Veritas Large Front Vice

[Jacob]

the record vices are made with a (small) deliberate taper (top to bottom) to reduce the impact of racking in that direction but rely on the solid steel rods to prevent racking left-to-right. They do this quite successfully, but the jaws will still twist very slightly as the rods are not a perfect fit for the casting (else you would have trouble opening and closing it!).

In my experience the Veritas design is *much* less effective in this respect.

They will all distort under load. It's a question of making them sturdy enough (or slightly tapered etc) for this not to matter too much under normal conditions of use. Record are particularly good - you could hold a railway sleeper in one.

 

[bugbear]

I have also seen a number of grumbles about 'faulty' QR mechanisms but they have all been down to the same issue (nut clogged up with sawdust etc). Do these vices frequently break for other reasons? I am sure you could bend the rods, crack the castings, strip threads etc but surey you'd have to use a completely inapprorpriate amount of force to do so...

This may be a tedious maths/sampling issue; since Record vices are by far the commonest, any fault report is likely to concern a Record vice. It doesn't mean a large proportion of Record vices have faults, it means a large proportion of faults occur in Record vices.

BugBear

 

[woodbrains]

Hello,

I've had that pattern of vice for years, not the Veritas branded one, but obviously made in the same factory. I love them to bits; 2 shoulder vices and one made into a tail vice. I can't say I've had a problem with racking. I'm sure if I put something narrow at the extreme edge of the jaw and cranked the living daylights out if it, then I'm sure it would rack, the same as every other vice I've ever used. But used sensibly, I've not had a problem, and they grip extremely well. They also have (obvious in the OP's link photo) a larger space between one guide rod and the 28mm (huge!) thread, so that wood can be held vertically without any chance of racking what so ever! I would recommend these vices any time, they are great.

Thanks for the feedback. Did you add a slight slope (2°?) to the inside face of the moving jaw, and what was the result?

Hello,

No I didn't introduce a taper. I took pains to make the entire mating surfaces be just that. It will grip a strip of paper anywhere along it's faces.

Mike.

 

[Nomad]

the record vices are made with a (small) deliberate taper (top to bottom) to reduce the impact of racking in that direction but rely on the solid steel rods to prevent racking left-to-right. They do this quite successfully, but the jaws will still twist very slightly as the rods are not a perfect fit for the casting (else you would have trouble opening and closing it!).

In my experience the Veritas design is *much* less effective in this respect.

Do you mean the small Veritas, or the large one? While both follow the same basic pattern, they are clearly different in the details of the design. The large one has a rather more substantial casting for fixing to the underside of the bench, as well as guide collars that are inset into the fixed jaw, not to mention much more substantial guide rods, screw and moving casting.

Provided the it's fitted with sufficient accuracy to avoid binding, there is a potential payoff between maximum opening and racking due to the use of the collars - increasing the distance between the main mounting and the collars will reduce racking because the angular constraint on the guide rods gets smaller.

So far as I can see, racking in the large Veritas is down to the fit of the rods in the guides and collars, the amount of flex in the rods and castings, and whether the main mounting can move laterally under load once fixed to the underside of the bench.

 

[Nomad]

No I didn't introduce a taper. I took pains to make the entire mating surfaces be just that. It will grip a strip of paper anywhere along it's faces.

Cheers - good to know.

 

[nabs]

So far as I can see, racking in the large Veritas is down to the fit of the rods in the guides and collars, the amount of flex in the rods and castings, and whether the main mounting can move laterally under load once fixed to the underside of the bench.

yes I have the large one - tbh I am not sure what the cause of the racking (I have removed it from the bench, and demolished the bench for good measure!) . I am sure it was mounted solidly though.

Just to be clear, I do not think they are terrible vices, just that they are not as good as the Record. Not surprising really since Record completely nailed the design (bar the couple of aforementioned niggles) 100 years ago!

 

[Jake]

Can't help thinking that if you really needed it Jake's ingenious device would work just as well, or better, as two separate vices - you hold the piece with one then tighten the other if necessary

Probably mostly true for most things. It's nice to be able to close both with one hand while holding the piece in the other. It's also nice to be able to clamp anything up to 700/750 (or whatever it is, can't recall exactly) wide vertically when doing panel stuff whereas you'd only get the same effect +/- 200mm or so from your chosen spacing with just two separate vices.