV twin screw on the front and a metal-jaw vise as an end vise (I do not use an end vise in the traditional way – for clamping lumber between dogs). I hate the metal-jaw vise, primarily because it isn’t quick-release. I like the LV vise, except that the chain guard is aluminum. When I make my new bench I plan on making a wooden and replaceable chain guard. I love the vise for dovetailing, but I hate it when my saw blade nicks the aluminum chain guard (I clamp my boards very close to the vise so that they don’t vibrate or wobble), as it often does when cutting half-blind dovetails.
So anyway, what vise or vises do you use for your hand tool work? Why do you like the vise? If you don’t like your vise, why not?
Here’s what I like about my twin screw, which is 24″ on center.
-It’s fantastic for dovetailing
-It’s great for edge planing
-It’s great for face planing smallish boards (less than 36″)
-The chain drive makes it very easy to clamp boards between it (my homemade twin screw was a PITA in that regard. However, I had it set up so that the jaws could skew like made, which was great).
I’m probably forgetting something, but Norm’s plaid shirt (plus one or two hops-based beverages) is making me a bit loopy.
I’m looking forward to your responses. –Matt
Replies
I have a LV face vise with wood jaws and a LV shoulder vise and like them both. The face vise is large and I like the wood jaws although if I was going to buy another one I would get the one they sell with a quick release. The shoulder vise I like a lot works for cutting dovetails in a drawer side as well as for holding a board flat on the bench with bench dogs.
Troy
Troy,Where are they located? Also, what type of shoulder vise do you have? I suspect that one is a face vise and the other an end vise. Is that right?Matt
Sorry about that when I typed LV I was abbreviating LV meant Lee Valley tools and the the vises I have are a face vise and what they call a tail vise ($72.50) The tail vise was a challenge for me to install but it works well. I think Lie Neilsen also sells tail vise hardware.Good luckTroy
Troy,Sorry for the confusion. I understood that LV stands for Lee Valley. I was asking whether you have a traditional Scandinavian should vise (like the one on Tage Frid's bench) or the kind with a central screw, two guide bars, and wooden jaws.I'm interested in whether you like your traditional tail vise. The benches here at FW do. I'm warming up to them.
Hears a picture I have since added drawers. The thing now tips the scales at about 300 pounds. Not as pretty as some but very stable and does not flex.Troy
Troy,I suspected that that is your set up. As for having a nice bench, who cares? A bench is a tool. It needs to be heavy, sturdy, and have good vises. Looks like your's meet all three criteria. It also looks like you did a good job on the joinery.Pretty benches, like pretty tools cabinets, are exercises in vanity (and I say that in complete self-awareness of its application to me! My bench isn't pretty, but my tool cabinet is extravagant).Matt
Thanks It's defiantly not coming apart:) I think I should have considered a bolt together arrangement for the horizontal rails so it would be easier to move but it sure is nice to have a bench that does not move when you are working.Good luck with yoursTroy
My current bench is not very good. It's big and massive, but that's all it has going for it. I mounted a $40 Q-R metal front vise to the face which sags. I also have a built-in planing stop (I can't describe it very well). If you're considering a shoulder vise (great for cutting dovetails), check out my Presto: Instant Shoulder Vise post.
You mentioned that you do not use the tail vise in the traditional way. This begs the question: how do you use it?
Chris @ www.flairwoodwork.spaces.live.com
- Success is not the key to happines. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful. - Albert Schweitzer
Chris,Given that I did not have much space for my bench in the old garage, I really couldn't work at the ends of my bench. The LV twin screw, because it is on the face of my bench, wasn't good for cutting tenon cheeks. So, I used my metal jaw "end vise" for cutting tenon cheeks primarily. Really didn't use it for much else. I'm considering a traditional tail vise for my third bench. I like the ones we have here at FW.
Matt,
My biggest vice is chocolate ice cream.
Mel
Measure your output in smiles per board foot.
Chocolate brownies for me, warmed, with vanilla ice cream. Joe
Old tools and anything rusty!
T.Z
Mel,As long as we're giving sassy responses...I hope you don't confuse your vice with your vise. That would be messy in the shop and confusing in the kitchen.
M,
In proper Anglish, we spell vice (naughty habits) and vice (a gripping jaw set) the same. I always type "vise" here in knots, except when I forget, as you lot on that side of the ocean are yet to achieve civilised spelling (and other marks of civilisation, such as real food).
As to Joe and Mel having only the eating of choccie stuff as their worst vice - well, they are goody-goody men, or so I allege. My vices are reet proper ones and include [censord by the Taunton good taste police in the intersts of Mel's sensibilities].
I too like the Veritas twin screw. It can be adapted in many, many ways to perform just about all the functions of other vise types, with the exception of a quick-releae function and the ultimate configurability of a pattern maker's vise. Although even then, the twin screw with various jaw inserts, shaped for things like chair legs or back slats, works well; so I could imagine various other specialist jaw inserts for various other shaped parts.....
Lataxe, a good boy on Sundays and when the ladywife watches (all the time, who can blame her).
Lataxe,Well, it's a good thing I don't recognize the queen. Otherwise, I'd find myself beholden to her English, and perhaps enamored of all her silly relatives. (He says sardonically, but in good humor.) So, tell us about your vise.Matt
Matt,
I have two of them VTS, one as a face vise and one as an end vise. I am writing han harticle about the bench they live on. There are posts about it already in Knots but just now the fingers are saying, "Go to bed, you ole phart"!
So, nighty-night then.
Lataxe, desperately in need of beauty sleep. (Desperately).
Master Kenney,
In my shop, I am the vise-president.
Enjoy,
Master MelMeasure your output in smiles per board foot.
Mel,
You can be the vise president. I am the vice president, in charge of vice.
Ray
Ray,
So you are the vice president, in charge of vice.
I thought you kinda remind me a Cheney.
Let me know the days you are going hunting, so I can stay out of the woods.
MelMeasure your output in smiles per board foot.
Mel,
Poor Dick Cheney. You shoot one little hunting companion. ...
See this pub, 'ere? I built it mesel' wi' some help from me son Jock. Do they call me "McGinley, the carpenter" ? No.
Those tables yer sittin' at, an' th' chairs yer arses are on; I built them too, in me li'l shop down th' 'ill. But, do they call me "McGinley, the furniture maker"? NO.
That ale yer swillin', th' beer, an' stout, an' th' porter. I brewed it all mesel', over 'ere in the back room. Do they call me "McGinley, the brewer? NO!
BUT, ...y' screw one li'l goat....
Ray
Still, it is well to hunt only with shooters you know well and trust completely.
Ray,
Would you be the vicee or the vicor?
Regards,Bob @ Kidderville Acres
A Woodworkers mind should be the sharpest tool in the shop!
Bob,
vicee or vicor...it all depends, you see, on the spelling. I'd rather not be a visor, couldn't be a vicar. If it were pleasurable enough, I might be persuaded to re-vise, over and over again. Practice makes perfect, so it might be expected that I'd improv-ise over time. Some vices can result in a decrease of vis-ion, or so I read somewhere, before I lost my glasses.
Ray
Ray,
I truely believe we should annoint you with the title of The Knots Jester!
:-)
Regards,Bob @ Kidderville Acres
A Woodworkers mind should be the sharpest tool in the shop!
I for one have one vice.. A pattern makers vice. Maybe from India! I have no idea but I LOVE IT I sure wish it tipped both ways! Not just away from me!
EDIT;; Not counting my many metal working vices!
Edited 5/24/2008 1:39 pm by WillGeorge
Type II Turtle back Emmerts pattern makers vise.
Why I like it! It's the King. And I "stole" it from an antique dealer for next to nothing.
Work Safe, Count to 10 when your done for the day !!
Bruce S.
Tucker on the front & twinscrew on the end. Haven't had this done long enough (about a month) to tell you which one excels at which tasks. But I've done both face and edge planing in the twin, edge jointing in the Tucker (with an LV surface clamp to hold the opposite end of the board to the benchfront), holding work at odd angles with the Tucker for routing and drilling as well as cutting veneer with the vise tipped up and sandwiched between backer boards. I was originally going to go with the Asian Emmert clone but in the end I decided to splurge for the quick release feature of the Tucker. I love that QR. Haven't made use of either vise yet in comination with benchdogs so I'm no help there (the twin didn't even have dogholes yet when I took these).
If you build it he will come.
jeez-o, have you gotten that thing dirty?
nice work!
eef
Matt, I'm the barbarian here.
I have a pair of Columbian vices (similar to what Wilton is now producing), one mounted mid-bench on the front, the other mounted on the right end. They aren't rapid-action, but I've not really missed it.
The bench is currently covered in crap because I'm revising (read, I have to build shelves to hold crap) the shop/basement, so I don't have pix.
It's a muchly-modified cheapie, built from 2x lumber. I've bored two sets of 1/2 inch holes at 90 degrees to each vice and screwed a 2x4 pair to the left front leg to act as a long-board support for the centre (front) vice. [crappy drawing attached]
Other than that, real vices are: intelligent women, good friends, good liquor; good tobacco and old tools. Guns fit into it somewhere.
my vise?.....rum.....because it tastes good
Wicked Decent Woodworks
(oldest woodworking shop in NH)
Rochester NH
" If the women dont find you handsome, they should at least find you handy........yessa!"
Vices? Drinking. Smoking. Making oogle eyes at purty wimmens.
I placed a quick release face vice on the end of the bench because it's what I had on hand. I have a pattern making vice on the face.
At first, I didn't use the pattern making vice because I didn't really like the way it worked. I had gotten used to the quick release on the other vice. But the day I had to hold an odd piece at an odd angle, I knew the reason why I bought it. It really made a lot of hand operations a lot easier. I still wish there was a quick release feature but I can get along without it.
Len
"You cannot antagonize and influence at the same time. " J. S. Knox
Len-I think that makes you the third person to claim a pattern maker's vise. I have been making a cabinet with curved and tapered legs. I was longing for one when shaping the legs! I got by with wedges pushed between the leg and the vise jaw, but it would have been very nice to have a vise with pivoting jaws.MattI've had a perfectly wonderful evening, but this wasn't it. - Groucho Marx
We had two pattern maker's vises mounted on two movable benches in the shop. The idea was if you needed that versatility you could roll one of those benches over to your work space. What happened was certain carpenters would take the benches and not let anyone else use them. I had to begin reviewing the projects that were going to be built and then assign the benches. I knew one day, my studying pre-school childhood development for my Masters was going to be useful. lol.
I've had some pretty interesting challanges clamping odd shapes. One was I had to hold a hollow crystal ball and drill a hole in it. Thank goodness for spares.
I'm so stuffed from the Memorial Day BBQ. I think I need to lie down...
Len
"You cannot antagonize and influence at the same time. " J. S. Knox
Edited 5/26/2008 10:54 pm by Len
Len,
Not trying to sell you one, but just letting you know that the Tucker vise has a quick-release on it.Chris @ http://www.flairwoodwork.spaces.live.com
- Success is not the key to happines. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful. - Albert Schweitzer
Chris,Even if you tried, you couldn't sell me one. That vise cost more than twice what I paid for my 1971 Rockwell Unisaw! I'm sure it's a great vise, but it's just not for me. Of course, if I keep making curvilinear furniture, I might end up with one.MattI've had a perfectly wonderful evening, but this wasn't it. - Groucho Marx
I have a friend (I've mentioned him before. He's an expert on planes.) that has been GIVEN not one but two Emmeret vises. So far, I haven't been able to convience him that he should give me one. Len
"You cannot antagonize and influence at the same time. " J. S. Knox
On my Emmerts vise I put an 18" long curly maple handle with large 1.750 balls on the ends and that baby winds open or closed very quickly.Work Safe, Count to 10 when your done for the day !!
Bruce S.
Matt,
For versatility, ya can't beat a Pattern makers vise. If it were me, and i couldn't locate an old Emmert I'd evaluate the Tucker from L.V. Seems to have all the movement the Emmerts have, plus is quick release as is previously mentioned in this thread.
Jeff
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