Re the tail vise mechanism:
I did a lot of looking on the 'net for designs and found many, but all looked quite cumbersome. The tail vise assys that have the side steel slide all required at least a 4" side support for mounting in addition to the thickness required for a cover mounted on it and my bench top was two inches with 4" skirts. On one site (sorry, I don't remember which one), I saw a very distorted picture of one attributed to Tag Frid (sp?). It had one steel slide on the bottom and the notched edge of the jaw in the table edge. All the rest had wood slides to support the assembly as well as to prevent racking. One problem I saw stated was that wear caused problems, so I decided to use steel to do both.
The vise screw is the Lee Valley 17" acme screw that I bought a Klingspors. Sorry, I can't find the receipt but it is less than half the price of the side-steel-slide mounted type and is good quality. It is only the screw and nut. The steel is just 2" flat stock I bought a Tractor Farm supply. I cut, drilled and counter-sunk the holes. At present, I just have a couple of #8 screws in the holes to get the alignment right. After finish, I will install longer #10s to anchor it firmly. I also will sand and paint the steel stock.
So far, test runs have shown it to work well. I also have some 3" wide steel flat bar and can also use flat lumber (ply if necessary) to eliminate any future racking problems. I went with 3" thick jaws (probably overkill), and bedded the end of the screw in the front jaw, so I have about 11" of open jaw capacity.
I plan to disassemble to finish everything (I plan to coat all surfaces to minimize moisture intrusion), so I can get more pictures to clarify how I did it at that time if anyone has a specific request.
Summary: its my take at combining several designs and ideas posted. There sure are a lot of posts out there giving the positives of tail vises, but a dearth of details. If you are going with a 3" thick top with 6" skirts, the manufactured steel slide type may be the simplest way to go altho alignment of the parts is extremely critical. The way I made mine isn't easier, but works with a thinner top. The nut for the vise screw is 3"x3" (even if you get the shorter 14" version) tho, so the skirt or end piece will need to be that thick + the thickness of the cover panel. On mine, I used the cover panel to increase the rigidity, so it is 4/4 (finished at 7/8") white oak.
Bottom Line: I screwed up and designed the bench, bought the lumber and started building it before I bought the vise hardware. Had to adapt what I could get to the what I had. Next time (yeah, right! this one took 3 months so far like I'm gonna do it again!!:rolf
I will decide on the vise first and get the hardware and design the bench to accomodate it.
Go
PS: I have ALL the photos I have taken so far, some which aren't in my gallery, in uncropped, unedited .jpg format so if someone wants a CD of them, I will be glad to make one and send it. Personally I can get a lot more ideas from a picture than words when trying to put something like this together. Also, when it gets to aligning the holes for bedding the end of the screw, etc, I can give a couple "lessons learned" that won't really make a lot of sense until you get to that point.
