# Mount Mill Vise "Sideways"?



## tonydi (May 14, 2021)

I can understand why most vises are mounted "across" the mill table....you've got to have room to swing the handle to tighten the vise.

But I've got a screwless/toolmakers vise on my X2D mill, so that handle isn't an issue.  What would be the downside of mounting it parallel to the X axis?

I ask because anyone who owns one of these types of vises knows it's a bit tricky to get the cross-pin in the right slot.  Because mine is currently mounted in the conventional direction, the side clamps block my view of most of the slot holes.  If I were to mount it "sideways" I could clamp the ends and have an easy and full view of each slot from the side.

But I wonder if I'm missing something since you almost never see these vises mounted this way.


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## Mitch Alsup (May 14, 2021)

I have my vise on my 10" rotary table semi-permanently just for situations like this.
I use it more for "light weighting" of milled parts::


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## Ulma Doctor (May 14, 2021)

if you can mount it sideways and you can make good parts from the set up, you have broken no rules


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## benmychree (May 14, 2021)

Whatever is most convient for the job is the right way to do it.


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## markba633csi (May 14, 2021)

I use mine both ways depending on the direction of cut, size/shape of material and other factors
-Mark


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## sdelivery (May 15, 2021)

Key is direction of cut and the tool being used. 
Milling class 101 is to cut towards the stationary vice jaw


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## tonydi (May 16, 2021)

Thanks to everyone for their comments.  I'll make up some clamps to fit the slots in the ends, flip it sideways and take it for a spin!


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## hman (May 16, 2021)

tonydi said:


> I ask because anyone who owns one of these types of vises knows it's a bit tricky to get the cross-pin in the right slot.  Because mine is currently mounted in the conventional direction, the side clamps block my view of most of the slot holes.  If I were to mount it "sideways" I could clamp the ends and have an easy and full view of each slot from the side.


I have a similar vise on my mini-mill, with the same problem accessing the cross pin.  I use LMS hold-downs:








						Screwless Vise Clamps | Vise Accessories
					

Mount screwless vises onto your mill table. These height-adjustable clamps are designed for use with a 3" screwless vise and any screwless vise with holes 8mm or larger.




					littlemachineshop.com
				



By using one clamp in the rearmost of the three table slots, and the opposite clamp in the frontmost, and spacing them about 1/8" away from the vise, at least one end of every cross slot is easy to access.  If I have the the pin in a "nearly blind" hole, I can use a small screwdriver to push it out far enough to grasp it at the open end.


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## tonydi (May 16, 2021)

sdelivery said:


> Key is direction of cut and the tool being used.
> Milling class 101 is to cut towards the stationary vice jaw



This morning I was thinking of what you said.  No matter which way the vise is mounted, you're going to run into situations where you can't cut "towards" the stationary jaw.  

But even if you completely avoided those situations, if you turn the vise sideways you can still cut "towards" the stationary vise jaw.  It's just using a different axis.



hman said:


> I have a similar vise on my mini-mill, with the same problem accessing the cross pin.  I use LMS hold-downs:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



  Yeah, my original plan was to make those but I ended up getting a Shars vise and the holes are recessed and not flush with the sides like your picture.  Rather than deal with pins that were going to probably be twice as long as those on the LMS clamps and might bend I decided to go with clamps that push down on the lip instead.


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## hman (May 16, 2021)

OK.  My vise has round holes along the sides and slots on the ends.  I had to mill small flats on the tops and bottoms of the pins to get them to fit the slots.  But they now work anywhere on the vise.


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## tonydi (May 16, 2021)

Ahh, gotcha.  I'm "pretty sure" I over-engineered my clamps, they're like 3" x 1.25" and span two table slots.


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## rwm (May 16, 2021)

The politically correct way to do this is to keep the vise in its normal orientation and rotate the mill 90 degrees. Then no one can accuse you of turning your vise sideways.
R


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## hman (May 16, 2021)

Hmmm ... How many [insert your favorite ethnic]s does it take to turn a vise?


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## rwm (May 16, 2021)

Blondes? One, she just holds in there and the rest of the world revolves around her.
Robert


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## Larry$ (May 16, 2021)

Maybe ideally you should cut towards the fixed end but I don't think anyone actually does that. A good vice matched to the machine will hold against all the forces.


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## tonydi (May 18, 2021)

rwm said:


> The politically correct way to do this is to keep the vise in its normal orientation and rotate the mill 90 degrees. Then no one can accuse you of turning your vise sideways.
> R


Hmmm.....and if I put the mill on a rotating table I'll be able to cut curves too!  Thanks, Robert!


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## sdelivery (May 18, 2021)

If you put your mill on  your lathe will you have Live Tooling?


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## Mitch Alsup (May 18, 2021)

hman said:


> Hmmm ... How many [insert your favorite ethnic]s does it take to turn a vise?



The general answer is at least 4:: one to do the work, one to plan the work order, one to supervise the work, and one to account for all the time being spent.


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## Mitch Alsup (May 18, 2021)

sdelivery said:


> If you put your mill on  your lathe will you have Live Tooling?



More likely you will have a dead machinist..........


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## Winegrower (May 18, 2021)

I mount (really, swivel) the vise in whatever orientation holds the work so that the X-axis power feed can do the work.


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## Dabbler (May 18, 2021)

So here goes:  the fixed jaw is usually mounted parallel to the X axis travel, in order to use it as a home position For doing accurate work.  This *can* be done in the Y axis, but usually isn't done that way.  Why? I don't exactly know.

For what I do, I want long pieces to go parallel to the X axis.  If I tried the same thing in Y, I'd hit the column after a short amount of increments.  So if your entire piece is within the work envelope and not hanging, say 6 feet over the edge of the table, then orient the vise any way you like. Almos all my work is 4 feet long or longer, so this is not an option for me.


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## tonydi (Jul 6, 2021)

Just to sort of tie this thread up into a nice bow, I wanted to say that the sideways mounting is generally a success.  One of the initial purposes of doing this was so I could more easily see where the pin was when choosing a notch for the moveable jaw.  That was definitely easier in this configuration but there were still times when I'd choose a notch and then find that the pin wanted to be someplace in-between that notch and the next; there was sometimes no "Goldilocks" setting.  

The downside of this was apparent when I pulled out the clevis (or whatever it's called) and saw that the dowel pin had some serious gouges. Probably from times with the old conventional orientation when I thought I was solidly in a notch but couldn't see that it was not completely seated and just holding onto an edge of the notch.

So I decided to eliminate that possibility by making a removable pin.  No way it's halfway in/out of a notch and now that I can get to each hole it's a lot easier to set.  I made a little chart that shows the maximum size of the workpiece that can be held at each position and that seems to give me the best shot at making this work.  Time will tell, though.


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## Larry$ (Jul 6, 2021)

I have a Shars tool makers vice that is similar. I had a hard time getting the pin to go into the adjusting nut. I finally made a new nut and pin. Works now. The original nut was really crude.


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## tonydi (Jul 7, 2021)

I know exactly what you mean, Larry.  When I first got the vice at the beginning of May 2020 I found that piece was drilled really off-center which made it even more difficult to get adjusted. 




 Shars was closed because of Covid but they promised to check if they had any spares once they were open again.  Fast forward to early June, at which point they mailed a replacement.  

That part sat in the USPS system for a *three weeks *as just having been picked up but no further tracking. Shars finally FedEx'd a second one, which went MIA but eventually ended up at a different customer in Wisconsin! Fast forward to late July and they USPS'd a third one which ended up in Puerto Rico!  

They sent out a fourth one and that arrived in 2 days.  Then a few days later two more showed up (the first one never arrived and I think USPS just lost it).  One of the three was good enough but for other reasons I eventually just made my own.


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## T Bredehoft (Jul 7, 2021)

tonydi said:


> I eventually just made my own.


Now you're talkin'.  Had you thought about it, you probably could have done this to start with. And had some fun, too.


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## hman (Jul 7, 2021)

@tonydi - Nice mod!  I have just about the same type of vise, and came up with an additional mod that makes it a lot easier to "find the nut" when sliding in the cross pin.  See post #10 at https://www.hobby-machinist.com/threads/screwless-precision-vises.55048/#post-455018 or post #22 at https://www.hobby-machinist.com/threads/mill-vise-opinions.37171/page-3

PS - A quick way to tram the vise when mounting it on the mill table is to hold a machinists' square against the edge of the mill table and the edge of the vise against the blade of the square.  It's good enough for routine work - square to within something like  0.001"


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## tonydi (Jul 8, 2021)

Tom.....yeah, hindsight, blah blah blah.  ;-)  I think it was useful to struggle with the OEM piece first so I could see all of its shortcomings and figure out how to design a replacement.  

Like hman, I didn't like the fact that the thing wasn't wide enough so it flopped around inside the gap between the two sides of the vise.  It also wasn't long enough to keep from getting detached if you backed out the allen screw too much in trying to find the right slot.  Making it longer accomplished essentially the same thing as hman's threaded rod mod while still allowing me to use a t-handle allen wrench for faster adjustment.


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## MtnBiker (Jul 9, 2021)

tonydi said:


> I can understand why most vises are mounted "across" the mill table....you've got to have room to swing the handle to tighten the vise.
> 
> But I've got a screwless/toolmakers vise on my X2D mill, so that handle isn't an issue.  What would be the downside of mounting it parallel to the X axis?
> 
> ...


My vise is on a rotary base. For fabrication...precision cutting angles in particular, it's the bomb.
	

		
			
		

		
	



Just simple 45s with angle iron. But I use it at 90° so I can engage the x-axis power feed.


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## Dabbler (Jul 9, 2021)

@MtnBiker it looks like you have found the secret of using ready-rod (or allthread)  as a milling cutter!


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## MtnBiker (Jul 9, 2021)

Dabbler said:


> @MtnBiker it looks like you have found the secret of using ready-rod (or allthread)  as a milling cutter!


Hertel cobalt roughing end mill for the win. We don't need a glass finish to weld parts together.


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