Good Fortune and Misfortune

Bill Lantry

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Hey, folks,

First, the misfortune: my oldest friend, with whom I worked daily for years, is retiring and heading for the coast. Dang.

Now, the good fortune: he's not taking his tools. In fact, he's leaving them to me! Hurrah!

Some of it's old iron: a planer that has to be seen to be believed. Not giant, probably 6", but they don't build them like that any more. A shaper (I've never had one). Band saw and drill press aren't as old as the planer, they're likely from the 70's. A lathe. A Bench.

A bench, A serious, maple, handcrafted bench. Craig didn't make the bench, he got it from another of our old friends, Ralph. Ralph used to be the CFO, so he could afford the real stuff. The top looks like 4" of hard maple. Seriously well made legs. Those are maple too. For a front vise, a 12" record, mortised in. Nice tail screw end vise. Whole thing's about seven feet long, and heavy as heck. Even after I took it apart, the top stuck way out the back of my truck... ;)

One problem: I'm not sure the tail vise was every actually installed. It came to me in pieces, except for the handle (I'll have to turn one). It's one of those L-shaped tail vises. Looks great, but I'll be darned if I can figure it out. So here's my question: does anyone have a picture of one, and can you explain to me how to install the durned thing?

Dark right now, so pics in the morning.

Best,

Bill
 
bill look online for tail vise instructions and you will find many choices.. and congrats on all your new tools but the bench sounds like the diamond of the bunch..
 
Congrats, but keep in mind you may be doing your friend a favor also. He is able to leave his tools to someone he knows will really appreciate and use them. That is my dilemma. Getting older I ponder this once and a while. When I go who do I want to have my tools. I want it to be someone that will put them to good use.
 
Pics of the bench, as promised:

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It's clear to me now the vises have never actually been attached. Not sure how to go about even knowing whether the tail vise is finished. Somehow the holes don't line up, and the wooden parts don't match the bench exactly. Off to take another pic, to show what I mean....
 
I think I've actually got one of those inside my bench somewhere!
But it's been so long ago since I made it, I'm not sure how much help I will be

:rofl:
 
I'm beginning to have serious doubts that Ralph actually made this bench. Something's fishy in the state of Denmark, but I ain't looking at the horse's teeth... ;)

This post will be about the tail vise. I'll have another for the front vise. So this is what I think it *should* eventually look like. Ignore the clamp and my hand, I'm just trying to so the piece seems to mostly fit, even though it's not glued together.



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And here's the glued together piece. I think this is where Ralph cursed, and gave up.

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In this one, you can see that the track is installed, the mortise drilled and chopped. Lots of work went into that. You can also see, if you look closely, the rail installed on the side of the bench. The rails and tracks go together perfectly, and the piece slides well on them.

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Another view, with the unattached, unglued piece next to it. Odd. Someone went to a lot of trouble, but the pieces don't quite match. I'm missing something.

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The screw is quite nicely made. Good, well cut threads. None of that cheap modern stuff for Ralph.

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The screw fits perfectly well, and turns easily.

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An inverse view. You can see the mortise is exactly cut, and that the piece fits well. Oddly, there's some space, when it's fitted, between the base of the L and the end of the bench, but we've all seen pictures of vises made like that. I guess. ;)

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There are no obvious identifying marks on the track or rail of the vise. Only this, on the handle:

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GBE. What could GBE possibly mean? Great Britain Engineering? Green Bay E...

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No way to know. I guess T! is the model number.

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So, anyway, I'm at a complete loss. If Ralph is the one who drilled to hole that receives the screw, he messed up, big time. It's as much as a quarter inch off. Also, if you look closely, you can see no-one has ever drilled the screw holes for screws to hold the piece to the tail end of the vise. So my best guess is that Ralph gave up when he couldn't thread the big screw in. What to do now?
 
OK, so, The Record Vise. I misspoke before: it's actually ten and a half inches, not twelve.

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Pretty sure Ralph never actually got it attached. I say this because I had so much trouble installing the lag screws, even though the holes had been drilled to full depth. They'd clearly never been fully screwed in. Also, the mortised part was just a tad too small to receive the face of the vise. But there was some blue paint on the wood. Best guess: he tried, but he didn't have a wooden mallet so he could wale on the thing into it pushed into place. Me, I've got a wooden mallet... ;)

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Installed, and fully extended. It's not perfectly fit, but it's close.



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Here's the other thing: there's a fair ton of grease on the rails. Nice, clean, fresh grease. No sawdust, no pieces of shavings. Never been wiped off. I'm not sure the thing has ever done any work.


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Did I mention the very cool bench dogs? Dang. But just two. Clearly steel.

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That's actually an oversize swiss army knife. It's a big vise.


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Noticed this tag at the end of the bench. There's no company name anywhere, and I've been underneath it. This is the only identifier.

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A closer view. Any guesses?

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Bill, those are definitely odd photos.

To me, what I see of the mechanism reminds me of a basic front vise, kind of like the one I bought from Lee Valley and put on my own bench.
It does not really look like the L-shape type of thing that I remember from pictures of Frank Klause or other European style benches.

Oh, and don't bother asking LVT for instructions. 10+ years ago when I built mine I noted the lack and asked them. At the time they said that they didn't actually have any for that (eastern european built-) vise, and referred me to Landis' "The Workbench Book", which I actually did own.

I am actually not that fond of this vise, and if I were to build another bench I'd consider either a wagon-type vise, or something else.

As I recall, and I see on my web page that I didn't write much details, part of the vise is glue on AFTER the vise was mounted.

Hope this helps, Bill.
...art
 
Noticed this tag at the end of the bench. There's no company name anywhere, and I've been underneath it. This is the only identifier.
...
A closer view. Any guesses?

Bill that resembles an inventory sticky tag that a moving company uses to label all the stuff before it goes onto the truck. I doubt it has anything to do with the bench itself.
 
Bill that resembles an inventory sticky tag that a moving company uses to label all the stuff before it goes onto the truck. I doubt it has anything to do with the bench itself.

Art,

Good thought. I bet you're right about that.

Meanwhile, I looked closely at the front vise again. Turns out it's a Record 53. Not that I can find anything like that online. Lots of references to a 52 1/2, but no 53s. This one doesn't have a pop up dog, oddly. It does say made in england, so I guess it's legit. Odd it doesn't say "Made in the U.K."
 
...An inverse view. You can see the mortise is exactly cut, and that the piece fits well. Oddly, there's some space, when it's fitted, between the base of the L and the end of the bench, but we've all seen pictures of vises made like that....

...hole that receives the screw, he messed up, big time. It's as much as a quarter inch off. Also, if you look closely, you can see no-one has ever drilled the screw holes for screws to hold the piece to the tail end of the vise. So my best guess is that Ralph gave up when he couldn't thread the big screw in. What to do now?

You could add a piece of softer wood to what will be the butting face of the vise. That way, the softer face could accept the inevitable dents and dings, but be easily replaced whenever needed. Or perhaps a hardwood piece, surfaced with leather?

As for the mis-drilled hole, you could turn a snug-fitting plug, glue it in, and then re-drill the hole. Once the screw is mounted, its 'flange' should cover the plug, so nobody will know it was ever messed up (except all of us, here, of course :D ).
 
Why do they do this? Why, why, why? Why the L shape?

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You can't clamp to it. Can you? Look at it, there's a bolt head in the way. When the vise is fully closed, the short end of the L just hangs out there, getting in the way of traffic.

And yet people go to a lot of trouble to do it. So there must be some point?
 
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Why do they do this? Why, why, why? Why the L shape?...
It does seem strange. I'm not much of a flat worker so I sure don't know benches. The only thing I can figure is that it's for stability to prevent racking. I won this Felder bench at SMC and it has a similar vise. On mine there is a stabilizer bar attached to the L just under the bolt head which seems to give the vise a wider and more stable footprint.
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The area that came padded and apparently intended for use in clamping is the end of the long leg of the L.
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Makes me wonder if the short leg of the L is intended for anything strenuous at all, since heavy clamping force there would put a lot of stress on the joint.
 
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Why do they do this? Why, why, why? Why the L shape?
You can't clamp to it. Can you? Look at it, there's a bolt head in the way. When the vise is fully closed, the short end of the L just hangs out there, getting in the way of traffic.

And yet people go to a lot of trouble to do it. So there must be some point?

Habit? Historical Reasons?

I thought that vises in the old days were L-shaped because of the mostly-wooden mechanism needing some bracing/reinforcement.

Besides that, everyone uses them for clamping, but my understanding is that the tail vise is only meant for stuff to be clamped between bench dogs.
 
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