Bench Building

In the 19th and early 20th century, many vocational schools and commercial shops in France and its colonies were outfitted with Roubo-style benches and metal leg vice hardware. French hardware is typically made entirely of metal, whereas hardware from Britain and America usually features a T-shaped iron casting fitted with a sliding wooden handle. Benchcrafted designed theirs around the French model...

The Benchcrafted Crisscross completely transforms any leg vice into an effortless experience. Fully supporting the weight of the chop, the vice hardware, and its own weight, the Crisscross floats in and out on steel pins and bearing plates, giving a virtually weightless, friction-free action to the vice. The mechanism automatically adjusts through the range of your vice's capacity to any workpiece...

The Benchcrafted Crisscross completely transforms any leg vice into an effortless experience. Fully supporting the weight of the chop, the vice hardware, and its own weight, the Crisscross floats in and out on steel pins and bearing plates, giving a virtually weightless, friction-free action to the vice. The mechanism automatically adjusts through the range of your vice's capacity to any workpiece...

The Glide makes holding your work quick, easy, and pleasurable. It uses a clever combination of components to deliver incredible clamping force with minimal effort. Traditional leg vices use a sliding "tommy bar" to operate the vice. This style of handle offers one distinct advantage: lots of leverage. These guys have engineered the Glide to deliver rock-solid workholding without the need...

This Benchcrafted Split Top Roubo bench plan is based on Andre Roubo's bench from Plate 11 of L'Art du Menuisier, with the added capabilities of the Benchcrafted vices. Benchcrafted developed this plan so woodworkers could build a bench using the Benchcrafted Tail Vice and Glide Leg Vice without having to figure out all the details. Simply follow the measured drawings and instruction notes. The measured...

Clamping work to a bench surface between dogs is a very old technique. The historical record gives us examples as far back as the Roman era, but most woodworkers know the tail vice from the modern Scandanavian and German tradition. The oldest detailed drawings we have are from the early 16th century by German author Martin Löffelholz. The Benchcrafted Tail Vice uses a pair of either wooden or metal...

This vise has rugged, machined, double guide rods and a single-lead Acme screw. The large front vise is 10-1/2" × 21" overall with a 1-1/8" dia. screw, and 13" clamping capacity (less the thickness of your wooden jaws). The larger vise has an offset center screw to allow vertical clamping without skewing. Can be added to an existing bench or built into a new one. Mounting screws included. Made...

Using the same quick-release mechanism as our tail vise, our front vise has a simple on-off cam lever to engage or disengage the Acme-threaded screw, allowing it to apply up to 400lb of force in either clamping or spreading applications. The screw mechanism provides 12¼" of overall travel (less the thickness of your wooden jaw and bench apron). Tight body tolerances result in minimal jaw sag,...

This vice screw is for the L-shaped shoulder vise used on Scandinavian-style benches. 1-1/8" dia. screw with single-lead Acme threads. The threaded guide is mortised into the vise shoulder, while the end guide attaches to the vise jaw. 7-1/4" clamping capacity (less wooden shoulder thickness), 13" overall. Mounting screws included. Made in Canada. Patented.

This vise can be used for both types of tail vise - with or without a shoulder. It has guide plates 2" wide by 15" long. The maximum opening is 8" (less the thickness of your wooden jaws). The single-lead Acme screw is 7/8" in diameter. Made in Canada. Patented.

The Veritas Twin Screw Vice is the only non-racking full-width end vise on the market. You can clamp anything anywhere in the vise and the jaws stay parallel. The chain drive ensures parallelism and eliminates the racking common in other vises. It can be operated using either handle. Even better, a spring-loaded lock pin lets you disengage the chain for controlled jaw skewing needed to equalize...