Re: Garret Hack's Bench
Adam Cherubini, NJ
>Dear Derek,
Let�s first agree that a tail vise is not required for face planing. Many, many benches have been built to effectively handle this important operation without tail vises. So tail vises certainly aren�t required. But before we discuss how those other benches function, let�s examine the tail vise:
I have read that tail vises were designed to facillitate planing of very thin stock. The original users were the continental European �ebenistes�, who got their name from working ebony and other fine woods.
While the tail vise is a fine way to secure stock to be planed, it doesn�t work all that well with thin stock, which calls the legend into question in my mind. Tail vise pressure can buckle thin stock. Also, the work must span the gap at the tail vise jaw. This distance can be as much as the distance between your dog holes (roughly 4� on my bench). Three or four inches may well be too much to span on thin hard woods.
For working larger or thicker boards, the tail vise works fine with a few caveats:
1)Obviously the bench must be longer than the stock. If not, you must revert to the non tail vise planing technique. And if that�s true, why not just use that technique all the time.
2)When roughing or truing a board of any length, its often helpful to plane across the grain. The tail vise system gives very little support in this direction. Toothed dogs can help.
We can�t seriously analyze tail vises without discussing the difficulty of installing them. Its not a simple mechanism in theory. It�s a whole corner of your bench that slides, must be strong and stiff, never sag, and is cantilevered. That�s an engineering challenge. I used the sliding metal plate design, which made sense to me. But my vise has worn and is sagging.
Lastly, I use the right hand side of my bench for cross cutting. The tail vise interferes with that.
So what is the solution? Well, tail vises are nice. People that have them, like them. I use mine for things other than planing. It�s a very strong vise. But I�m not sure it makes sense to add a tail vise for occasional use.
The benches in Williamsburg don�t have tail vises and I�ve asked the workers there how they like them. The always say something like, �Oh its just a matter of what you get used to�. I found this answer unsatisfactory. Having spent some time working on a bench with nought but an iron planing stop, I can see why the mechanicks at Williamsburg responded the way they did. The trick to using this bench is a mindset. You always plane into the stop. You can reorient the board quickly and easily, sit on the back end if need be. But make no mistake about it; this is a fast efficient, completely acceptable way to plane wood.
There are times however, when I find this approach frustrating. In these instances, I clamp a piece of scrap to the back of the bench. This can be done with two strategically placed holdfasts, or holdfasts alone can suffice. In essence, you are making a japanese trestle or a flexible sticking board if you will.
If you add a planing hook (crochet) to the left front face (just make it low enough for a plow plane fence to pass over) you have covered 90% of the planing operations you need. You can use a holdfast in lieu of the crochet if you like. Mechanical vises then become things you use for occasional work, not for face or edge planing. So if the vise is no longer used to hold boards for edge jointing, why place it on the left side? Why not place it on the right? On the left it will always interfere with molding planes and plows. On the right it will interfere only when the work is long. Well, surprise surprise, this is exactly what we see on early French benches. A hook on the left and a twin screw vise on the right. The Dominy bench similarly has a leg vise on the left and a twin screw nearer the right end (I think the big bench is 12 or 14 feet long).
I hope this makes my radical point of view clearer.
Adam
