Precision Toolmaker's Vises

[pete]

From memory Ctwo I re-made my yoke with about 10 thou clearance on each side. The OEM part was really undersized and making the new one almost full width for the slot fixed all of the issues. Previously it was a pita to keep the cross pin in alignment with those half holes. Somewhere in one of my earlier posts I mentioned chipping one of the half hole corners off because it was so badly misaligned when I tightened the vise. This was on an India made grinding vise and the next one I got from MSC and had zero issues. It also cost about 3 times as much. Something else to check on yours though, have a look at the half ball shape the tightening screw seats against that most or maybe all these vises have. That India made one was really rough on mine but the pocket in the movable jaw it drops into was ok. I re-polished that half ball in the lathe by forcing it onto a slightly tapered shop made mandrel and removed all the tool marks. Mine was also seriously hardened so I used a stone.That smoother surface allows it and the tightening screw to pivot much more freely so it then works like it's supposed to. Strange they would use a button head screw on yours, like you said there's nothing to gain. The $900 + Hermann Schmits don't even use an Allen bolt. https://www.hschmidt.com/product/precis ... city-v0-4/ Scroll down to the bottom of the page and it shows both parts and how there nut and screw are designed to work. Cutting the head off a shcs and loctiting the threaded portion into your yoke would work the same if you wanted to use that nut idea instead. And there's no cap screw recess that can fill up with chips.

There probably not absolutely needed with a larger mill Harold, but for those with smaller mills they can be a far better option than the "quality" present in a lot of the off shore 3"-4" capacity Kurt types. My first Kurt clones were just about useless because of the casting material quality, although they were accurately ground. And as I mentioned to Ctwo, unlike most of the conventional types of mill vises with there cast in coolant trough, these grinding/tool maker vises are faster and easier to get strap clamped down on there sides or vertically to fairly small angle plates etc. I also like them for a lot of angle type work, set the work on parallels in the small vise and angle it in the larger mill vise with an angle block or sine bar, and for a lot of part shapes you have a more secure grip. And sometimes changing the part orientation 90 degrees makes the set up a bit easier.Compared to most mill tooling, these types of vises are fairly cheap for what your getting unless you were buying a top of the line Hermann Schmidt. Even my Indian made ones were at least ground to a higher accuracy than Kurt specifies. 2-3 tenths on my cheaper one's and under 2 tenths on my larger one. Since the vise bed and fixed jaw are one piece there also pretty rigid for there size. A fixture plate could probably still do everything they can. The first one's I bought were for my little C5 sized mill, at the time and afaik it's still true there's no real options that Emco ever offered and that Shereline still does that can hold larger parts than there very small capacity vises have other than these grinding vises. I haven't yet needed to do so, but I could use one on my lathes face plate, 4 jaw, rotary table or dividing head if I ever had to. My larger 6" mill vises sure aren't going to work for that. I consider mine as just another work holding option.

Nicely done parts Harold. I know there not, but in general shape and size there pretty close to the claw used on model sized Corliss engine valve trip gear.

[Harold_V]

It seems hard for me to place small parts when hunched over the mill table, and I wanted them all to have the same angles.

Again, I'm going to recommend soft jaws. I promote them shamelessly for lathe work, but they serve an important function when milling, too.

In the case of placing parts, if you make a soft jaw for the fixed jaw of your vise, the profile of the part can be part of the design, which will (effortlessly) locate the part at the proper attitude. It also serves to allow dial marking (or DRO settings), which facilitate working on more than one part. You have multiple parts to machine? No problem. Easy and fast to load the parts, and each one comes out like the last one. A true win/win situation.

Fact is, I machined those tiny hooks (antenna latches, a defense article) with a soft jaw which was held in place by a finger clamp from the ¼"-20 tapped holes that I provide immediately behind the hard jaw for my mill vises.

H

[ctwo]

I suspect making the soft jaws would be more work than making the actual parts, but I do agree that soft mill jaws are just as valuable as soft lathe jaws. I'm sure there is a much better and simpler way than any I've thought of to make these parts. But those small Chinese vises, trinkets.