Leg Vise in Action? Dovetails?

Re: Leg Vise in Action? Dovetails?

Bill Houghton, Sebastopol, CA

>If your local library has a copy of "The Workbench Book," have a look at the discussion of leg vises in that, particularly the slanted ones - those seem like the solution for clamping longer boards in a vise.

Re: Leg Vise in Action? Dovetails?

Warren in Lancaster, PA

>I use a leg vise that is slanted 15 degrees. A slanted leg vise is better for vertical boards. Because the peg at the bottom is below and to the left of the screw, you can get pressure at the top right corner of the vise. On my vise about 5 inches are held when the board is vertical. With a straight leg vise you can more likely get deflection of the vise with a vertical board. For a wide board, like 15 inches, I use a holdfast in the skirt, or a clamp to the skirt, or a clamp across bench to hold the right side of the board.

Not an action shot, but...

Scott in Douglassville, PA

>...I think you can see that I can clamp more than an inch or two. The screw position was necessitated by the structure of the base, but it allows 15" between the screw and the top of the jaws, and has about a 16" clamping capacity. Not completely ideal as far as optimizing torque, but it's worked fine so far.

I love my leg vise.

Re: Leg Vise in Action? Dovetails?

Jack Guzman from Maine

>A leg vise is handy but not especially for dovetailing. I use mine for sawing tenons and drawknife/spokeshave work mostly.I use a homemade fixture for dovetailing.It's basically a portable twin screw vise that I clamp to the top of my bench.---Jack

Re: Leg Vise in Action? Dovetails?

ThomD

>You can get by clamping one end in the vise, and clamping the other, for a wide board, with a handscrew, clamped to the surface of the bench. There really isn't an always perfect vise for dovetails. The metal vises tend to grad no more of the isde than the leg vise, and pretty much every vise has a capacity limit. It's nice to have a vice that will fully calmp most smaller sized drawer parts, and I would imagine some leg vise would be nearly big enough for that.

I think those double handscrew vises look pretty good. I like my german style L vise.

I'm also considering a twin screw vise, a la Adam

Pete Ducklow

>I like the configuration of putting a twin scew vise on the right front and a crochet on the left front. With a few holdfasts and planning stops, that seems to be pretty versatile.

So many options!

Re: Leg Vise in Action? Dovetails?

paul womack

>There really isn't an always perfect vise for dovetails.

A wide, shallow shoulder vise would seem the best, although it isn't especially versatile.

Vise design (hell, pretty much anything) is a compromise amongst many conficting requirments and solutions.

BugBear

Re: I'm also considering a twin screw vise, a la A

paul womack

>I like the configuration of putting a twin scew vise on the right front and a crochet on the left front. With a few holdfasts and planning stops, that seems to be pretty versatile.

Since I don't do big scale work, I very rarely have (e.g.) 10 drawer fronts to do.

My vise very rarely has the same size item in it twice. In this regard, having a single screw, Q/R with 12" opening is marvelous - for me.

aside



To hold tapered objects, I have a large "sub jaw", like an Emmert tilting jaw, deep enough to sit on my vises's guide rails

Having a vise with limited capacity, where I had to twizzle not one but 2 handles to open and close, and having to move the jaw as a separate action because it doesn't have garters would be a nightmare - for me.

This does NOT make a twin screw garterless vise a bad VISE. It makes it a bad CHOICE - for me.

BugBear

Re: Leg Vise in Action? Dovetails?

Adam Cherubini

>The advantages of the twin screw vise is that it can clamp non square stock securely and can "clamp-out" the cup in a wide carcass side. You can do this in other ways, but I've found the twin screw ideal for this operation.

Leg vises are good, easy to build, general purpose vises. But I wouldn't say they are great for dovetailing specifically.

Adam