I’m designing a workbench and have combined several features from Frid, Klausz, and others. My question involves what size tail vise should I purchase. I have found large (23″), medium (19″) and small (15″) tale vise hardware at Woodcraft and other places. Since I will have wooden dogs spaced every 4-6 inches apart, is there any need to have a vise that will move over a 16 inch range like the largest vise? Since I am still designing the bench I still have a lot of options. Right now my expected length will be a bit shorter than 6 feet long.
Thanks,
Edited 2/25/2007 12:28 pm ET by DGilbert
Edited 2/26/2007 7:20 am ET by DGilbert
Replies
You are correct in your analysis that most of the time a European style tail vise really only needs to open no more than the spacing between the dog holes in the bench. To save a lot of time cranking the vise in and out, place the bench dog holes close together, 3 or 4 inches maximum between holes.
The one time that you would use more of the vise's capacity is if you were clamping a piece whose length is approaching the full length of the bench. In this situation, being able to back out the tail vise further will add several inches to the length of the longest piece of stock the bench can handle.
Since your bench will be relatively short, you might want to use a longer vise to gain additional clamping capacity, but you would be better off making the entire bench longer if you expect to be working with longer stock. In fact, I would strongly recommend making the bench longer, 8 feet if possible, unless there is a very compelling reason for keeping it short.
The only other advantage to the longer vise is that it will be less likely to sag as it is opened up since more of the longer vise's slide mechanism will still be engaged in its tracks.
John White
Edited 3/14/2007 12:11 pm ET by JohnWW
This forum post is now archived. Commenting has been disabled