I’m in the process of designing my first (and likely only, for a long time!) real workbench and have reached the tail vise part. 

I know racking–lifting of the end of the tail vise above the bench surface–can be a big issue with shop-made tail vises.  Have heard that this is especially true with wooden vise screws (which I’m planning to use), even with a robust guide bar and tight clearances.

Has anyone ever tried, or heard of, incorporating a sliding dovetail along the contact between the side of the tail vise (parallel to the direction of vice movement) and the workbench?  This would eliminate the racking issue, as far as I can see, though attention would have to be given to keeping the track clean or designing it to reduce shavings collection (else the vise would bind up… turning it into just another a part of the workbench… ).

Can anyone foresee any major problems with this plan?  There may be something really obvious I’m missing here, because it seems too easy (okay, it will be a bugger to actually do, but the design part seems straightforward enough… as usual).  So many “new” ways of doing woodworking turn out to be reinventions of past methods… I’m hoping the knowledgable crew on this forum can provide some (constructive) advice.