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VISES

I jointed/planed the vise jaw stock to make sure they’re flat and square. Since the front vise would have round holes that I would drill later, I could go ahead and glue up the stock for the front vise jaw. For the end vise, I could not glue up the stock until I had cut the square dog holes. This was a little tricky, since the holes had to be cut so the dog leans about 3° facing the dogs in the bench surface. That was easy enough to do. To make the dogs lean, I used the dado sled again – this time with a shim to create the angle I needed. I used double-stick tape to attach a thin piece of plywood at the proper distance in front of the fence to create the 3° angle that I needed. The stop block was used for the first cut, and was removed for the other two cuts. I lined up the other two cuts using pencil marks on the sled.

The blade was raised up to equal the thickness of the dog for the first cut. However, because the dog will protrude into the other face, a shallow dado had to be made in the back face as well. I just lowered the blade down to be even with the shim to make that cut. Hopefully you can see what I mean with these pics:

Then I just marked the location of the brass dog face and chiseled it out:

So there you have it, square dogs on the bench and the end vise that lean toward each other.

The front vise is a quick-release vise. I installed it initially just like Kieth Rucker showed on his web site (except I didn’t need a spacer block). He described drilling the guide rod holes through the jaw using a bit that is the exact diameter as the guide rods. However, mine were a few thousandths oversized compared to my forstner bit, and it took some pounding to get the jaw on. When I finished, the quick-release was anything but “quick”… so I took it back apart and re-drilled those holes 1/8″ oversized. Now all is smooth as silk!

The twin-screw vise is just plain massive. It’s hard to appreciate in pictures just how big this thing is with a 27″ long x 7″ wide x 3″ thick jaw. It was a bit of a chore to put together, but I think it will be well worth the effort.

I made mine 18″ on center instead of the standard 16-7/8″ OC. This way I have more clearance between the screws – I can easily clamp up to a 16″ wide panel between the screws. Since I bought the standard kit (not the 24″ kit), the Veritas “vanity plate” cover won’t fit, so I just decided to make one (more on that later).

Fine tuning the twin-screw vise was a challenge. There is a nice looking, elaborate troubleshooting algorithm in the back of the Veritas instructions… but the fact that the instructions require an “elaborate troubleshooting algorithm” should tell you something…

I didn’t take a lot of pics of the process, since I was short on time and short on patience… vise installation is well documented anyway. Keith Rucker’s site shows the steps involved for the face vise (except I would over-size the guide rod holes like I mentioned above), and the Veritas instructions are thorough and easy to understand.

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