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Vices & Work Holding

Does Your Workbench Need A Vice?

Of the many types of woodworking vice that are available, few are more suited to the hand tool user than the traditional variants.

For the face vice give some thought to a leg vice, or the horizontal variant that’s often seen on English style benches.

Much of the work held down to the bench top was traditionally held without a tail vice though.
Alternatives such as working against a planing stop, &/ or using a holdfast are generally far more efficient and encourage better techniques with your hand planes.

Below you’ll find all of our posts detailing traditional vices, along with some of the traditional vice-less working methods that I use in my work.

Help Me Decide?!

Help Me Decide?!

In the new year I'll be building a workbench. That's not unusual except that this particular workbench will be forming part of a lengthy chapter within our book. 'The French Bench' (not the Roubo) is where the design will be based and I've come to a bit of a head...

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Oh So Tempting!

Oh So Tempting!

I am now fully committed to using a wooden screw in this workbench but oh... the temptation! I had Mr Arnold's beautiful old metal screw looking at me from across the workshop as I started to assemble the bench this morning, so I just had to poke it in! I'm very much...

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Fitting The Inset

Fitting The Inset

I've decided to write a full review on the Veritas Inset vice shortly since the idea was kindly recommended in a comment by Bill (Billy's Little Bench) last week. For now though I'd like to share a quick extra step that I take when I'm fitting one of these vices....

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New Vice

New Vice

This is to be our first vice to go in to the new (yet to be named) range of sensibly priced, well made hardware. It's a pinless leg vice with St Peter's cross mechanism. The steel screw has a nice rapid thread which is custom made to be coarser than normal to give a...

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When It Has To Be Pinned

When It Has To Be Pinned

With leg vices back in popular use there’s a lot of desire to go pin-less. If you’re sticking to the good old fashioned parallel guide and pin though then we say it should be done in style! For our Little John Workbenches we’ve had these tactile pins forged to fit...

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25% off all series throughout December!

 Use code  XMAS2023  at checkout.

Browse the projects here.

Related Posts:

Why Your Workbench Needs One Vice (Or Less)

A workbench is only a success if it can keep itself still and provide means to hold your work. A woodworking vice is not an essential feature of this. Typically though we can expect to see two vices on a workbench today. One will be installed on the front of the...

Choosing Timber – The Best Wood For Building A Workbench

If you're going to build yourself a chest of drawers, what wood would you build it out of? You'd build it out of whatever you fancy building it out of. What you like, what's to hand, what's cheapest. Who, bloody cares? It's the same when you're building a workbench....

Holdfasts – How Should You Be Using Them?

When I started building workbenches,  I pushed my way of working on to my customers. I wasn't aware I was doing this. But my cave's a small place, and I forget there's other people out there. Every workbench went out complete with sliding board jack, large planing...

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