Lee Valley Twin Screw Vise--Followup *LINK*

Re: Lee Valley Twin Screw Vise

Lyn J. Mangiameli

>Outstanding article, which I much enjoyed and learned from.

I share with you the practice of using the Veritas holddowns in the apron, though I wish I could convince them (have been trying for over three years) to offer a shorter post for such placement.

BTW, are you left handed?

Re: Lee Valley Twin Screw Vise--Followup

Alan Bierbaum

>Great write up. Keep going with the next section. I have standard tail vise and was wondering about the LV for end vise use.

Re: Lee Valley Twin Screw Vise--Followup

Frank Mutchler in Colorado Springs

>Outstanding article, Wiley. Thanks so much for sharing your journey!

Ba humbug!

Adam Cherubini

>Sorry. Just kidding.

That's a great article and a beautiful shop, Wiley. Tell us the truth now...Does it always look like that?

I'm very impressed with your article and your tail vise. It clearly performs much better than my mud slinging recollections.

I have heard you guys talk about blocking for some time. In my pointy little head, I always figured that only helped sag. Now I am starting to think it helps with the jaw rotation as well. It could well be that when I saw the jaws gap, that could have been caused by the unblocked screws sagging, more than slop in the garter as I said.

In any case, blocking is a simple enough solution. Thanks for setting me straight on this fine vise. (It was the record vise on top of the jaw that did it for me, BTW. I'm sold.)

Adam

Re: Lee Valley Twin Screw Vise--Followup

Ed Mulligan, Cape Cod

>Wiley -

Thanks for the write-up and photos.

I made my bench a couple years ago and mounted a LV twin screw mounted as an end vise. Square dogs are installed with a 2 degree tilt and the vise face is tapered per LV suggestion. Vise screws are supported to reduce sag etc etc.

The vise still sags a bit when open. Let's not dwell too closely with measurement but it is fair to say I would need something coarser than a feeler gauge to measure the sag. Even so, the vise performs superbly; the built-in tilt in the jaw and dogs more than compensate for any sag.

To folks considering a LV twin screw I say: proceed with confidence. Whether it winds up sagless or not, it works good.

Ed

Thanks Wiley (and all others in this "debate")

Eric Hedberg

>For those of us who don't have Twin Screw vise, yet, its thoughful discussions/debates like this that really help when you're trying to prioritize that wish list. It affirms why WoodCentral is such a valuable resource to woodworkers of all skill levels. I don't know how I feel about photo posts, though. Wiley, your pictures have given be a severe case of shop (and tool) envy. Eric

Thank You Wiley

Hank Knight in SC

>After following the long thread here on the LV Twin Screw vise, and Adam's comments in particular, I was having serious second thoughts about choosing it for my end vise. I have noticed no or negligible sag or jaw deflection in my setup. But my bench is brand new and I was worried that would change with use. I used zero clearance blocking for the screws and let my screw nuts into the rear jaw per Lee Valley's instructions so they support the screws to within 1/4 inch of the jaw face. Your excellent study and well presented article have allayed my concerns. I look forward to enjoying my Twin Screw vise for years to come. Thank you.

Re: Lee Valley Twin Screw Vise--Followup

Wendell @ Murphy, TX

>Twin vises on the front and tail Wiley! Now you're just taunting us :) Very nice article. Your bench looks like a hybrid Nicholson style bench. Did you do much research on benches before deciding on the design? You have pictures of your edge jointing setup, but I didn't see any pictures of how you use the bench for face planing. Do you just pin the stock between the tail vise dogs and a dog in the bench?

Wendell

P.S. - The real taunt and not so subtle gloat is all the beautiful tools in your shop ;-) C&W planes, a small pack of infills (Sauer's IIRC), and a hoard of Japanese chisels and saws. Nice tools!

Re: Lee Valley Twin Screw Vise--Followup *LINK*

Bob Fawcett

>Thanks for the write up and the pictures. I have recieved the 2 tail vise screws I bought and the maple for the jaws. I will be constructing my own version of a twin screw vise soon. I plan to block it zero clearance similar to what you showed and I may borrow your jaw designs as well and bore the screw holes with minimum clearance. I have some UHMW, which I may try to inset into the jaws and bore for the screws so it acts as the bearing.

Do you think that is worth the effort, or is the maple of the jaw equally good?

These are the screws I will be using.


Tail Vise Screws

Re: Lee Valley Twin Screw Vise--Followup

Pam Niedermayer - Austin, TX

>Great article, Wiley. One thing I don't understand:

One thing I would like to emphasize here: The design measures I used to avoid jaw sag--especially zero-clearance blocking--could be used to even better effect in LV's standard installation (mine is custom).

Are you saying that in doing the standard installation you need even more measures to avoid jaw sag? Or that your measures would be even more appropriate in the standard installation? But then would it be a standard installation?

And maybe I'm real dense, especially when it comes to vises, but how does your installation differ from the standard? I've scanned both your article and LV's instructions, but admit I haven't spent hours at it. Seems like LV covers most everything.

Thanks,

Pam

Re: UHMW

Pam Niedermayer - Austin, TX

>Hmmm, wonder what would happen if you made one or both jaws from big UHMW blocks?

Pam

Re: UHMW

Bob Hackett

>After you recovered from bankruptcy you`d have to constantly pick your lumber up off the floor.;^)

MB

:)

Pam Niedermayer - Austin, TX

>

Another question

Pam Niedermayer - Austin, TX

>I was re-reading the workbench book last night, concentrating on the trestle/Japanese benches. In that section Makoto Imai said that he used softwoods for his planks because hardwoods were too slippery, and that the use of hardwoods in western bench tops was the reason they required vises.

Along those lines, have any of you experimented with softwood jaws?

Pam

Re: UHMW

Bob Fawcett

>I think after running Wiley's jaw deflection test you may also have to pull some pieces down out of the ceiling :-)

Re: Another question

Dean J in MN

>

Along those lines, have any of you experimented with softwood jaws?

My first bench had softwood jaws. They worked fine, even if they got a bit beat up.

-Dean

Re: Another question

Pam Niedermayer - Austin, TX

>Did you notice that the new jaws were more slippery?

Pam

Re: Another question

Dean J in MN

>My current jaws of hard maple (the benchtop) and cherry (front jaw) hold just fine. I really can't tell if there would be a difference. Big help I am!

-Dean

Very nice Wiley...

Scott Burr in Ben Lomond CA

>Thank you for taking the time to do this. Especially because I'm planning on using the same setup as an end vice on my bench.

Scott has some serious tool envy too...

Re: Lee Valley Twin Screw Vise--Followup

Rob in Peoria

>"Are you saying that in doing the standard installation you need even more measures to avoid jaw sag? Or that your measures would be even more appropriate in the standard installation? But then would it be a standard installation?"

Since no one's jumped on this, yet, I'll take a shot at it. From what Wiley wrote, it apprears that the main difference between this custom installation and the standard installation is the distance between the screw nuts and the face of the vise. In a standard installation, the screw nuts are let into the back of the vise jaw, whereas Wiley has an additional piece of framing in there. It changes the unsupported length between the end of the screw nut and the face of the jaw.

I believe that the reason Wiley says his blocking would work even better with the standard installation is that the total length of supported screw would be greater because there would be less unsupported screw between the screw nut and the face of the jaw.

Hope I've de-obfuscated.

Rob in Peoria

Re: Lee Valley Twin Screw Vise

Wiley Horne

>Thanks Lyn!

Good idea on the shorter posts. I keep looking for an 'instant fence' that can be clamped onto a board or a glueup real quick so you can fence dado planes and such off of it. Best thing I've figured out so far is to use any old stick of wood with a bench dog in one end and a wonderdog in the other. But there's an engineered solution out there somewhere.

I'm mostly left-handed, but use the right a lot. So I face joint and edge joint left handed (face jointing into the vise), and then do panel raising, filletstering, and molding planing from right to left (since that's pretty much the way the planes are made). However, I don't edge joint against the grain much, like it shows in that last photo (<:).

Thanks again,

Wiley

Re: Lee Valley Twin Screw Vise--Followup

Wiley Horne

>Thanks Alan,

It'll be about a week, and then the 'rule of doubling' (of all estimates) makes that into two weeks.

Congratulations on your bench and very, very informative article--I meant to say so in your thread (but the dog ate it). The traditional tail vise has a cool factor which is off the charts IMO.

Wiley

Re: Ba humbug!

Wiley Horne

>Hi Adam,

Thank you very much! (translation: whew, sigh of relief).

Clean shop is embarrassing--no shavings in sight, no signs of work. I think the 'company's coming' syndrome kicked in, cause I even scraped the benchtop and got a bunch of glue and green stuff off.

Looking forward to your next article!

Wiley

Re: Thank You Wiley

Wiley Horne

>Hank,

I think your installation is the stoutest of all. Having the screw nut itself right at the outer jaw face is the way to go, plus it allows the blocking to come flush with the inside face of the rear jaw. That's maximum bearing. And where's it gonna wear? Home run, IMO. Your installation is the one I think LV should look at and consider.

Wiley