[OP]
In Memoriam
OK - another question. Assuming I go with the zero clearance screw idea of Wiley's, I got to wondering about mortising out the bottom of the bench and setting a strip of 1/2" UHMW plastic into it. As wide and long as needed to make a splipperier rub surface against the screws. Would this make the screw travel any smoother or would I just be wasting my time?
Use the fence Luke
Member
Doug I made the end vises for the twin screw 11 1/2" deep so I could gets lots of vertical support for larger panels. I set the screws 24" apart again to get maximum width for larger panels when building bigger carcass furniture like dressers. With the deeper jaws on the end there is absolutely no worry about the screws and how they interact with the under carriage of the bench.
If you can just make the end jaws deeper and quit worrying about the screw placement.
Good luck,
Bob
Member
Originally Posted by Doug Shepard
Doug,
I haven't chimed in on this thread because everybody else has given you great answers and suggestions. However, I thought I'd comment on your idea of using UHMW as a rub strip for your screws. I did that with my twin screw - zero clearance with the screws contacting a UHMW strip for their entire length and it has worked great. I have absolutely no jaw sag and the screws run very smoothly on the UHMW. Here's a photo.
I attached my rear jaw to my 4" thick end cap (I wish I had used the rear vise jaw as my end cap, but a design error prevented my from doing so). To reduce the distance from the top of the jaw to the screws, I let the vise nuts into the rear jaw (see above photo). This allowed some flexibility in placing the rear jaw. It was easy.
I absolutely agree with Wiley's suggestion that you go with a 1/8" taper, or perhaps even 5/32", for your 8" wide jaws. I followed LV's instructions and tapered mine 3/32". It's not enough. The top of the vise closes first, like it's supposed to, but I think I would get a tighter grasp at the top if I had a little more taper.
Hank
[OP]
In Memoriam
Duh - I'd been thinking about no gap between the screws and bottom of the bench (bench bottom as the rub-strip) for a while now, so when the UHMW idea popped up, I naturally thought I'd set that in flush with the bench bottom. I'm several weeks away from trying to mount that, but putting slots in the bottom was something easier done upside down before any of the legs or other hardware was attached, so figured I should ask about it now. Your picture just reminded me that I can stick with LV's more typical install and just surface mount the UHMW - which is less work. Thanks.
Member
Bob, beautiful bench! I have a vise mounting question. I have a record 52 1/2 vise I was going to use for my front vise on my bench I am designing in a similar way to yours. My front apron boards are 2x8 maple and padauk (still in rough form as I have not started on the bench yet). I was planning on making the front apron 6 to 7 inches from the front of the apron back to the maple bench top, but concerned about mounting the record vise as the apron will be about 7 inches wide, similar to yours. This will put the top of the vise's back jaw about 3 1/2" below the top of the bench. Is this too far below the bench top? Did you simply mount the vise below your apron or do you have your vise mounted through your apron? I have laminated stock (glued up red oak 1x4's) for my vise jaws to make an actual measurement 3 1/2" thick by 10 1/2" wide (or tall) and as long as I want, so my vise jaws are plenty strong and tall to do this. Are 18" wide jaws too wide for the record 52 1/2 vise? have a twin screw vise along with a tail vise I was going to put on the right end of my 36" wide bench. The tail vise will be about 6 1/4" wide (front to back) and the rest of the roughly 24" bench width will be the twin screw so I can use the entire bench width to clamp large items with. Does the twin screw work well for a tail vise or does it put too much strain on it? In reading, it seems the tail vise will hold up well for face planing over time, so decided to put both in and have the hardware for the Tail and Veritas Twin Screw Vises. I plan to make furniture, so dovetails and large glue ups are anticipated. I have a large handplane collection and plan a lot of handwork, but also use machines for the bulk of stock dimensioning.
I just need reassurance this is the right way to go as a 36"+ bench width seems wide, yet I do have room for it. I was thinking of using the bench on the back side of my table saw as an outfeed table when needed. Length will be 8'+ by the way. Table saw and right apron are 7' long. My other option would be to use the tail vise on the right side and put the twin screw on the left side of the bench and reduce the bench width to about 30 inches, while retaining the Record 52 1/2 for the front vise. I talked to Lie-Nielsen and they said to just use the record for the front vise instead of ordering front vise hardware as the Record would be better over the long hau. Lie Nielsen has always been great with their advice BTW over the 20 years I have done business with them. Your bench just seems so similar with the wide aprons and metal front and twin screw end vise. Thanks for your help as how to do this record vise installation on my wide apron is worrying me. Also concerned if the tail/twin vise configuration on the right is best as I have never had a bench before. Thanks so much.
Jim
Last edited by Jim Newman; 10-08-2007 at 1:08 PM.
Member
Have you had any problems making the jaws this deep? I'm ready to install my LV twin screw. I built in channels in preparation for this, but now I'm thinking why not just go under th bench and make the jaws deeper.
[OP]
In Memoriam
OK - Took me a bit longer to get to this point than I'd hoped but I plan on drilling the holes in the rear jaw tomorrow. I'm probably going to go with 9" tall jaws though for the moment I've left them overwide at around 9-1/2". I'm going to see what the cover height location looks like tomorrow and decide whether to trim it down to 9" or not. I ended up getting hold of 3/4" UHMW for the rub strip. It looks like I want the holes set heightwise so that the square nut edge is butted up against the bottom of the bench. I drilled a hole through a scrap piece and inserted the nut and vise screw and held the UHMW up against the screw. It's about 1/32 or 1/16 shy of being even with the edge of the nut. So I'm wondering if this little bit of play wouldn't be a good thing or whether I should plan on putting a thin shim behind the UHMW so that the screws are tight up against it??
Member
Doug,
Take another look at Hank Knight's installation in a post above. That's about a perfect installation IMO/IME. LV recommends play above the screws, but I just don't see it. First place, I didn't want the jaw sag. Second place, using the UHMW in a zero clearance mode is like installing bearings to protect a turning shaft. If you allow play, then the nut itself becomes the bearing, and now the shaft (with the vise jaw weight cantilevered out at the end of it) is cattywompus in the nut, which creates metal-on-metal grinding which doesn't have to happen.
What you can do though, to be practical about it, is just use trial fits of the UHMW along with shim versus no shim, and see what you think. You can get a perfect fit to suit yourself that way.
2 cents.
Wiley
Member
Good Evening Jim,
Sorry for my tardy reply to your questions but I never saw the post from 2 months ago. I visit the SMC forum daily; therefore, I would have replied within one day. But if you are still building your bench here are the answers to your questions:
FRONT VISE:
With regards to the front vise I used the Lee Valley 9" wide quick release vise. I estimated the height at which the metal vise would look best in the block of cherry and then measured the top of the metal vise below the bench top. I drilled holes through my front apron board at the exact height to match the vise height to the top of my apron and bench. I did use a spacer of ash to make the vise hardware fit perfectly under my bench top. My front vise board is a piece of 10/4 black cherry which measures 7" deep by 20" wide. I mortised in the metal vise to the solid piece of cherry and drilled the three holes in the cherry block to match up with the 3 holes in the front apron board. Becasue the cherry is relatively soft, I used a 4/4 hard maple piece laminated to the inner face to the front vise, which effectively gave me a 12/4 thick front vise. The actual metal vise is expoxied into the solid chunck of cherry, so the metal vise and cherry block move as one!! There is minimal racking when oerating the vise. I estimated that the front jaws could be approximately 2X wider than the metal jaws themselves, and for my bench this worked out fine. I do believe that the epoxy helped to make the entire front vise rigid - only using 2 large #14 screws to attach the metal vise to the block of cherry would not have achieved the desired result to have a solid front vise with minimal racking.
TWIN SCREW TAIL VISE:
I also enjoy making furniture Jim, but I have my benches on locking swivel castors so I can access all sides of the bench. My bench resides in the middle of my shop, not against the wall. The LV twin screw vise when properly setup is very smooth to operate, but I do use both handles to minimize strain on the vise thread system. My bench is also 36" wide but only 6 1/2 feet long - so we have similar dimensions.
The advantage of the widest distance between the twin screws is that I can drop a large panel in between the screws and when the vise jaw clamps the panel in place it NEVER moves. The twin screw vise operates so smoothly that I enjoy to use it as much as the front quick release vise. Again I will state that go as deep on the back vise jaws as you can, this extra depth gives more holding power when the panels are clamped in. My cherry end vise boards were 12" rough, so by the time I trued them up my jaws ended up 11 1/2" deep which is great for locking those panels in place. I reallt think that the maximum width between the screws AND the maximum depth of the rear jaws really does create a strong and versatile vise system for larger panel work or holding odd shaped pieces like a rocking chair glides or rockers. I used UHMLV low molecular plastic against the twin screw threads, and while this is necessary, it was a small pain to get the critical thickness of the plastic accurate to have the twin crew rotate easily.
Forsaking conventional wisdom, I built my bench 36.5" tall and I love the height!! The increased height eliminated the workbenches ability to work as an outfeed table. Many books said that 34" is the ideal workbench height, but for me at only 5' 9" tall, I should have probably gone with a shorter bench. My original intention was to make the bench taller and then cut it down to size - but I discovered that I like the taller size for many repetitve tasks like cutting dovetails and free hand router work.
I know you have more questions that I probably did not answer, but I don't mind communicating with you if you have more specific questions. Please feel free to PM me for more detailed answers.
I waited too long to build my bench, now I wonder how I built anything without a solid bench with strong vises and dogholes and ....
Bob in Calgary
[OP]
In Memoriam
Wiley (and Hank too)
Thanks again. Sorry for beating a dead horse. Scanning the earlier posts, I realized that question had already been asked and answered. Reading all the valuable input here is almost as complex as reading the actual LV instructions
So A-Shimming we will go.
Member
Doug,
Good luck wih your twin screw installation. Be sure to post pics when you're done.
Wiley,
Thanks for the compliment!
Hank
[OP]
In Memoriam
OK - got the rear jaw screw holes drilled and the steel dowel pin holes. The wall thickness between the two isn't all that thick but should be OK. But when I go to do the same on the front jaw, I need a 1/2" clearance hole instead of the 3/8" dowel pin hole. That's going to make for an extremely thin wall between those 2 holes. Haven't read any comments on this so I spoze it's nothing to worry about, but it sure has me wondering.
I also discovered that at least one of my threaded nut plates doesn't have the threaded post centered on the plate. Not a big deal for vise operation, but it does make a difference in mortising out for the plate. I had only pulled the one plate out and used it to knife the mortise outline on both sides. As I'm chiseling out the first one and testing to see if it fit I see a drastic mis-alignment. At first I figured I just really screwed something up, but after rotating it a few turns everything lined right up. Think I better get the 2nd nut plate out and re-knife the lines on the other hole just to be safe. Fortunately when I hogged out most of the waste with the DP and Forstner I stayed a bit back from the lines so I should be OK.
Member
I worried about the minimal clearance between the vise screw hole and the clearance hole for the steel pin too, but I went with the iunstructions. No problems.
Hank
[OP]
In Memoriam
There's not any issue with the nut plate post protruding past the face of the rear jaw when you mortise them in?
Member
You're still good because there's a matching hole in the front jaw inner face that the post can disappear into. There's even some theoretical benefit, because it means the screw has positive support that much further!
Wiley
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