Which Total Vise products to go with?

[Ian Davlin The Looth Group]

Lot of questions there. I have not used the #10, so I can not speak to it, but Doug has said it is a little on the heavy side, which might not be great for your back. One of the main selling points is modularity, which would take a hit if it was a pain to move the vises around.

I personally would start with the stand, the #5 and a cross over mini. For my work flow I am either in the #5, grabbing the guitar by the neck, or in the PWS if I need the neck free for things like fretting. The number #5 is super light weight and if I need to move the guitar to the bench, I simply move the vise with the guitar still clamped in it. It is super slick.

[Doug Proper Guitar Specialist]

Hi Robert,

I’ll try to offer as much advise as I can. I’m a little biased as you can imagine but I’ll try to do my best to be impartial.

I don’t know based on your question whether you do more building or repairing – so I don’t know which to address. We are a full service repair and restoration shop – so I kinda see things from that perspective.

Firstly – I think you probably expect this – but I would recommend the Proper Guitar Workstation. To me it is the ultimate guitar holder. It allows me to position a guitar in any position for virtually any repair I can imagine. Furthermore, as to your desire to work whail standing erect? I have barely bent over in almost a year – lol – To be honest – and this isn’t a sales pitch – I actually don’t get any $$ when someone buys a workstation – I hardly use anything else but the workstation any more. I use it in conjunction with the Crossover Mini if i want the guitar to tilt and spin (if you are doing structural repairs, it’s a must have). If I am doing fretwork, it’s typically in the workstation without the Crossover Mini.

A word about the Crossover mini – I helped design that tool – and it is , in my opinion, an indispensable tool – it will allow just about anything in your shop – vises, jigs, fixtures, whatever – to tilt and spin on any axis, 360 degrees. Once you have experienced that – there’s no going back.

The workstation and the Mini have changed the way I work – I won’t go on – but if I were designing my shop today, a year after the workstation was introduced, I would barely have any benches anymore. It would be all pedestals and workstations with rolling carts to use as tables to hold whatever tools I am using.

Enough of the workstation – I could go on for another 30 paragraphs – but I won’t.

The Pedestal is the ultimate in stability and adjustability. I think it is the best pedestal on the market. However – I will say this. You have to bolt it to the floor. When bolted to the floor it is a solid as a rock! If it is not bolted to the floor – even with the extensions – there will be a fair amount of deflection and wiggle. While it won’t tip over – there’s enough play there that I couldn’t work with it if it were not bolted down – that however, would go for any pedestal. Others have come up with creative ways for avoiding the bolts (bolting it to some other heavy base etc.) , but for my purposes – I prefer it bolted to the floor.

As to the vises themselves – the #7 is the most versatile in my opinion, it’ll grab a neck like the #5 or open wide enough for a body if you are doing neck resetting or body work

The #5 is the lightest and closest in functionality to the SM Big Red Vise (which I regard as useful as a boat anchor in a guitar shop). The #5 is nice an light but limited in t’s use unless you use it with the Crossover Mini – then it’s usefulness in positioning is multiplied exponentially,

The #10 is a solid vise – it’s a big sucker. Recent modifications he’s made to the 310 would make me hesitate to put that in my arsenal. It’s a great vise – don’t get me wrong. It has a front jaw that is stationary and a back jaw that swivels, like a traditional patternmaker’s vise. He recently changed the back jaw to limit the degree that it swivels – for that reason I think it has severely limited it’s usefulness (I told him as much – but it’s his company he can do with it as he pleases).

In any case – whichever vise you go with – and as I typed all of that – I still come back to the PGW – and to be honest – I actually rarely even use any of my other vises anymore if I’m using them to hold a guitar. I do use some vises while holding other pieces of work (parts, bridges, wood, etc.

regardless of which way you go – you are going to want to get at least one quick docking station – the ability to move around your shop and have multiple places to dock, not just your vises and workstation – but to free up bench space when you don’t need a vise – is priceless.

I’m worried that all of this probably just added to the confusion – I think it all boils down to what you are doing and how you want to work.

<font face=”inherit” style=”font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; color: var(–bb-body-text-color);”>As a starting place – and this is just my opinion – I would </font>recommend<font face=”inherit” style=”font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; color: var(–bb-body-text-color);”> starting with:</font>

– The Proper Guitar Workstation (complete package with the Quickdock and Crossover Mini

– The PGW expansion Package – if you want to do things like holding a body without a neck, neck resetting, string tension simulation and so forth

– A telescoping floor pedestal (If you can commit to bolting it to the floor

– A parrot vise plate – to bring your parrot vise into the Total Vise System – you actually have yet to experience how useful your parrot vise can be until you can spin it 360 degrees on EVERY axis

I would then stop there – you can always go back and buy some more stuff later if you want. My advice would be to then familiarize yourself with the system – get used to the modularity of it and the flexibility of it – having it in your shop will begin to let you see the possibilities.

If you have any more questions – feel free to ask them here – otherwise you can always reach out to me directly, here or through IG.

I hope this helped more than it didn’t ;0)

[Paul M]

Doug what is the tubing you use for making other jigs for the Total Vice?

[Jonathan Stewart JM Stewart Guitars]

This is great info here Doug.

My shop is mostly repairs because they pay bills right now, but I love doing the more in-depth repairs like neck resets and restorations on vintage guitars, but mostly, I want to be building.

That being said, I want to move away from my benches and into a Proper workstation. I see you suggest the complete DPW package, which includes the crossover and mini docking station. Ill probably buy a pedestal, bolt it to the floor, and make new cabinets for tool storage and such. Can you link to the DPW expansion package? I don’t see it on the Totalvise website

[Nate Wood Stahman Guitars]

I’m pretty in line with Doug’s feelings here.

That being said, Doug and I feel differently about the Stewmac style vise. I love those things, minus the color, so I bought the dark green Wood River version. That thing, mounted in a Crossover Mini, can do insane stuff!

Really though, with the Proper Workstation, the expansion package, a Crossover Mini, at least one docking station, and a little creativity, and you’re more than set. The modularity (did I just make up a word or is that real?) of the Proper Workstation is unmatched. It can do ANYTHING.

I have a swing-out pedestal in my shop, and I like it. The floor in my shop is horribly fractured right where I’d want to bolt a freestanding pedestal, so I’ve just let that idea go for now.

[Robert Owens]

Wow! Thanks very much to both of you, Doug and Nate, for your detailed advice! I will give all of that some deep thought, and may be back with some final questions before placing an order.

For now, a few responses…

First of all, in answer to your question, Doug, about what kind of work I’m doing, I am starting on my fourth build…first was a classical, from scratch, using John Bogdanovich’s book & DVDs (turned out great!), and then a StewMac dreadnought (also turned out great), currently finishing up a StewMac OOO kit (trying to get some familiarity with various shapes/sizes), and also currently starting on a from-scratch OO for a family member (my first “commission”). I hope to do mostly building throughout retirement, but I also enjoy doing small repairs and restorations for friends and family, or when I find something cheap in an antique store needing a little love (I’ve done a vintage uke, a couple of parlors, a resonator, and a Weissenborn…and even sold one one restored parlor on Reverb).

Back to the Total Vise equipment…I can certainly see how the PGW, esp. with the pedestal, would give me infinite options for spinning, swiveling, tilting, raising up & down, etc., which would be awesome for my back! The one thing that I was missing with the PGW at first was how to hold a guitar body without a neck (which was why I was asking about whether I would still want to supplement the PGW with one of the vises, like the #7, which opens up the widest, etc.). But now I see that it’s the “expansion package” that makes that possible. (BTW, I thought I’d watched all the videos on the PGW, but hadn’t yet see one on attaching a body without a neck…maybe I just overlooked it? I did find some still pictures of that on the expansion package page…)

Quick question…what would be the primary uses of the parrot vise, in addition to the PGW?

Anyway…all that being said, I think I like the “shopping list” that you suggested, Doug. That’s probably the way I’ll go.

Thanks so much for all of your help…I’m thinking this “Looth Group” is going to be an invaluable resource for me into the future!