Question for Adam and other workbench mavens
mike recchione
>I've been following the discussions on workbench design and configuration with sort of accademic interest up until a few weeks ago, when I noticed that my primary bench's top is beginning to self-destruct. This was my first bench - I built it with a minimum of tools and even less knowledge. It's a miracle it has lasted as long as it has (7 years of, at times, fairly heavy use), given all the mistakes I made. One of the mistakes was buying a used slab from a restaurant supply store to use as the top; another was not jointing the bottom of the slab properly. Yet another was fastening it to the base firmly at four points, without allowing for seasonal movement. Like I said, it's a miracle it didn't try to pull itself apart before. This winter it has given up the fight and is delaminating almost right down the middle.
While it's still more or less usable and might be salvaged - the front part is still about 12" wide and has remained flat - I'm considering using this opportunity to make a bench that incorporates some of the last seven years experience.
I've been reading and considering the discussion(s) of vises, and have been leaning towards a configuration with the only vise being at the left face, i.e. no vise of any kind at the right end. I haven't decided whether to go with an all-out Nicholson style bench, nor exactly what sort of face vise I'll use. But my question is about the tail vise.
I've gradually weaned myself from using my end vise for face jointing or smoothing over the years - it's just as easy to use a stop of one kind or another for this. (I haven't done this for philosophical reasons, it's just that I went with a cheap quick-release vise for the end vise, and it sags when it's open wide - so sometimes it's just too much trouble to find the right thickness shim for the top of the vise face). And there are times that I've wished I had that end of the bench free. So I had more or less settled on this design until one activity that has really been facillitated by the end vise occurred to me: Thicknessing.
When I'm taking a bunch of 3/4" boards down to 1/2" with the scrub, this tends to be a very low finesse, high energy activity. (Kind of like extended ripping sessions). Since my bench is away from any wall, I can clamp the board in my end vise and work it from both sides without repositioning the board.
I suppose I could use the L-shaped stop arrangement that I sometimes use for face jointing and smoothing, and always work towards the left-back. But that would slow me down. So my question is: How do you do this? Do you wish you had a tail vise when you do it?
(Sorry for the long build up to such a simple question :-) )
