Finally got round to making a new milling vice. I'd been after a small vice for ages but none of the smaller ones really appealed to me, so I decided to make my own. as my milling machine is tiny compared to most on here, I wanted something between the quality of a drill vice and a "proper" milling vice, and a rotating base wasn't required as I can clamp it to the milling machine table at any angle and gives me more height.
so I started off with a few chunks of metal, (base began life as a piece of 150 x 200 x 15 mm black bar) some cap head screws, some dowels and a M12 bolt. it seemed like a jaw depth of around 25mm, jaw width of 80mm and jaw opening of 90mm seemed reasonable.
and some photos taken during its comstruction
the base was squared up and the center slot was "cut out" by chain drilling overlapping holes
and then the base was faced up using a flycutter using low profile clamps
the rest of the chunks of metal were faced up. he is an angle plate that has horizontal and vertical rebate so its easy to clamp for facing the ends of short bars (also showing the low profile clamps)
then cleaning up the slot and machining the rebate for the moving jaw retainer
I machined the head down on the M12 bolt from 17mm to 10mm as I have standardised on M6 threads on my milling machine, so have 10mm spanners more readily available. here Im machining the hex head smaller
and turning the other end of the bolt with a groove cut to retain it in the jaw
the plate that retains the bolt into the moving jaw and thrust race
and the "finished" parts before assembly
so I started off with a few chunks of metal, (base began life as a piece of 150 x 200 x 15 mm black bar) some cap head screws, some dowels and a M12 bolt. it seemed like a jaw depth of around 25mm, jaw width of 80mm and jaw opening of 90mm seemed reasonable.
and some photos taken during its comstruction
the base was squared up and the center slot was "cut out" by chain drilling overlapping holes
and then the base was faced up using a flycutter using low profile clamps
the rest of the chunks of metal were faced up. he is an angle plate that has horizontal and vertical rebate so its easy to clamp for facing the ends of short bars (also showing the low profile clamps)
then cleaning up the slot and machining the rebate for the moving jaw retainer
I machined the head down on the M12 bolt from 17mm to 10mm as I have standardised on M6 threads on my milling machine, so have 10mm spanners more readily available. here Im machining the hex head smaller
and turning the other end of the bolt with a groove cut to retain it in the jaw
the plate that retains the bolt into the moving jaw and thrust race
and the "finished" parts before assembly
