Which vice do I need, and how do I fit one to a bench?

A vice is what converts a table into a workbench, because almost every hand operation gets better when the work is held still and both your hands are free. Which vice depends entirely on what you hold in it: timber wants long, flat, parallel jaws and a soft face, while metal wants short, hard, serrated jaws and an anvil.

What you'll need

• The vice
• Coach bolts, washers and nuts to suit the bench thickness
• Router or a chisel and a saw, to cut the recess
• Hardwood or ply for jaw liners
• Brace or drill with a long bit
• Spanner and a socket set

Step by step

1. Decide which face of the bench it goes on.A woodworking vice goes on the front edge, at the left-hand end for a right-handed user, so that a long board held in it can be supported along the bench rather than hanging in space. Getting this wrong is the most annoying possible mounting mistake.
2. Recess it into the underside.The vice body must be let into the underside of the benchtop so that the tops of the jaws finish level with the bench surface, or a whisker below it. A vice standing proud of the top stops a board lying flat and catches a plane on every stroke.
3. Cut the recess accurately.Mark round the vice body, then remove the waste with a router or by drilling and chiselling. Take it in stages and keep offering the vice up — you can always take more off, and a recess cut too deep leaves the jaws below the surface, which is nearly as bad as proud.
4. Bolt it through the top.Coach bolts or hex bolts right through the benchtop, with large washers under the nuts. A vice is loaded downwards and outwards in exactly the direction that pulls screws out of end grain, and screwed vices work loose — usually gradually, so you get used to a wobbly vice.
5. Fit wooden jaw liners to both jaws.Hardwood or good ply, screwed or bolted through the holes provided, finishing flush with or a little above the metal. They stop steel marking the work, they let you saw into the jaw without damage, and they are sacrificial and replaceable.
6. Set the liners level with the bench.The rear liner in particular should be flush with the benchtop, so a board clamped in the vice sits in the same plane as the bench surface. That is what lets you plane a long edge with the far end supported.
7. Mount an engineer's vice on top, over a leg.It bolts to the surface, so put it over a leg or a stretcher where the top is supported, and use bolts through with washers. Sited over an unsupported span, it flexes the top every time you use the hammer it exists for.
8. Pack the far end of the jaw.Clamping a board at one end of the jaw only makes the jaw rack — it grips at one point and the work slips. Put a scrap of the same thickness at the other end of the jaw and the whole jaw bears evenly. This one habit doubles the usefulness of any vice.
9. Grease the screw and the guide bars.A vice screw runs dry and stiff very quickly. Grease on the screw and a wipe of light oil on the guide bars, once a year, keeps it turning easily and stops rust seizing the quick release.

Tips

• A bench dog hole in the vice jaw and a row down the bench turns the vice into a long clamp for holding boards flat on the surface. It is the single most useful upgrade a bench can have.
• For holding metal in a woodworking vice occasionally, magnetic soft jaws for an engineer's vice are cheap, and a pair of plywood cauls does the same job.
• Do not use the vice handle as a lever to crush things. Vices are broken by over-tightening, usually at the point where the screw enters the casting.
• If your bench is too light to take a vice, the vice will move the bench. Fix the bench to the wall or add weight before adding the vice.

Common mistakes

• Screwing the vice to the underside of the bench — The load direction pulls the screws straight out of the timber. It works for a while and then the vice sags a few millimetres, which puts the jaws out of parallel and out of level with the bench.
• Mounting the jaws proud of the benchtop — Nothing can be laid flat across the bench past the vice, and a plane hits the jaw on every stroke. Recessing it into the underside is not an optional refinement.
• Working without jaw liners — Steel jaws dent everything and slip on smooth timber. Liners cost nothing, grip better and can be sawn into without consequence.
• Clamping at one end of the jaw with nothing at the other — The jaw racks, contact drops to a single point, and the work rotates out under any real force. A packing piece fixes it entirely.

Alternatives

• Quick-release woodworking vice: Long parallel jaws mounted under the front edge of the bench, with a lever that disengages the screw thread so the jaw slides freely. Faces are drilled for wooden liners. The right first vice for anyone working in timber, and the quick release genuinely earns its cost.
• Plain screw woodworking vice: Same thing without the quick release, so every adjustment is wound. Cheaper, simpler, nothing to go wrong, and noticeably slower in use. Fine if you use it occasionally.
• Engineer's bench vice: Bolts on top of the bench, with short, hard, serrated steel jaws and usually an anvil face. For metalwork, pipe and anything needing real crushing force. It marks timber badly unless soft jaws are fitted, and it stands proud of the bench so it obstructs long work.
• Clamp-on vice: Fixes to a bench edge with a G-clamp screw. Portable and cheap, and it moves under any serious load. Reasonable for light work and for a bench you cannot drill.
• Portable workbench clamping jaws: The jaws on a folding workbench are effectively a very wide, low-pressure vice. Excellent for holding awkward and large items, poor for anything needing real grip or precision.

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