Woohoo! My vise is here!

Patrice Lemée

Patrice Lemée

Joined
Aug 13, 2002
Messages
5,703
It finally arrived. Isn't she a beauty? Well for an import anyway. Can't afford a Kurt right now.

I still have to take it apart and give it a good cleaning.
I also want to make another handle for it, this long thing is not working at all.

My question is, should I leave the swivel base or there or remove it to get more rigidity and more room under the quill?

Patrice
 

Attachments

  • 100_3006.resized.JPG
    100_3006.resized.JPG
    46.1 KB · Views: 457
  • 100_3007.resized.JPG
    100_3007.resized.JPG
    51.2 KB · Views: 468
I have a 1920's - 1930's Brown and Sharp Milling vice on my bench right now! I cleaned up and restored. Great vices!

Jason
 
Nice vise. I would leave the swivel on. I have a Kurt mounted on my mill and have found a number of occasions where I needed to make an angle cut. I spent a lot of time getting my vise trued up, and hate to dismount it for a few cuts. It was faster to make a plate to mount the workpiece on rather than move the vise. On the other hand, now I have a plate that allows me to mount smaller pieces on at nearly any angle. Even was able to use it to hold a revolver for redrilling and tapping a hole that somebody hamfisted the threads out.
Keep the swivel. If you don't have a set of parallels, get a set of them. You will use them constantly.
Chip Kunkle
 
Definitely leave the swivel base on, you will want to do angled cuts, turn he vise 90 degrees for long pieces etc.

-Page
 
Thanks guys, I will leave it on then. I did order a set of parallels.
Now I have to check the table first. Last time I checked if I remembered correctly it was not perfect. Guess I'll have to shim the column.

Thanks again, I am getting there, slowly but surely with your help. :D

Patrice
 
Congrats on the new mill and vise. I have a pair of those same vises from busy-bee on my mill. The handle shouldn't be a problem Patrice, its not secured to the vise so you can tighten the vise then take it off and set it on the bench so it's out of the way. Unless you just want a project for your new mill.

Brad
www.andersonknives.ca
 
Once you get it indicated in, if it is machined out well you will have no issues with it moving or anything. Parallels are a must for any vise that will be used on drill presses, mills etc.
Ronnie
 
Thanks guys for the tips.

Sadly things are not working and I can't figure out why.
As you can see on the pics I used aluminium paper to shim the vise instead of the bed itself. For me it's a good start, shimming the whole column is something I think is far too hard for now at least. So this part is working. I shimmed about 5 thou and now have about 0.5 to 1 thou on the 5" width of the vise. Again more than good enough for me for now.

The thing that is not working is getting the vise parallel. I get about 50 thou from one end of the vise to the other. I used the swivel part of the vise to make the adjustments but no matter what I do I still get the same reading, I can't get it better than that? :? What am I dong wrong?

I also have a few parts left and for the life of me I can't figure out what they are for. You can see them on the last pics.

Patrice
 

Attachments

  • 100_3009.resized.JPG
    100_3009.resized.JPG
    48.4 KB · Views: 113
  • 100_3011.resized.JPG
    100_3011.resized.JPG
    37.2 KB · Views: 106
  • 100_3013.resized.JPG
    100_3013.resized.JPG
    49 KB · Views: 123
The vise should sit flat on the table with no shims anywhere and indicate in. My thoughts would be maybe the head of the mill itself is off or your table is off? Try indicating the table to check your head and table, if they check out then your vise has something machined wrong in it. If they don't check out, try to indicate the head in 1st (if it is adjustable). I really hope your table is not off cause that can be a monster headache to get right. Hope this help some.
Ronnie
 
Patrice, i never even trammed mine. was to much headache.

instead, i clamped aluminum down to table and used a fly cutter to surface it, this way anything on that aluminum is square to spindle. eventually i used a big enough piece to cover the entire table, surfaced it and i know its bang on square.and best thing is i dont worry about dinging it :). i have vice mounts on my aluminum table cover so i can mount my vise, or add other fixtured ect.

Dave22 on the usn made this for me, i'll bet he still had dimensions that'll match your table.

alcoa6.jpg

alcoa5.jpg

alcoa4.jpg


i removed .003 to true it up, so mi9ll was'nt far out of tram to begin with.
 
Ok tomorrow I'll check to see if my table is off which I suspect it is. I will use your trick if it is not Shawn, tramming the whole thing like you said is just too much headache and most of all with my skill level I risk making things worst not better.

Thanks again, I'll post what I find.

Patrice
 
Patrice,

Dont set the vise parallel to the spindle with the angle adjustment on the vise. Set the vise angle marker to zero and lock it down. Snug the 2 vise mount bolts down so they are tight but the vise will still move with a small tap from a hammer on the base of the swivel. Indicate the right side of the rear jaw then crank the table over and indicate the left side of the rear jaw.

Tweak the vise mount with a hammer to adjust it and indicate again. Do that until the vise is sitting square and then tighten it down. If you do it this way instead of trying to use the angle adjustment on the vise, you will be able to set the vise back to zero and make it muck easier to square it up if you swing the vise to make an angled cut.

I believe if you take the 2 small pieces with the cap screws and screw them into the 2 holes on the front edge of the vise, they will stick up a bit proud of the top machined surface. They are for clamping larger flat pieces by removing the front jaw and laying your piece on top of the flat machined surface. tighten the piece between the rear jaw and the 2 pieces sticking up on the front of the vise.

Brad
www.andersonknives.ca
 
Thanks Brad, I don't think I will ever need to machine something that big but at least I know what they are for. I will probably make a couple of replacements though as they are pretty crappy.

Now for the bad news, the table is off by about 8-9 thou on the x axis. I just don't see myself trying to shim the column to fix that so I'll try Shawn's (balibalistic) idea with the aluminium plate first when the local metal place opens tomorrow.
Then I will follow your instructions and attach the vise.

Thanks again Brad and all.

Patrice

PS: What do you guys use to lubricate your mill with those little spring loaded ball bearing inlets? And did you lessen the tension on the quill return spring. I swear this thing wants to go through the roof.
 
Last edited:
Patrice, just get a piece of alu big enough to put your vice on. this way you can put it off to one side and run a fly cutter over it, or indexable end mill.mark where you want to mount your vice first, drill/tap the holes then flycut. you'll have a nice smooth surface to mount the vicve. and you'll still have other side of table for other tasks.
 
Patrice, the two small pieces are keys that go in the bottom of the vise. Then you set them in the T-slots of the table this should solve your allignment problem.Although on some cheaper vises they might be .005 off. The aluminum plate is still a great idea, it's also less messy you won't have to clean out the slots all the time. You can also drill, tap or ream holes for fixtures as needed. Congrats!!
 
JBS, you are right they do go under the vise. Sadly they are perpendicular to the only way I can attach my vise to the table. The base is too wide for me to attach it the other way. I will go pick up a alu plate tomorrow and try Shawn's setup.

This is fun, thanks guys. :D

Patrice
 
A small update.
I machined some t-nuts for my aluminium plate. Man, I must be doing something wrong with that face cutter. The chips were flying EVERYWHERE. Probably ran it too fast. I wear short sleeves and burning hot chips were actually sticking in my arms. :( I slowed it down some (around 850 rpm) and it did help but it still was not good. It got the job done with the t-nuts anyway.

I also added a light as was suggested on a website one of you guys told me about. An internal bulb, real easy to do and helps a lot.

I also started my speed handle for the vise. Hopefully I can finish some of this stuff tomorrow and post a few pictures.

Thanks again.

Patrice
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top