Making A Tail Vise

[crokett]

After I get moved to my new shop I very much want a proper bench with a tail vise and/or leg vise. I was throwing around ideas for making a tail vise and am loosely considering an arrangement where there is a fixed face against the edge of the bench. The adjustable head would have 2 parts - a moveable face and fixed face. The moveable face would be adjusted by turning some all-thread that is fixed in the fixed face. For coarse adjustments I would sliding the entire moveable head in and out and have a stop pin that could be inserted into holes in the vise bar. I would add some steel bar stock either side of the all-thread to keep the adjustable face tracking smoothly.

Would this work?

[Mr__Bill]

Here is a variation on a similar theme using pipe clamps.

Blum Workbench

Bill,

[JoeyGee]

I can't picture what you're talking about, but here is our own Tom Miller's tail vice that I have been wanting to make for a long time:

http://www.bt3central.com/showthread...highlight=vice

[Ed62]

Sounds like a winner to me, David. I actually used the pipe clamp idea on a workbench in the garage. It worked reasonably well.

Ed

[LarryG]

I'm not sure I'm picturing it, either, but it sounds like you want to be able to clamp the workpiece between a fixed and a moving chop -- correct? If so, then why not simply use a leg vise in the tail vise position? A leg vise is probably the easiest kind of homemade vise to build and are wonderful to use. All you need buy is a shoulder screw; everything else can be shop-built.

If all you want is a moving bench dog at that end of the bench, then a wagon vise is a good solution. Also pretty easy to make. (Tom Miller's removable tail vise is essentially the same concept, but in reverse: the dog fits into the hole, and the vise moves around it.)

[cabinetman]

Vise parts are pretty easy to come by. You can add to it as needed. A simple start could be with parts like this.

I've tried leg vises and I'm not a big fan of them.
.

[chopnhack]

Instead of a traditional tail vise which can be hard to mount would you consider adding on a quick release vise with wooden dog? It would do the same thing, be quicker to use, quicker to mount and trouble free with no sag over the long haul. Check out popular woodworking magazine (Chris Schwartz bench afficionado) covered just this not too long ago.

[Rich P]

Highly recommend picking up the Scott Landis book on workbenches. You are going to be spending a lot of hours at this bench and it is well worth taking a look at the wisdom of the ages as well as some newer concepts.

[pelligrini]

I'm not fully understanding what you're describing (I thought I did for a minute). Sounds a while lot like a regular woodworking vise like a Record or such, but you'd have the thread and bars sticking out from the fixed face on the bench through the movable face.

You might be disapointed with the allthread. The thread pitch isn't as wide as a lot of the bench screws available. You'd be able to make coarse adjustments without having to turn the handle a whole lot, but you'd be futzing with pins and alignment.

Scott's book is pretty good. I got a lot of ideas for mine from Schwarz's book too.