great vice and great presentation Terry! At the moment, I can't afford one, but I am saving up. The workbench is the most important tool and the vice is the most important component of the workbench. Hopefully soon, I would order one from you.
I was dubious but bought one anyway. Its actually bloddy awsome. I've been using it for about 6 months. Super quality - compared to my old record vice its like getting out of a cart horse and getting into a ferrari.....
There should be a good center nut, then you can spin the vice open or shut with a drill driver. Yes the handle will flail, all you need is an extention for the drill. I have had the Tucker vise for a long time, and it has a quick adjust feature, but it is always a little jammed. It works perfectly in a dust free environment... It is worth wrestling with if one wanted to go from 0-12" (or whatever the max opening is. But it isn't worth it for the average move. There is no drill driver boss on the Tucker vise.
Given the vice opens 6 inches and you can wind it the full distance in about 12 seconds, I'm not sure it would be quicker to get the drill put a bit in and drill it close to where you want it and then final adjustment on the work piece. I use a vice every day at work and it is rare that I wind it open or shut the full distance. Anyway thanks for your thought but It is not a modification we would contemplate. Regards Terry
I have your tail vice, which I love. The lack of quick release wouldn't bother me: the limited opening I think would. Isn't a very small amount of rack a good thing (?), wood generally isn't completely square....
Two days ago I just took delivery of a new bench with this vice fitted and it looked beautiful. My daughter went into my shed last night and used it for the first time. When she unscrewed the vice the vice handle unscrewed instead of opening the vice. I found the handle just lying on top of the workbench.this morning. I screwed it back on but it just comes off instead of opening the vice when you use the handle. Can some one tell me how this is supposed to be attached such that this doesn't happen?
The handle needs to be locked against the brass nut using two spanners, one on the lock nut and one on the handle and using opposing force lock the two together. A small amount of medium strength thread lock on the handle thread will help prevent the handle unlocking from the brass nut. It is designed this way so you can remove the handle if it is damaged or you want to adjust the backlash in the thread movement. Regards HNT
I really like to own this vise. I wonder whether you could add a bench dog on top of the moving jaw for those who would like to use this vise as an end vise to an existing workbench.
Hello Snowwalker. Yes I have seen pictures of woodworkers that have done this to this vice. We prefer not to do it as part of the construction and let the vice owner decide where the dog should go , what size and how many. It is simply a matter of drilling the hole to accommodate the dog or dogs. Regards Terry
Hi Snowwalker, if you can drill an undersize hole and then ream it to size. if you don't have a reamer use a drill to size but use kero as a lubricant when drilling the hole. If your not confident send us an email and we may be able to do it for you before we send it. Regards terry
Hi Steve, We are looking into it, however their are issues due to the fact of stainless steel pins in the vice which create problems with anodising. The other issue is anodising creates a harder surface which may create issues with damaging your blades if you hit it. Cost is also another factor - out of curiosity, how much extra would you pay for it if it was anodised? Thanks, Terry
HNT Gordon I'm not sure if I'm following you Terry. Wouldn't you adjust dimentions of the aluminium to accommodate anodising prior to assembly with the stainless parts? As for pricing, I haven't looked at the asking price yet. Surely you would just maintain your profit margin. Ceracoat could be an option as well as it doesn't need to be ridiculously tough, just as attractive as your planes in my opinion.
Hi , thanks for your reply. I'm with you on the running into the vice with tools, but it was a concern put to us so that is why we made the comments about it. We will look into try ball handle as it could be a better option than the wheel and more economical, thanks for the idea. Regards Terry
Hi Steve, thanks for your comments. The issue with anodizing is simply we have to half make the vice, have it anodized and then fit the SS parts etc. It's only logistics but adds time and cost. We plan on getting one done and see how it works out time and money wise verses the benefits. Will put something out there once we have it done. Regards Terry
Hi It is most likely OK to do this, but to be sure It would probably depend on how big the hammer is. If you could send a picture of what you are doing with the hammer and adze I could give you a definite answer. Regards Terry
Hi Michael, Thanks for your comments. I will explain why we didn't consider a quick release for this vice and I would be very interested in how you use your front vice to show where the quick release system has given you some advantage or efficiency. If there is a really good reason we would try to incorporate it as long as it doesn't detract from the non racking design. In the design phase I looked at how I used front vices for the past 45 years of doing woodwork. For the first half I never even considered putting a flat board on top of the bench to plane it flat, I would put all the various width boards in my front vice and try to plane them flat. I got a result but with hindsight it was a poor result. So when I was using this method I was thrilled when I replaced my 6" opening record vice with two Dawn No 9 quick release vices which could open out to about 11 inches. I had both of them on the side of my bench so I could plane long boards by holding either end. My experience with this was the quick release had issues with slippage which was a right pain in the butt. Then one day I saw a cabinet maker lay his wide boards on top of his bench and plane them flat by pushing them into a stop. When I quizzed him about why he didn't use a front vice he said in very stern terms you cannot get the board flat enough for accurate cabinet making. The penny had dropped for me right there. I took his advice and all of a sudden my cabinet making got a whole lot easier and the quality of the furniture I was building became obvious. Once I adopted this approach the supposed advantages of my wide opening quick release vice went away. From then on my dawn vices were mainly used open out to 1 to 2 inches and occasionally 4 inches for large table legs and I didn't use the quick release much at all because of the small range I was using my front vice in. At this stage the racking of these vices for certain jobs was also very inefficient. So the first design criteria for the front vise was based on the premise that the woodworker will use the top of their bench to plane the flat side of boards, either using stops or a tail vise to hold the work piece. So there is an assumption that the front vice is not used for planing the flat side of a board but for all other tasks that can't be done in a tail vice or stop setup. For the past 23 years I have been making tools and I use a vice daily in my work and some days use the vice for 8 hours straight. This is where I learnt about the efficiencies of work holding. I had a cast iron pattern makers vice for this work and because of its design it required force to hold your work nicely and I had to continually adjust the cam lever so that the parts being made didn't slip. This vice eventually fatigued and the front cast jaw broke. We designed and made our own pattern makers vices out of high grade aluminium where work holding relied on precision rather than force by having the flat jaws coming together neatly with lots of surface area so very little force was required to hold the work piece. This changed the efficiency of work holding and my parts never slipped in use and the vice was easy to open and close. Over an 8 hour day of using a vice this has incredible cost savings. To finish a plane it gets put in and out of the vice on average 15 times so you can do the math if the work piece doesn't hold when you put it in the vice the first time. This vice design is based around efficiency of work holding using precision over force. This has made a huge difference to making tools by hand and has saved us lots of time. We believe this will be the same for people doing woodwork and cabinet making. To make a vice that is non racking requires a high level of accurate machining and that is why they are $550 and we can't produce them any cheaper. That being said if time is money to people you will save a significant amount of time/money when mounting this vice as compared to a cast iron vice. If you use your vice on a regular basis the time savings in the first ten years alone will be significant. We are experimenting with a cast wheel to move the vice in and out, which will speed up the movement a bit but it will add cost to the vice. From my experience with using these vices the small crank handle fitted is very efficient in any case. I hope that helps explain why these vices don't have a quick release.
HNT Gordon Thank you for thoughtful answer Gordon! I see your point. In my case I too don't use front vice to hold board flat - I use the bench and bench dogs. But even so I found that I'm using quick release almost always - for me it's just saving time. And I like the quick release system without separate trigger - the one where you release shaft by turning half or one turn backwards. I don't know - it's just I find myself always using quick release even for small work. But I see your point about this mechanism hurting precision. Anyway, thanks for finding time explaining your decisions - it sure shows you put a lot of thinking into it! Good luck with production!
I'm wondering if the usefulness of a quick release is related to the type of work you are doing. If you are always holding similar size pieces in the vice, I can see that there is little need for speed of adjustment a quick release would provide. However if you are moving quickly between different sized pieces, as I do regularly in my home shop, I think the benefit increases. Thank you for the explanation of your design decisions.
Hi Michael. Thanks for your feedback. Hopefully we will get a chance at a wood show to meet you, so you can try our vice to see the benefits we talked about. In any case we will continue to think about the quick release or an alternative to it. Regards Terry
Hi Peter. Thanks for your reply. It will always come down to the features you need most in a tool. Hopefully we will meet at some stage and you get a chance to try our vice. Regards Terry
Hello Sam, no one at this stage stocks them in the UK but we ship there regularly. Would be happy to send one. They are AU$ 550 but contact us on email ( planemaker@hntgordo.com.au) and we can give you a quote for shipping. Regards Terry
The salient point of this presentation is the admission that the vise relies upon plastic bushings to function. The presenter says that extensive testing was done and the bushings did not wear out during this time period. The key phrase is “during this time period.” How about over the next 50 years? My used Record vise made in the 1940s and bearing the scars of heavy use, still works perfectly and will continue to work perfectly for the next 80 years. Nothing with plastic bushings and rubber seals can do so. It looks nice, but I don’t suspect actual working artisans will buy it.
We offer an unconditional guarantee on our materials and workmanship on all the tools we make, if we were not confident this vice will last a life time we would not offer that. If you use a vice on a regular basis, as we do, this vice will pay for itself in a very short time because of the non-racking design. I can only suggest you do some research on UHMWPE which is what the bushes are made of, as your comments are just a guess. This plastic is used in many industrial applications today. In any case, we are offering a non racking option for a woodworking vice, but if people want to use a vice that racks then that is their choice. IMHO our design will set the future standard for woodworking vices.
I agree with your position on planing boards on the bench top. I still find many other uses for my vises that require frequent opening from wide to narrow and that eats up time. Since your design requires less torque for good clamping another approach to reduce opening/closing time is to use a dual lead or triple lead screw. You may call it by some other name, but one turn of a dual lead screw would move the chop by twice the amount of a single lead screw thus reducing the time for opening/closing. They offer less torque than normal screws, but you need less torque. Yes, these screws would be more costly than a conventional screw, but you are already at a price point where you want to offer as many good features as you can get. Paul
Hi Paul. Thanks for your comments and well thought out. The idea about the 2 start thread certainly has merit and created some banter in the lunch room today. We are going to look into getting hold of a 2 start thread and try it out if we can. Will post again if we can come up with a good option. Regards Terry
Hi Scott, if you can make a vice as precise and robust as this vice for less than $760 please let me know and we will sell them for you. Happy tool making.
Looks a beauty mate, well designed and built to last a few centuries of day to day use. Saving my pennies.
great vice and great presentation Terry! At the moment, I can't afford one, but I am saving up. The workbench is the most important tool and the vice is the most important component of the workbench. Hopefully soon, I would order one from you.
I have one of these vices. It's outstanding in all respects and i use it all the time.
Thank you for the feedback, great to hear you are enjoying it!
I was dubious but bought one anyway. Its actually bloddy awsome. I've been using it for about 6 months. Super quality - compared to my old record vice its like getting out of a cart horse and getting into a ferrari.....
Thanks for the feedback Jaime :) great to hear you are enjoying it!
I got one and its bloody brilliant No quick release required
i guess I am kinda off topic but does anyone know of a good website to stream new movies online?
@Kellen Kye I would suggest flixzone. Just search on google for it :)
Very nice. Wouldn’t expect anything less from HNT.
There should be a good center nut, then you can spin the vice open or shut with a drill driver. Yes the handle will flail, all you need is an extention for the drill. I have had the Tucker vise for a long time, and it has a quick adjust feature, but it is always a little jammed. It works perfectly in a dust free environment... It is worth wrestling with if one wanted to go from 0-12" (or whatever the max opening is. But it isn't worth it for the average move. There is no drill driver boss on the Tucker vise.
Given the vice opens 6 inches and you can wind it the full distance in about 12 seconds, I'm not sure it would be quicker to get the drill put a bit in and drill it close to where you want it and then final adjustment on the work piece. I use a vice every day at work and it is rare that I wind it open or shut the full distance. Anyway thanks for your thought but It is not a modification we would contemplate. Regards Terry
Great vise, wonder if it would be possible to make a decent low-cost version of this.
I want one! Thanks for the video!
Too rich for my blood but congrats mate, I'm glad there's a market for unique tools such as this.
I have your tail vice, which I love.
The lack of quick release wouldn't bother me: the limited opening I think would.
Isn't a very small amount of rack a good thing (?), wood generally isn't completely square....
Two days ago I just took delivery of a new bench with this vice fitted and it looked beautiful. My daughter went into my shed last night and used it for the first time. When she unscrewed the vice the vice handle unscrewed instead of opening the vice. I found the handle just lying on top of the workbench.this morning. I screwed it back on but it just comes off instead of opening the vice when you use the handle. Can some one tell me how this is supposed to be attached such that this doesn't happen?
The handle needs to be locked against the brass nut using two spanners, one on the lock nut and one on the handle and using opposing force lock the two together. A small amount of medium strength thread lock on the handle thread will help prevent the handle unlocking from the brass nut. It is designed this way so you can remove the handle if it is damaged or you want to adjust the backlash in the thread movement. Regards HNT
@@hntgordonco.2514 Many thanks That seems to have done the trick!
I really like to own this vise. I wonder whether you could add a bench dog on top of the moving jaw for those who would like to use this vise as an end vise to an existing workbench.
Hello Snowwalker. Yes I have seen pictures of woodworkers that have done this to this vice. We prefer not to do it as part of the construction and let the vice owner decide where the dog should go , what size and how many. It is simply a matter of drilling the hole to accommodate the dog or dogs. Regards Terry
Thank you Terry! I guess it would be easy to drill a hole. I just have this phobia of trying to modify a nice brand new tool :) but I will try.
Hi Snowwalker, if you can drill an undersize hole and then ream it to size. if you don't have a reamer use a drill to size but use kero as a lubricant when drilling the hole. If your not confident send us an email and we may be able to do it for you before we send it. Regards terry
Thanks Terry, I will do that for sure. I am completing my bench now and will be in touch!
Looks very nice. Will the production vices be anodised?
Hi Steve,
We are looking into it, however their are issues due to the fact of stainless steel pins in the vice which create problems with anodising. The other issue is anodising creates a harder surface which may create issues with damaging your blades if you hit it. Cost is also another factor - out of curiosity, how much extra would you pay for it if it was anodised?
Thanks,
Terry
HNT Gordon I'm not sure if I'm following you Terry. Wouldn't you adjust dimentions of the aluminium to accommodate anodising prior to assembly with the stainless parts? As for pricing, I haven't looked at the asking price yet. Surely you would just maintain your profit margin. Ceracoat could be an option as well as it doesn't need to be ridiculously tough, just as attractive as your planes in my opinion.
Hi , thanks for your reply. I'm with you on the running into the vice with tools, but it was a concern put to us so that is why we made the comments about it. We will look into try ball handle as it could be a better option than the wheel and more economical, thanks for the idea. Regards Terry
Hi Steve, thanks for your comments. The issue with anodizing is simply we have to half make the vice, have it anodized and then fit the SS parts etc. It's only logistics but adds time and cost. We plan on getting one done and see how it works out time and money wise verses the benefits. Will put something out there once we have it done. Regards Terry
Can you hammer on it.. i work with adze and mallet
Hi It is most likely OK to do this, but to be sure It would probably depend on how big the hammer is. If you could send a picture of what you are doing with the hammer and adze I could give you a definite answer. Regards Terry
Nice, but why no quick release?
Hi Michael,
Thanks for your comments. I will explain why we didn't consider a quick release for this vice and I would be very interested in how you use your front vice to show where the quick release system has given you some advantage or efficiency. If there is a really good reason we would try to incorporate it as long as it doesn't detract from the non racking design.
In the design phase I looked at how I used front vices for the past 45 years of doing woodwork. For the first half I never even considered putting a flat board on top of the bench to plane it flat, I would put all the various width boards in my front vice and try to plane them flat. I got a result but with hindsight it was a poor result. So when I was using this method I was thrilled when I replaced my 6" opening record vice with two Dawn No 9 quick release vices which could open out to about 11 inches. I had both of them on the side of my bench so I could plane long boards by holding either end. My experience with this was the quick release had issues with slippage which was a right pain in the butt. Then one day I saw a cabinet maker lay his wide boards on top of his bench and plane them flat by pushing them into a stop. When I quizzed him about why he didn't use a front vice he said in very stern terms you cannot get the board flat enough for accurate cabinet making. The penny had dropped for me right there. I took his advice and all of a sudden my cabinet making got a whole lot easier and the quality of the furniture I was building became obvious. Once I adopted this approach the supposed advantages of my wide opening quick release vice went away. From then on my dawn vices were mainly used open out to 1 to 2 inches and occasionally 4 inches for large table legs and I didn't use the quick release much at all because of the small range I was using my front vice in. At this stage the racking of these vices for certain jobs was also very inefficient.
So the first design criteria for the front vise was based on the premise that the woodworker will use the top of their bench to plane the flat side of boards, either using stops or a tail vise to hold the work piece. So there is an assumption that the front vice is not used for planing the flat side of a board but for all other tasks that can't be done in a tail vice or stop setup.
For the past 23 years I have been making tools and I use a vice daily in my work and some days use the vice for 8 hours straight. This is where I learnt about the efficiencies of work holding. I had a cast iron pattern makers vice for this work and because of its design it required force to hold your work nicely and I had to continually adjust the cam lever so that the parts being made didn't slip. This vice eventually fatigued and the front cast jaw broke. We designed and made our own pattern makers vices out of high grade aluminium where work holding relied on precision rather than force by having the flat jaws coming together neatly with lots of surface area so very little force was required to hold the work piece. This changed the efficiency of work holding and my parts never slipped in use and the vice was easy to open and close. Over an 8 hour day of using a vice this has incredible cost savings. To finish a plane it gets put in and out of the vice on average 15 times so you can do the math if the work piece doesn't hold when you put it in the vice the first time.
This vice design is based around efficiency of work holding using precision over force. This has made a huge difference to making tools by hand and has saved us lots of time. We believe this will be the same for people doing woodwork and cabinet making. To make a vice that is non racking requires a high level of accurate machining and that is why they are $550 and we can't produce them any cheaper. That being said if time is money to people you will save a significant amount of time/money when mounting this vice as compared to a cast iron vice. If you use your vice on a regular basis the time savings in the first ten years alone will be significant.
We are experimenting with a cast wheel to move the vice in and out, which will speed up the movement a bit but it will add cost to the vice. From my experience with using these vices the small crank handle fitted is very efficient in any case.
I hope that helps explain why these vices don't have a quick release.
HNT Gordon Thank you for thoughtful answer Gordon! I see your point. In my case I too don't use front vice to hold board flat - I use the bench and bench dogs. But even so I found that I'm using quick release almost always - for me it's just saving time. And I like the quick release system without separate trigger - the one where you release shaft by turning half or one turn backwards. I don't know - it's just I find myself always using quick release even for small work. But I see your point about this mechanism hurting precision. Anyway, thanks for finding time explaining your decisions - it sure shows you put a lot of thinking into it! Good luck with production!
I'm wondering if the usefulness of a quick release is related to the type of work you are doing. If you are always holding similar size pieces in the vice, I can see that there is little need for speed of adjustment a quick release would provide. However if you are moving quickly between different sized pieces, as I do regularly in my home shop, I think the benefit increases.
Thank you for the explanation of your design decisions.
Hi Michael. Thanks for your feedback. Hopefully we will get a chance at a wood show to meet you, so you can try our vice to see the benefits we talked about. In any case we will continue to think about the quick release or an alternative to it. Regards Terry
Hi Peter. Thanks for your reply. It will always come down to the features you need most in a tool. Hopefully we will meet at some stage and you get a chance to try our vice. Regards Terry
How much and can you get it in England please thanks
Hello Sam, no one at this stage stocks them in the UK but we ship there regularly. Would be happy to send one. They are AU$ 550 but contact us on email ( planemaker@hntgordo.com.au) and we can give you a quote for shipping. Regards Terry
The salient point of this presentation is the admission that the vise relies upon plastic bushings to function. The presenter says that extensive testing was done and the bushings did not wear out during this time period. The key phrase is “during this time period.” How about over the next 50 years? My used Record vise made in the 1940s and bearing the scars of heavy use, still works perfectly and will continue to work perfectly for the next 80 years. Nothing with plastic bushings and rubber seals can do so. It looks nice, but I don’t suspect actual working artisans will buy it.
We offer an unconditional guarantee on our materials and workmanship on all the tools we make, if we were not confident this vice will last a life time we would not offer that. If you use a vice on a regular basis, as we do, this vice will pay for itself in a very short time because of the non-racking design. I can only suggest you do some research on UHMWPE which is what the bushes are made of, as your comments are just a guess. This plastic is used in many industrial applications today. In any case, we are offering a non racking option for a woodworking vice, but if people want to use a vice that racks then that is their choice. IMHO our design will set the future standard for woodworking vices.
I agree with Michael Logutov, very nice but at the price, no quick release is a killer.
Hi Peter, Please read reply to Michael as it explains why we don't use quick release - Thanks
Impressive design, though the lack of a quick release tempers my enthusiasm.
Please read reply to Michael Logutov as it explains why we don't use quick release - Thanks
I agree with your position on planing boards on the bench top. I still find many other uses for my vises that require frequent opening from wide to narrow and that eats up time. Since your design requires less torque for good clamping another approach to reduce opening/closing time is to use a dual lead or triple lead screw. You may call it by some other name, but one turn of a dual lead screw would move the chop by twice the amount of a single lead screw thus reducing the time for opening/closing. They offer less torque than normal screws, but you need less torque. Yes, these screws would be more costly than a conventional screw,
but you are already at a price point where you want to offer as many good features as you can get.
Paul
Hi Paul. Thanks for your comments and well thought out. The idea about the 2 start thread certainly has merit and created some banter in the lunch room today. We are going to look into getting hold of a 2 start thread and try it out if we can. Will post again if we can come up with a good option. Regards Terry
For $760 I’ll pass and make something more robust and versatile. Aluminium vise = toy.
Hi Scott, if you can make a vice as precise and robust as this vice for less than $760 please let me know and we will sell them for you. Happy tool making.
@@terrygordon7053 Okay, let me know your contact details and we can discuss distribution and percentages