# Veritas Quick-Release Wonder Dog



## AmishElectricCo (Jan 3, 2018)

*The marketing copy:*
This version of our Wonder Dog has a fast-acting cam mechanism to speed adjustments. You just slide the head against the workpiece, then throw the lever to apply clamping force. 

Curved and irregular shapes can also be clamped; two screw holes in the brass dog head let you attach a custom face of any shape, giving good control without marring work. 

The low-profile head and clamp body are 5/8" and 11/16" thick respectively, so you can plane stock as thin as 3/4" without worrying about hitting the clamp.

The 3/4" diameter, 2-3/4" long post lets you use it wherever you can drill a suitably sized hole, and is canted to keep the clamp head against the bench top under clamping force.

The dog has just under 8" of travel. The rod, post and cam lever are made of steel.

*My review:*
This version of the Wonder Dog is superior to the others in my opinion, due to the quick release feature. It's just far easier to use with the cam action lever than fussing around with turning the screw by hand on the others. 

There is a fatal flaw in the design - shown in the second image. This is a photo I took with my phone and converted to black and white to remove any distraction. The shot was taken level with my bench, and the red lines represent the top and bottom of the brass dog head.

As you can see, the clamp lever is larger on both the top and bottom. This means A) it will scrape the surface of your bench during clamping and B) this little tidbit from the marketing copy is absolutely false:

_...you can plane stock as thin as 3/4" without worrying about hitting the clamp..._

Your plane *will* hit this lever on 3/4" stock. I'm going to take my Wonder Dog to the bench grinder and cut down the lever so that is no longer an issue. I'm surprised Veritas hasn't redesigned the lever because this is clearly a problem for anyone who would use this tool for its intended use.

3 out of 5 stars from me on this one. I expected more from Veritas. I shouldn't have to modify a tool right out of the box to prevent it from ruining my hand planes.


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## FrankC (Aug 24, 2012)

You have me confused, looking at the second photo why would a plane be anywhere near the cam lever?


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## AmishElectricCo (Jan 3, 2018)

FrankC said:


> You have me confused, looking at the second photo why would a plane be anywhere near the cam lever?


I re-wrote this several times this morning, trying to explain it - then I decided to start digging on the internet. I figured there was no way I was the only one who noticed this problem. This video is queued up to start at the quick release review, but this guy reviews all the Wonder Dog models if you're interested:


https://youtu.be/syqBzmirGcc?t=209


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## gmercer_48083 (Apr 9, 2016)

I agree that the handle needs to be modified in order to solve what is an obvious problem. Something Veritas needs to correct.


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## FrankC (Aug 24, 2012)

It would appear from the photo they designed it to clamp the side of the board not the end. No matter how much you grind off the lever when your plane goes over the end of the board the plane knife is going to hit the clamping mechanism sooner or later.


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## Terry Q (Jul 28, 2016)

If you get a good vice with the ability to add dogs (planing stops) then you wouldn’t need a clamp like those shown. Since you are building a new bench I would think investing in vice hardware would be a good long term investment.


In woodworking there is always more then one way to accomplish something.


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