Woodworking Vises: Face, Leg, Tail and Bench Vises

In a metalworking shop, a bench vise is an engineer’s or machinist’s vise: a cast body bolted on top of the bench, with hardened steel jaws. On a woodworking bench, the vises are built into the bench itself, with wooden faces and jaws at the level of the top. The two share a name, and much of what is sold as a “bench vise” is the first kind — so specifications for one do not carry over to the other.

A face vise, or front vise, sits at the front of the bench near one end. Its jaw moves out from the bench edge, and the work is clamped between the jaw and the front of the bench — on edge for planing an edge, upright for sawing a joint (see the plate above). The modern iron pattern has a cast body under the top, a screw and one or two guide rods.

• Opening. Veritas’s quick-release front vise gives 12-1/4 in of travel before subtracting its wooden jaw and the bench apron; Yost’s M10WW opens 14-7/8 in with 10.5 in jaws, its M7WW 8 in with 7 in jaws.
• Force. Veritas states up to 400 lb, clamping or spreading. Few makers publish a figure.
• Quick release. A lever disengages the screw so the jaw slides straight to the work, then re-engages it for the last turn — a cam lever on the Veritas, a rapid-action lever on the Yosts.
• Wooden faces. The iron jaws are lined with wood so they do not mark the work; IRWIN provides for fitting wooden cheeks, and Veritas sells leather liners. The faces should sit at or just below the top so a plane does not hit them.
• Toe-in. IRWIN makes its woodworkers’ vise jaws toe in toward the top, so they grip first at the top edge, where the work is.

A leg vise is a tall wooden chop in front of a bench leg, with a single screw near the top and a guide near the floor that keeps the chop roughly parallel. It holds work in the same place a face vise does, but its long chop reaches down the leg, so long boards held on edge are supported lower. Because there are no guide rods beside the screw, work can be held right against it; Benchcrafted says this virtually eliminates racking. The traditional guide is a wooden bar with a row of holes and a pin, reset for each thickness; Benchcrafted’s Crisscross mechanism replaces it with a crossed steel linkage that follows the chop by itself. Its Glide screw moves the chop 1/2 in per turn.

A tail vise sits at the right-hand end of a right-handed bench, in line with the row of dog holes. Its main job, as Benchcrafted puts it, is clamping between dogs: a dog in the vise pushes the board against a dog in the top, holding it flat for face planing. Benchcrafted’s moves a dog block along a fixed screw, with 12-1/4 in of travel; Veritas’s quick-release sliding tail vise travels 7-3/4 in and applies up to 300 lb; Lie-Nielsen’s tail vise opens 6–7 in. An end vise is a face-vise mechanism mounted across the end of the bench; with a dog in its jaw it does the same job.

Two screws, linked by a chain, move a wide jaw without letting it twist. Veritas’s twin-screw vise comes with screw centres up to 16-7/8 in or up to 24 in and opens 12 in; the chain keeps the jaws parallel wherever the work is clamped, and can be disengaged to skew the jaws for tapered work. Lie-Nielsen’s shoulder vise uses the same idea: two 1-1/8 in screws 12 in apart, and a jaw that opens 8 in. Wide boards can stand upright between the screws for sawing dovetails.

When a single-screw vise holds work at one end of its jaws, the other end of the jaw swings in, the jaw goes out of parallel, and the grip is lost. This is racking.

• Hold work near the screw where you can, or centred in the jaws.
• Fill the other end with an offcut of the same thickness when the work must sit at one end.
• Choose a design that resists it if you often hold work off-centre: a leg vise holds work beside its screw, and a twin-screw vise’s chain keeps both ends moving together.

Choosing one to buy is covered in how to choose a woodworking vise. A vise that holds a board firmly on edge is what planing an edge needs.