Est. 1998 — 27 years of woodworking knowledge
Re: IMHO, its about tail vises
Michael Recchione
>Interesting point. It's not something I do a lot of, but I can see that a tail vise would make this easier. I guess if I start doing more of these joints, I would have to make a fixture. Do you saw off the right side of your bench, and if so, does the vise get in the way?
Re: IMHO, its about tail vises
Joel
>First I'm lefthanded so the tail vise in on the left. and yes I do saw off the left. It's annoying and the only distraction I find with a tailvise. (I hardly us a face vise when I do serious work. but I use a tail vise all the time. When I am just folling around that's when my face vise gets a workout.)
I sometimes saw with a bench stop at the gap in the tailvise off the side of the main bench - it's a little easier because I can angle the saw down - BUT if I get too angled I could of course saw throught the thin crosspeice that holds the tailvise from racking.
Therefore for real sawing I highly recommend a two level workmate folded down.
Re: IMHO, its about tail vises
Denis Ch�nard, Orl�ans, Ont.
>Couldn't you get the same result with a patternmaker's vise?
DC
Re: IMHO, its about tail vises
Michael Recchione
>I was thinking the same thing, but longer boards would be awkward. But there's always more than one way to skin a cat.
Re: IMHO, its about tail vises, and best advice
ThomD
>I do the little endcuts and sucj in the Veritas vise if it's soimething special or I am going to do a bunch of them. I pull it up into the horizontal mode and load the stick in. For the tail vise, I currentlu have a 90 degree dovetail thing I clamp in the vis that acts as a fence for an ofcut to the far right of the bench. Works great. FK has that flip up pbject he uses to hold offcuts.
My best advice is to stay away from fashion, and look at the kind of work you do, MR. If you make a great German style cabinet bench, but it's too short for your ceiling height. Or you make a Roubo bench, but develop an intense desire to make chairs, you may find yourself looking to make bench 3 (which by itself is a blessing...) My bench is pretty simple, but so versatile I never have a problem with it. I'd rather that fate than some PC desire to fit into a particular past article/fad. If I had a bigger shop I would just build more benches, but I think I have the hand tools benches pretty much nailed. I would get some great vises, as long as you can make your bench big enough there isn't any compromise and you can work viseless whenever you want.
Re: I can answer that
ThomD
>"Now I'm not sure why the tail vise is necessary in a cabinet shop. I'm not sure what function it offers that one cannot do otherwise or what jobs cabinetmakers have that joiners don't that this particular feature serves. "
When in doubt look at the woodgrain. At best it's probably only part of the truth, but one thing the cabinetmaker might do is clamp down a piece of really highly figure burl, or crotch and hand plane out the figure coming at the piece from all sorts of directions, then hit it with a scraper. An end stop and a side batten are not going to get that done all that conveniently. On the other hand, working with less complicates grain makes end stops very efficient.
Today the two vises on my bench are probably 2-4 times the cost of the wood in the bench. In day's of yore, they could have run off a nice set for a few sticks of wood assuming the require tap and die existed. One theory in Landis' book is that they didn't want more efficient benches since it would have cut into the available work.
One of the fallacies of our "scientific method" is that we sometimes assume that things like benches evolved to some rational conclusion of efficient or appropriate means. I was reading an interesting book on spinning wheels while working on my wife's. It described the oppressive conditions of the pre-hobby craft. It points out that the Great wheel that was the norm for spinning wool (?) required that the spinner walk many miles a day in the hustle forward and back to move the wheel and handle the spinning. Much simpler treadle technology existed at the time, but as far as the author had been able to discover, the reason it wasn't applied was because the great wheels did not require a few slightly expensive parts in the manufacture thereof. So people walked countless millions of miles for that reason alone (if true) A modern interpreter would be mistaken to assume the great wheel existed because it was the acme of perfection in design.
Re: IMHO, its about tail vises
Joel
>I suppose but I don't have one - but I have a tail vise.
Re: I have 3 benches in my shop...
Stephen Shepherd in the State of Deseret
>Right now my bench looks more like an alchemist than a cabinetmaker bench. I am tuning up a couple of sextants (octants really), building a Torrecelli barometer and a cistern barometer. I have a cat gut hygrometer, a horsehair hygrometer and parts to an anamometer, several Fitzroy's Storm Glasses strewn about. As well as a sundial, compass and the beginning parts of an artificial horizon.
Some of this actually requires woodworking, so I can't complain, I love my job.
Stephen
Re: IMHO, its about tail vises, and best advice
Michael Recchione
>Thom, good advice. I've never followed the PC fashions or did something because someone wrote an article about it. The bench I build will be a hybrid, incorporating the features I liked in my old bench as well as some of the features I wished I had, and hopefully, avoiding the "features" I wished I didn't have. I would never work "viseless", and I still don't know that I'll even try the crochet. I use my face vise all the time and wouldn't dream of doing without it. It's the right side of the bench that's the real issue - I've had an "end vise" (never a proper tail vise), and found that it was more of an annoyance than a help - maybe if I'd had a proper tail vise I'd feel differently.
I'm completely with you on the "simple and versatile" notion. The last bench I built was based on Drew Langsner's Chairmaker's Bench, but incorporated a bunch of ideas from Robert Wearing's "Making Woodworking Aids and Devices". The idea was to have a decent iron quick release face vise mounted on the front face, but offset, and then to make simple fixtures that clamped into it to use for special purposes. This system worked really well, particularly for woodcarving. In the new shop, that bench will be raised about 6 inches and will be a woodcarving and small-parts shaping bench.
These are some of the things I think I've learned from working on my benches:
1) I want the bench against a wall. This has nothing really to do with the design of the bench, but I've found that I rarely use the back of the bench for anything, and not having tools hung up in front of me leads to an enormous amount of clutter.
2) No tool tray. I don't understand the motivation.
3) Yes, yes, yes to holdfasts!
4) It would be nice to have a twin-screw vise on the face, preferably removable. I had planned to make a fixture that would clamp to the bench to do accomplish this, but never got around to it. I still like that idea, (it could also be made to tilt back to facilitate cutting blind dovetails) but I also like the bench from Hancock Shaker Village, where the leg is tapped for a leg vise and the top is tapped for the screws of a twin screw - that essentially extends the concept of the versatile, transformable bench by making the vises themselves removable fixtures. I haven't decided which way to go on this yet.
5) The bench will be as long as the space allows. That basically means 8' in the new shop. That's 2' more than I have right now, and I'd go longer if I could. But life is what it is.
6) There has to be a way to hold wood in the way that a tail vise does, for figured or otherwise difficult wood. I have no desire to crawl on top of the bench or otherwise go through contortions to line up force arrows :-). Wedges and stops, or alternatively, a Wonder Dog seem like a good way to get this capability for when it's needed without the drawbacks of having this protuberance that's apt to sag and is always sticking out of the right end of the bench to work around. A carriage vise with a removable screw could also do the trick, but the Wonder Dog accomplishes the same thing more simply. Again, my prejudices may have been shaped by not having a good tail vise.
Re: Roubo Bench a year or so later
Michael Recchione
>Thanks, Chris. I'll buy the book anyway. :-) It occurs to me that you're one person who actually can "date" a lot of benches without marrying one. I'm looking forward to your book - kind of the "Memoirs of Casanova" for hand-tool woodworkers.
As a hobbyist who works wood sporadically now, there is no "usually" for me anymore. I'm likely to be doing a relief carving at one time, a wood spirit staff at another, making a bookcase or small table at another, etc. When I built my last bench (unfortunately, a small one), I went for complete versatility. For some people, that means a Rube Goldberg bench that has a gizmo for everything you could imagine doing attached to it all the time - 4 or 5 different vises, etc. I took the Robert Wearing approach. The bench had one vise and a bunch of fixtures that clamped into it to use for special purposes. This worked really well on a small bench, and I would never want to give that bench up. I had described it here, but it didn't generate much interest - very little "coolness factor". But incredibly functional. Just too small. Maybe there's a lesson here somewhere ...
Re: IMHO, its about tail vises, and best advice
ThomD
>Good post that all makes sense to me:
1) I want the bench against a wall. This has nothing really to do with the design of the bench, but I've found that I rarely use the back of the bench for anything, and not having tools hung up in front of me leads to an enormous amount of clutter.
> I have always had it against the wall except now and again. I wish I could have it out in the middle, or like a related Island as in the FK setup. But I have never kept that much clear space for long
2) No tool tray. I don't understand the motivation.
> I would never add one, but there are situations where they make sense. My current bench doesn't go all the way back to the wall because there is a foundation that protrudes. I sometimes think of adding a tool pocket to span the gap, but I don't bother and just live dangerously.
3) Yes, yes, yes to holdfasts!
4) It would be nice to have a twin-screw vise on the face, preferably removable. I had planned to make a fixture that would clamp to the bench to do accomplish this, but never got around to it. I still like that idea, (it could also be made to tilt back to facilitate cutting blind dovetails) but I also like the bench from Hancock Shaker Village, where the leg is tapped for a leg vise and the top is tapped for the screws of a twin screw - that essentially extends the concept of the versatile, transformable bench by making the vises themselves removable fixtures. I haven't decided which way to go on this yet.
> I like just about ever face vise I have ever used. I do somewhat subscribe to the idea that the only thing wrong with them is that they are attached to the face of benches. Some day I will have to make one of those pedestal mounted ones to see if that's true
5) The bench will be as long as the space allows. That basically means 8' in the new shop. That's 2' more than I have right now, and I'd go longer if I could. But life is what it is.
I have an 8 footer, just makes sense since that's my ceiling height. It would be better even if it was longer. Next time!
6) There has to be a way to hold wood in the way that a tail vise does, for figured or otherwise difficult wood. I have no desire to crawl on top of the bench or otherwise go through contortions to line up force arrows :-). Wedges and stops, or alternatively, a Wonder Dog seem like a good way to get this capability for when it's needed without the drawbacks of having this protuberance that's apt to sag and is always sticking out of the right end of the bench to work around. A carriage vise with a removable screw could also do the trick, but the Wonder Dog accomplishes the same thing more simply. Again, my prejudices may have been shaped by not having a good tail vise.
Tail vise does some other things well also, that was just one example. I think the only conceivable problem is if the bench is too short, but then that is necessary a lot of the time. I guess if I could have my troglodyte way, it would be to get more people into good screw vises, and less people into such mechanical planes. I hear a lot of cries of simplicity on benches, but convincing people to leave their training wheels, levers and adjusters, so far it's not easy. Give it ten years and everyone will be there, just because the skill level is rising so fast.
The great thing about simple benches is they are so fast an cheap to build and that certainly appeals a lot. One really needs a serious bench, in my opinion. The vises, etc... are just icing on the cake. SO the cool thing about Roubo, or Japanese structures are that they make simple sophisticated. I like that part too. Which reminds me, in a few months I will be back to leveling the world's ugliest bench at the summer place.
How about Chris' wagon wheel vise
Doug Littlejohn
>that he back installed into his ROubo bench (I think it was that bench). It looks quite intriguing to me and it fucntion, looks like it replaces a lot of what the tail vise does and is quite simple to boot.
What do you guys think of that idea??
Sherwood
Re: How about Chris' wagon wheel vise
Michael Recchione
>It's pretty cool - I saw one like it on a relief carving bench some years ago, and was going to make one for my own carving bench. But there's a little voice in the back of my head that keeps asking "How is this better than a Veritas Wonder Dog?" On the carving bench, I solved the problem with wedges and stops. Super easy, super cheap and they work very well.
So Chris...
James Watriss
>When is your bench building book supposed to land? And who gets autographed copies?
ThomD - A Picture?
Jeff Schmidt
>Thom,
Do you have a picture of your bench? I am all for versatility.
Jeff
I was thinking
Doug Littlejohn
>that it's an easier to build than a tailvise yet gives much of the same capability. Yes, a wonderdog has much the same capability, but it's not always on the bench nor could it drop out of the way.
I'm thinking of using it much like Chris did, instead of a tailvise. It will always be there ready, if I need someting similar but in a different place, then I whip out the WD.
I also like the angled leg vise idea that CHris has been playing with although I would put it on a Roubo type bench as I don't think I like the english bench all that much.
Gosh but these benches sure are fun, heck and I don't even have one yet !!!.
Doug