Is the Klausz-Frid-Scand Bench Dead?

[Lori Kleinberg]

A few years back Woodworkers Journal did a build/comparison of benches between Klausz and one of their other writers (forgot name).
I promised myself I would build that Klausz bench someday.
I haven't built it yet, but still have the plan, somewhere, and still hope to build it someday.

[Larry Williams]

To add a little:

There's a reason for multiple dog holes in more recent cabinetmaker bench tail vises. There is, or should, be differential spacing of the dog holes between the bench and vise. The dog holes in my bench are 5" apart and the dogs in the vise are about 6 5/8" apart. This means I never have to move the vise much more than about 1 5/8" when changing lengths of cabinet stock no matter what the length as long as it'll fit between the dogs. It's always less than 8 turns of the vise screw. I suspect a lot of people aren't aware of this or have worked on some of the new mass produced benches that have the same dog spacing in the vise or bench top. I often use the vise faces of the tail vise for all kinds of things and I've struggled with round bench dogs too many times to like them.

[Gary Curtis]

Where can I get a set of measured drawings for a Klausz type bench? And what is the downside of having a Wagon Vise as opposed to a Tail Vise?

And would it be it be difficult to make the front legs flush with the top edge?

[Frank Drew]

Gary,

I got measured drawings (by Tage Frid) from FineWoodworking years ago; I think they're still available. His bench and Klausz' are very much the same in all important respects, as far as I can see; as already mentioned, the Landis workbench book details the construction of the Klausz bench pretty well. When I made my bench, I left out the tool trough that both Frid and Klausz suggest, since I'd worked at a bench with one and opted for more benchtop surface vs the dubious benefits of the trough.

If I understand a wagon vise correctly, it's fine for clamping work on your benchtop between dogs, but not as useful as a tail vise when you want more workholding options since the slot is so small.

I'll restate my objections to traditional North Europe designs. Installing a Tail Vise looks intimidating. And people rant about Tail Vises being fragile and sagging.

And I get frustrated by the limited board capacity in a Front Vise.

I guess I built and installed my tail vise correctly because it's certainly not fragile and it's never sagged.

Can you expand on your thinking that a front vise limits the board capacity? Do you mean a shoulder vise (as on the Frid/Klausz benches)?

[David Keller NC]

I'll restate my objections to traditional North Europe designs. Installing a Tail Vise looks intimidating. And people rant about Tail Vises being fragile and sagging.

And I get frustrated by the limited board capacity in a Front Vise.

Gary - There's little need to get intimidated by installing a tail vise, at least a commercial, partly metal tail vise. Even the inexpensive "scandanavian" tail vises that consist of two plates mounted perpendicular to the plate holding the vise screw nut is fairly straightforward to build and install. Considerably easier still is the new Lee Valley quick-release tail vise, and if you want dirt-simple, you can install a standard "Jorgensen" or "Record" design in the end (tail) vise position.

It is true that designing and assembling an all-wood tail vise can get quite complicated, but a lot of that is getting close tolerances among many wooden parts to ensure smooth operation. I have a historical interest in these, so I've built a couple, but most folks nowadays choose the easier metallic versions.

About tail-vise sagging: I've certainly found this to be true with the all-wood tail vises that I've made, but not the metal versions. Lie-Nielsen's new one even has gib screws for compensating for this, although if you're flattening your bench on any sort of regular basis, you're going to be re-leveling everything anyway as you take off material.

[Larry Williams]

Gary,

I use my tail vise a lot more than my shoulder vise. The vise faces I most often use are those on the tail vise.

Like David, I did have trouble with the heavily cantilevered tail vise sagging on the first bench I built. Since then I built four more benches and modified the design to eliminate the sag. I moved the legs at the tail back under the vise, it's easy to do. Two of the benches I built are portable and have a tail vise on each side so two people can work on one bench.

I do find the Frid/Klausz shoulder vise gets in the way at times because it sticks out so far. If I was building one again, I just use something like the old Record quick release vise. The shoulder vise I have is great for supporting a variety of fixtures though.

Yes, you could move the legs to the edge but I'm not sure of why this is needed. If you do, it's important to remember to keep the stretcher back away from the tail vise so that things clamped in the jaws can go all the way to the floor. If you're looking to install a sliding deadman it wouldn't be a difficult modification. I find I don't need that. For supporting longer stock in the shoulder vise, I just clamp a 2 X 4 vertically in the tail vise. This 2 X 4 is the same length of the height of the bench and has holes drilled a couple inches apart in its edge. I insert a short dowel in the appropriate hole to support the end of longer stock.

I might use Klausz's plans as a guideline but there are a number of changes I'd recommend. One other important one is the shape of the small land inside the bench dog holes. If you leave that parallel to the bench top as both Klausz and Frid show debris collects there and makes it impossible to set dogs level to the top. just angling that land at about 45º lets you keep that land clean by just removing and reinserting the dog.

I'm attaching photos of one of our portable benches with 2 tail vises and my bigger bench that I've been working on for around 15 years.

[Chris Fournier]

If you take a look at Scott Landis' book check out Michael Fortunes hybrid Euro bench. Less muss and fuss than a classic Euro bench but that's a trade off too. I have built or helped build in my shop 6 of this style of bench and they are work horses.

In my opinion it is the projects that intimidate you that help you improve your woodworking. Intimidated, you take precautions, plan thoroughly and pay attention to processes. At the end of the journey you look down at something that you never thought you could build, yet now you can! Don't build a tail vise, build the process. You can dimension stock, hand cut joinery and assemble components already; in the right order you'll end up with a tail vise. Practicing new and difficult joinery on mule stock is a good idea.

[Gary Curtis]

Thanks all. First off, Amazon shows the publication date of the Landis book as 1998. Is that the latest and the greatest edition?

Tail vises. I believe I mentioned that I already have a Tail Vise and Front Vise from Lee Valley. Both were made in Eastern Europe. The Tail Vise has metal tracks. This is the old-style vise, not that new Veritas type.

Does anyone have a used set of bench plans they'd like to sell me? gary.curtis.s60@gmail.com

What you said about venturing into the unknown makes sense. Consider this. I'm starting a new shop from scratch. We have a phrase in aviation that describes me — 'task saturation'. Simply too many things to do stacked up! And some of them would really benefit from having a bench to work at. Have to build: 3 hanging wall tool cabinets, router table, sharpening bench, 20 feet of wall benches with lower shelves.

As far as building the legs out to the front edge in line with the top: in Architecture school they told us that 'broadening the base and lowering the center of gravity' lends stability.

[Matt Radtke]

Actually, Roubo shows two benches. One for joiners (carpenters) and one for cabinet makers. Unfortunately the joiners' bench with an added "wagon vise" is the one that Chris has popularized. I've worked on a number of the new iterations of the "Roubo bench" and feel the traditional tail vise of a cabinetmaker's bench is far superior and versatile. I've attached an image of Roubo's cabinetmaker's bench.

You've managed to point out what I was trying to say without the fighting words.

The Roubo bench is the perfect (imho) starting point. Though 'English' styles like Bob Rozaieski's and Harry's are just fine too. The big clamping cube, as others have said, is the biggest selling point to me.

Start there and add your vises per your requirements. There's nothing stopping you from slapping a shoulder and tail vise on a Roubo base. Or a twin screw. Or quick release.

[Pam Niedermayer]

Thanks all. First off, Amazon shows the publication date of the Landis book as 1998. Is that the latest and the greatest edition?...

The book's page displays all editions.

Pam

[Halgeir Wold]

Out of curiosity, does anybody here know how to pronounce "Tage Frid"? I can think of about six different ways it could go.

It's supposed to sound Tah-Geh Friid ( mute h's and a long i as the e in "be" ... )
Tage Frid is obviously a name of swedish origin - swedish and norwegian and closely related languages...

[Sean Hughto]

I love my Fortune/Nelson.

bench1.jpg

[Frank Drew]

Does anyone have a used set of bench plans they'd like to sell me? gary.curtis.s60@gmail.com

Gary, if I can actually put my hands on my Tage Frid plans I'll gladly send them to you, free of charge; I have no idea where they are, though, so here's a place to start looking for a variety of plans and workbench ideas:

http://www.finewoodworking.com/workbench

[Halgeir Wold]

Here's another one ...quite extensive
http://www3.telus.net/steve_n_shelly...nchwriteup.pdf

[Sean Miller]

Gorilla Glue has a set of plans for the Frank Klausz Workbench you can download for free.

http://www.gorillatough.com/Portals/...ch%20FINAL.pdf