# An anchor, a speed handle and an old telephone!!!



## petcnc (Jan 23, 2015)

I might not own a KURT vise but that does not stop me from visiting their website and borrowing ideas for my non-Kurt vises.
One of these great ideas they publish is the “Speed Handle” for the vise.
Speed handles have two major advantages in comparison to the traditional “stick handles”.
a. they do not interfere with the mill (as my stick handle does)
b. they reduce clamping time giving you rapid part loading and unloading.




As I was not happy with the handle of my new vise I was looking for a better one to make my life with the vise easier and more elegant.
My problem was that to tighten or un-tighten a piece I needed to remove and put back the handle quite a few times.
On the other hand a broken cast iron anchor I have, had a very nice shape I would like to turn it in a vise speed handle.




Hack saw on call, some milling and an hour later I had it!




The hardest part was the square 14 mm hole at the center of it. I approached it the traditional way: Manually! A 13mm round hole, and my good old file turned it into a nice 14mm sqare hole.




Fitting (bolting) a simple handle at  the end of it provides a convenient holding part to rotate it fast.




Testing it on the mill vise proved to function well enough!!!




it looks pretty unusual and unique also...




But it is not as fast in locking and unlocking the parts as I would like it to be!

I thought to add another handle, closer to the center of it but I thought it would not be practical...

I needed something to turn it faster using as little power as a finger could apply.

Then... I remembered the old days and the telephone dials! 

The, not so young amongst us, I'm sure remember how fast we could rotate it to dial a number!!!

(For the young ones there is a picture to visualise the idea)




That gave me the idea I needed. 

A couple of large holes to put my finger in and “dial-in” or out the piece to the vise.




It works like a charm




I have also cleaned the rust and rounded all edges as it will come into contact with my bare hands but I am not sure if I must paint it or leave it bare metal.




Thank you for reading this

Petros


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## juiceclone (Jan 23, 2015)

Congratulations!!    Don't think I have ever seen that before.   Size of the hole well thought out too.


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## CoopVA (Jan 23, 2015)

That's pretty cool.  Thanks for sharing.  It looks a lot better than my welded together sockets...


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk


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## LarryJ (Jan 25, 2015)

> I have also cleaned the rust and rounded all edges as it will come into contact with my bare hands but I am not sure if I must paint it or leave it bare metal.
> 
> Thank you for reading this
> 
> Petros




Cool tool, Petros.  Cast iron is much ritzier than a fabbed CRS handle.  I'm a  bit leery about the finger holes, though.  Unless they stop your fingers, you're liable to break one on the vise bearing block.  Eek!

My vote is to paint it to match the vise.  A pint of color-matched alkyd paint at HD is cheap.


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## petcnc (Jan 26, 2015)

LarryJ said:


> Cool tool, Petros.  Cast iron is much ritzier than a fabbed CRS handle.  I'm a  bit leery about the finger holes, though.  Unless they stop your fingers, you're liable to break one on the vise bearing block.  Eek!
> 
> My vote is to paint it to match the vise.  A pint of color-matched alkyd paint at HD is cheap.



Larryj I made the holes according to finger size. If you look carefully to the handle, the finger cannot go through the hole as the hole is wide in the front and narrower at the back.
Thanks for the suggestion!

Petros


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## petcnc (Jan 31, 2015)

Final touch! Handle painted black




Comments on it use:

Very fast load & unload work on the vise.
You dont have to remove it during milling as id does not interfere with table


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## cathead (Jan 31, 2015)

I still have a rotary wall phone in the shop.  As kids, I remember practicing
dialing the phone without using the rotary feature but rather pulsing the phone
number using the hang up button.  I havn't tried it lately.....

Nice work on the speed handle!



petcnc said:


> I might not own a KURT vise but that does not stop me from visiting their website and borrowing ideas for my non-Kurt vises.
> One of these great ideas they publish is the “Speed Handle” for the vise.
> Speed handles have two major advantages in comparison to the traditional “stick handles”.
> a. they do not interfere with the mill (as my stick handle does)
> ...


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## petcnc (Feb 1, 2015)

cathead said:


> I still have a rotary wall phone in the shop.  As kids, I remember practicing
> dialing the phone without using the rotary feature but rather pulsing the phone
> number using the hang up button.  I havn't tried it lately.....
> 
> Nice work on the speed handle!



Well, pulsing the vise will be something I wish to see...

Not with a hammer though...


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## Rick Leslie (Feb 1, 2015)

That's a great way to use what you have on hand. Do you have a problem applying enough toque to the speed handle? I have to keep a pull bar handy for cinching parts in the vise.



I'm old enough to not only remember rotary phones, but the alpha numeric phone numbers as well. (Like SHurling 5-1212.) Thanks for reminding me. )


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## petcnc (Feb 1, 2015)

Rick Leslie said:


> That's a great way to use what you have on hand. Do you have a problem applying enough toque to the speed handle? I have to keep a pull bar handy for cinching parts in the vise.
> 
> 
> 
> I'm old enough to not only remember rotary phones, but the alpha numeric phone numbers as well. (Like SHurling 5-1212.) Thanks for reminding me. )



Applying force from 2 ends seems to work equally well as with the original handle that had the same length but was mounted to the vise at one end.
So far I'm over the moon with the speed of clamp and release a part on the vise.
I have a precision (toolmakers) vise but it takes ages to secure some piece of work on it. For that reason I have it on the "Worthless tools" shelf.

Petros


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