# Polishing a Turd II or Polishing a Turd Too



## ronboley (Jun 1, 2014)

My apologies for the title, but as soon as I saw matthemuppet's original post I can't get it out of my head.  Matthemuppet did a great job of improving a HF cross vise.  Although I didn't need a cross vise, I did need a simple vise for my new HF mini mill and what the heck...I had a "new" HF cross vise that was a total turd.  Although I purchased it a while back (on sale and with a 25% off coupon) it was not even usable as a cross vise...really bad.  So it was sitting on the scrap heap.  I retrieved the vise and disassemble it.  Out of the pile of parts I got three some what usable fixed vises.  Selecting the one that looked closest to what I might use on the mill I cleaned everything up, used my stationary belt sander to remove all the paint and rust from the machined surfaces.  I then squared the vise to the mill table as best I could,  clamped the vise body in the mill and milled the vise bed and fixed jaw square and flat.  After re-assembly the vise was put to work to hold parts in the mill.  I've since added "iron wood" jaw protectors with V groves to hold round parts.  I know, I know, the picture of the aluminum round bar in the vise is not good technique....It did work....see "my ball turner" thread...

I also inadvertently found that the mill hold down kit from HF does not fit my HF mini mill...the T nuts had to be ground down considerably.  Polishing another turd...so that makes too...uh...two

Then I bought a horizontal/vertical band saw from HF...great price...on sale and a 20% coupon they applied twice...  Got it home, cleaned and set up to discover the assembly that aligns and tightens the top wheel was completely mis-machined.  Cool...I disassembled and re-machined the body in my HF mini mill using the re-polished vise, using my ground down T nuts.  Ha...polishing a turd three!  Now just to make guides that hold the blade straight so there is some chance of cutting straight.

Happy machining!


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## xalky (Jun 1, 2014)

Great write up. ) 

It smells like poop around here...with all that turd polishing going on.:lmao:


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## mattthemuppet2 (Jun 2, 2014)

I'm flattered, I think?! Looks like you did a great job with that vise. The double ended one had some pretty terrible reviews, which is why I went with the standard 6in one for my project. Given it's cheapness and "casting kit" status, it's surprisingly square - only the moveable jaw guide rod was measurably (with 0.001 DI) off and that was easily fixed.

keep posting projects, I love reading about them and seeing pictures


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## mws (Jun 3, 2014)

Nice to get something off the scrap heap into service isn't it?  Nice project. 

I recently polished a similar turd, a Jet Angle Vise. It was .025 off in every plane, warped, sloppy, just terrible.  Since everything hinged (pun intended) on the pivot point that became the datum for every other surface. After reaming and fitting a snug drill rod through the pivot and resting that in a set of V-blocks every surface was trued up.  Works great now. I'm just glad there was enough meat on the thing to work with. 

Next turd will be the tables and trunions on my HF carbide tool grinder.


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## Andre (Jun 3, 2014)

Nice job! I bet everybody at the HF plant is like "it'll buff out *throw in shipping container*"


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