Getting Schwarzed

A small batch of rosewood knobs in production for tail vises.

A few weeks ago we got Schwarzed. What is "getting Schwarzed"? It's when Popular Woodworking and Woodworking Magazine editor Christopher Schwarz decides to blog about a recent tool he's picked up, without of course notifying the manufacturer of that tool. In this case, it was a multiple whammy. The Benchcrafted Tail Vise went on sale last month on Black Friday, and Chris decided to blog about the sale (again, unbeknownst to us!). We got swamped with orders, and sold out of our existing stock within a few hours. Then within the space of a couple weeks Chris blogged about installing his own Benchcrafted Tail Vise in his Roubo bench no less than four times. Thanks Mr. Schwarz. And I don't mean that with any hint of sarcasm. Well, not entirely! :-) Since then we've been scrambling to get parts and materials ordered and delivered (that's a task in itself during the holidays and the nasty midwest weather this time of year) the steel milled and fabricated, the hardware assembled and the rosewood knobs turned. Our usual turnaround time for vises is 2-3 weeks. With the sale, the huge response from Chris' blog and the other delays that are common this time of year, amazingly we're only a couple weeks behind that goal. If things go as planned (do they ever?!) another batch of vises should be heading to those first Black Friday purchasers by the end of the week. In this case, the early bird gets the vise.

In case you missed Chris' review of the vise, check out his blog post. We couldn't be more pleased with his review.

We recently uploaded another glowing review of the tail vise from infill plane maker Ron Brese. You can read it here.

In addition, we've also uploaded a newly edited video to the vise page showcasing the function of the vise. Direct download here.