Do You Need A Tail Vise?

Since the discussion about face vise location is dribbling over into this subject, I thought I’d formalize it with a couple short statements.  The start point is that I worked on my bench, with a tail vise for several years.  The more I used hand tools in my work, the less I used it.  I removed it.  I didn’t miss it.  And while I’m not a smart guy, I realized this was evidence that I didn’t need it.

I admit that it’s a wild assumption to think that if I don’t need something maybe you don’t either but I’ll leave that for you to evaluate.  In addition to personal experience I’ve looked around.  I suggest you do too.  You’ll find many photos and graphics of workbenches, used by cabinetmakers in the 18th and 19th Centuries, that don’t have tail vises.  There is a rich heritage of woodworkers using benches without tail vises.

Why talk about this at all?  Expense and complexity.  While one can make an argument that a tail vise gets in the way for some functions, the real reason to understand that they’re not necessary is that 1) realizing it means you don’t have to build/buy one and 2) learning to work without clamping everything down for every operation can improve and speed your work.

Replacing a tail vise

Let’s start by, again, quoting Chris Schwarz’s book on workbenchs.  “The Veritas Wonder Dog is a good substitute for an end vise.”   These are simply bench dogs with an adjustable top.  Used in conjunction with a solid dog, you can get the same clamping features of a wagon vise.  I don’t use these either but these sell for $38 if you want to clamp things to your bench and my point is that it doesn’t take much to replace the functionality of a tail vise.

Working without a tail vise

But there are virtues to getting away from clamping everything in place.  Mostly, people use tail vises to clamp a piece so they can work on the face of the board.  By using a vise you set the board in a single position, work on it, and if you need to change its position, you have to unlock and reorient the piece.

But if you’re planing a surface, you are much better off having planing stops that the board will push against as you plane.  The reason is that wood-grain is uncooperative.  By using dogs and planing stops the board isn’t clamped so it’s quick and easy to flip the board over, flip it end to end, and generally to reorient it any way that’s necessary to get the job done.

A similar paragraph could be written for when use of a chisel to work a board.  The end vise may seem necessary if you’ve come from a powertool world but it will just as often get in the way of a handtool user.  I urge you to look at how seasoned handtool workers work.  One example is Shannon Rogers, who runs the Handtool School. If you take his course you’ll see that his bench sports a beautiful Benchcraft tail vise and yet when he’s planing he’ll drop a dog in place and plane into it.  When he pares waste from blind dovetails he uses a bench dog to hold the piece.  He uses holdfasts regularly if he feels he needs to hold a piece in place.  And while he uses his face vise regularly in his lessons, he rarely uses the tail vise.  I’ve mentioned in the previous post that Bob Roziaeski of the Logan Cabinet Shoppe removed his tail vise from his old bench and never added one to his new one.

So are you saying you shouldn’t use a tail vise?

No, not really.  Vises are handy.  What I’m saying is that they’re not necessary and that they can often slow you down.  I see so many guys who are contemplating handtools and want to build a bench but what they see on the Internet is a lot of talk about vises.  What’s important about a bench is that it weigh a lot, have a thick top. It needs holes poked in the top for holdfasts and dogs.  What you need if you’re going to work with handtools are bench hooks, a couple holdfasts, and planing stops.  And to get those requires a lot less money than buying expensive vises.

Addendum:

Chris’s workbench book and his penchant to talk about workbenches at every opportunity have largely overshadowed an absolutely fabulous book on workbenches – Scott Landis’s The Workbench Book.  In it, a chapter begins with this photo of Ian Kirby working at his bench.  This chapter is invaluable as Ian talks about how much better, in his opinion, it is to work on a bench without vises.  In short, I may be speaking heresy, but I’m not alone (grin).

Cheers — Larry

larry@woodnbits.com

Face Vises: Left Or Right End Of Your Bench?

Because I’m a leftie, and because the face vise on my bench is on the left end, I get asked whether that causes me problems. This question comes from the common view that righties put their face vise on the left end while we lefties are supposed to need ours on the right.

If one consults the workbench bible…Chris Schwarz’s Workbench book, one finds Chris covering the subject with “Right-handers generally place the face vise on the left side of the bench; lefties put it on the right.” In short, Chris simply restates the common view.

But why are they put there? Chris goes into great detail about the “whys” of different kinds of vises, their virtues and drawbacks. Why no bold statements about why one places their face vise on one end or the other. I’ll tell you why.

Cuz it doesn’t make a whit of difference which end of the bench has your face vise. There is power in this statement and an understanding of why this might be, so don’t dismiss it as heresy.  I can’t speak for Chris but my guess is that he’d agree with that statement.

Face vises are used to do edge work. You use it to boards while jointing and edge, when shaping an edge or when you cut dovetails or tenons. Edgework: that’s what face vises are about. When you work on a board face, you don’t use a face vise.

So, whether you stand in front of the left or right end of your bench to cut a dovetail hardly matters. Whether you are looking left or right hardly matters when you’re shoving your #7 along a board edge.

So, is the common view untrue? Not exactly, but for a reason that doesn’t get attached to discussions of face vise location. What end of your bench has an end vise DOES matter, if you’re going to have one at all (a subject for another post). So, if you insist on having an end vise and are right-handed, you need it on the right end for a number of the reasons.  Left handed, you want it on the left end of the bench.  And thus, you put your face vise on the opposite end.

But let’s assume for the moment that you don’t need an end vise (you don’t in my opinion). In this case, you open up a lot of options when it comes to bench placement in your shop. Take a look at these benches, from the Hay shop. Notice the face vise location and the fact that the craftsmen at Williamsburg don’t seem to need end vises. Because of this, they can butt one end of the bench against a wall, not needing open space on both ends of the bench. If it would have been better to butt the left end into a wall, leaving the right end open, the face vise would need to be on the right end of the bench. Note, this has nothing to do with whether the cabinetmakers is left or right handed.

Here’s the best example I could find.  Bob Roziaeski is a hand-tool only woodworker who really knows his stuff.  On the left is a photo of his old bench.  On the right is his new bench.  Note that the face vise has shifted ends.  Bob also doesn’t use or need an end vise.  This is where the kewl kids say “I’m just sayin’.”

Cheers — Larry

larry@woodnbits.com