# taiwanese patternmakers vice/my bench is very nearly complete but I have a question?



## SCOTSMAN (Aug 1, 2008)

I just made ( almost finished) my long awaited woodworking bench and after buying the copy patternmakers vice from Taiwan which I am pleased with ( it holds just like, and is an exact copy of the small emmert)for a fraction of the price.
I fitted a nice wilton vice to the end as an end vice,which I bought new from the states and had shipped over a few years back and never yet used it, as I am As said long overdue with getting this bench designed and made. I am over the moon now it is finally nearing completion.I wondered if any was aware of the twin screw veritas vice and with so much readily available hardware around how difficult this would be to make at home yourself.It is basically two screws seperated by about a foot or so driven by a couple of cogs one to the end of each screw and a chain between then driven quite easily by one hand.I am sure this thread will have some fine comments as I personally think the many ,many devices some good others not worth a toss made by veritas and very highly priced IMHO they seem to add brass to everything and ask for ten times it's real value,again IMHO for what that's worth Please let me know.KIndest regards Alistair


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## rum (Apr 28, 2011)

I have one of the Veritas twin screws. It would be theoretically possible but difficult to make yourself, not sure if there are close enough parts you could jimmy up but I think it would be hard to make it work well. I do have a few things I'm not in love with about it and I'm not sure I'd put it on my next bench.

The good:
- its wide, its deep. You have a lot of holding room
- its pretty well made. Lots of heavy hunks of cast iron and steel so the main pieces aren't going anywhere.

The grumpy:
- You have to really torque down the set screws that keep the adjustable sprocket in place otherwise it slips (and gouges the shaft - no real harm there I suppose, but the slipping it annoying).
- Getting it aligned and setup is .. fussy. Its pretty exacting on the alignment of all of the parts so its worth spending a fair bit of quality time laying it out.
- its kind of slow. Not a problem for repeatedly clamping something like panels, but if you need to screw it in/out a long ways its annoying. Paired with a quick release vice for stuff you can fit in the narrower vice nicely its not to bad.

I've been eyeballing the patternmaker clone vise for a while, very tempting  It would make some things much easier.


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## PASs (Dec 1, 2009)

sounds like Veritas should have used a key instead of set screws. Can you disassemble it and sountersink recesses for the set screws to lock into?


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## justoneofme (Aug 11, 2011)

Hi Scotsman: I've just returned home from holidays and now playing catch-up with all the LJ news. Great to hear you've been working on your woodworking bench … and know how much you are looking forward to going beyond just admiring it, now that it's just about finished!!! Looking forward to your first project using your brand-new toy!


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