# Building a small Machinist Vise



## kizmit99

So I've decided I'm going to build me a small "screwless" machinist vise.  I know I could just buy one for fairly cheap that would be a lot better than what I can build in terms of precision, hardness, surface finish, etc - but I decided, what the heck, I'll give it a go anyway.  If I screw it up, I can always just buy a replacement...

I know this wouldn't be a challenge for many of the members here, as I'm definitely in the beginner camp, but figured I'd share the process anyway.  I know I'll have questions (already have) and who knows maybe it'll help someone else out at some point...  Anyway, here goes...

I started with some plans from another site for a small machinist vise.  On a whim I had also bought some 1x1.5 12L14 bar off ebay, so I figured I use that.  The plans had the base and fixed jaw of the vise machined out of a single hunk of steel.  Just given the size of the bar I had to work with, I was going to need to make the fixed jaw out of a separate piece.  Here was my original idea:




BTW - another post on this site turned me on to the eMachineShop design software - very cool, very easy tool...
Anyway, I figured the step in the back of the fixed jaw would help to lock it into position, then a couple of cap screws would secure it to the base.  I've since changed the design and replaced that step with a groove and a matching tenon on the fixed jaw to lock them together (see next pic).  That change allowed me to keep the full 1" thickness of the base.  I've also been toying with various arrangements for the adjusting bar (which the movable jaw pulls against).  Definitely haven't settled on a design for that yet.  In this pic I've got a different approach for the adjusting bar which wouldn't require completely removing it to adjust the opening.




I am a little concerned that this approach removes too much metal from the base and may introduce too much flexing?  With this approach the base basically becomes a hollow box with four 1/2"x1/4" legs.  I'm sure it would be plenty strong/stiff for what I need, just wondering if there may be a better compromise...
Enough with the design, on to starting the build...
I began with a slighter longer than 6 inch section of the 1x1.5 bar, supposedly 12L14...




I set to squaring it up on my mill (G0704):




This is when I began to suspect that it wasn't really 12L14.  I've used 12L14 on my lathe before and it always turned and cut like butter.  This stuff cut like, well, steel.  Not sure what it actually is, but I'm pretty sure it's not 12L14...
All cleaned up:




I then cut the jaws from this piece and squared up all the ends:




Here's the slot in the base, with the tenon on the fixed jaw fitted:




I had some DRO issues while laying out and cutting the slot and tenon, so the back of the jaw isn't flush with the back of the base.  But that won't hurt anything.  I also had some fitment issues with the tenon.  The inside corners of are not getting milled out cleanly.  It's like the end mill has a very slight radius at the edges, so the inside corners are very slightly rounded.  To fit the fixed jaw I ended up relieving the outside corners slightly with a file.  Would this be considered normal?  The plan I got for the vise (and an actual manufactured screwless vise I have) have relief cuts on the inside corners, almost as if the corner was drilled out prior to be milled.  Is there a trick to this that I'm missing?  Any pointers would be welcome.  Relieving the outside corners was fine for that piece, but I've got a similar issue with the slots and groove I cut for the movable jaw:




Before I bevel the outside corners here, thought I would ask for suggestions on ways to relieve the inside corners...

I'm happier with the fit of the movable jaw, it has just a few thousands clearance and has no noticeable "play".  Other than the fact it doesn't sit all the way down, it slides and fits quite well.

Anyway, this is as far as I've gotten so far.  Hope this doesn't bore anyone to tears...


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## Andre

Looking good, here is some food for thought: 

http://www.deansphotographica.com/machining/projects/mill/vise/vise.html


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## Don B

I'm not sure how far along you are or if you'd want to incorporate something like this into you design but just something to think about, I have 2 of these toolmakers style vises and the one in the picture is so much nicer to use because the jaw can be moved/repositioned without the need to remove the pin.

Sorry not a great picture, the spring at the back end of the jaw keeps the pin in place but a little downward pressure with the allan wrench allows the jaw to be moved, if you want more detail just let me know and I'll provide it.


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## kizmit99

Thanks Don - I have a 3" vise similar to the one you've shown.  I think that approach is probably the best because it allows easy adjustment of the rear jaw, plus allows some 'meat' between the holes along the sides.  At 1.5" wide I think there would be plenty of room for that arrangement if I didn't cut clamping slots into the sides (not shown in the first model).  I am interested in having those slots though.  If the pocket on the bottom is .75" wide, that would only leave .375 on each side, mill a .250 clamping slot and I'm left with about .125 on each side -- probably enough, certainly better than nothing I guess (like in my second model).  I'll have to try modeling this in eMachineShop and see if I can squeeze everything into the available space...


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## Rick Leslie

This is an excellent project for a 'beginner' as you say. It's not very complicated but does require though, planning and attention to detail All great exercises for a budding machinist. And I use Emachineshop almost exclusively although I'm certainly no pro at 3D modeling. In fact, I'm about as far from it as one can get. 

That thread helped me more than any class, book or youtube video. 

Here's some more commentary on the program for your entertainment. 
http://www.hobby-machinist.com/showthread.php?t=7988&highlight=cnc+modeling


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## Don B

kizmit99 said:


> Thanks Don - I have a 3" vise similar to the one you've shown.  I think that approach is probably the best because it allows easy adjustment of the rear jaw, plus allows some 'meat' between the holes along the sides.  At 1.5" wide I think there would be plenty of room for that arrangement if I didn't cut clamping slots into the sides (not shown in the first model).  I am interested in having those slots though.  If the pocket on the bottom is .75" wide, that would only leave .375 on each side, mill a .250 clamping slot and I'm left with about .125 on each side -- probably enough, certainly better than nothing I guess (like in my second model).  I'll have to try modeling this in eMachineShop and see if I can squeeze everything into the available space...



No problem, your welcome, sure I see what you mean about the slots, the one vise I have just has holes, I'm not that fond of that arrangement the slots are better, what about 3 separate slots, say leaving a web every third or fourth hole, you could still use a normal clap and get the benefit of a pin that slides...?:thinking:
Just a thought....)
Looking good though.... Good work..........)


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## spindle

Nice job so far! I also making me a small vice but more "a la Taig" concept as the movable jaw can be tighten to prevent it to rise up. It is mostly made out of Al 6061 as my mini mill will refuse to cut steel!  I now have to make myself a ACME tap. Another project. I will also line the jaws with brass. Keep us posted on the development.


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## kizmit99

I modeled the "open bottom" locking model with clamping slots and I definitely like this approach better than either of my original ideas.  There seems to be plenty of metal 'webbing' between all the cut outs, which should tie everything together nicely and keep the overall block pretty solid.  Here's the model (it's kind of difficult to get a static view that shows everything well)...







With that settled, I decided to go for it.  I started by center drilling for the through holes, then drilled them out with 3/16" bit, then followed with a 1/4" bit.







That was as far as I got yesterday.  Whatever this bar is made of, it's definitely not 12L14.  I chipped a cobalt bit while drilling it, luckily I got a Drill Doctor a while back.  A quick resharpen and it was back in business.

Tonight I milled out the clamping slots:




Here's how it's looking at this point:




Just have to mill out the center section (top at 3/8, bottom at 5/8) and then I can move on to the actual locking mechanism and the movable jaw...

Thanks for the comments and suggestions so far - they've definitely helped rework the design.


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## spindle

Wow that is going to be one solid vice! I'm following this. Great work


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## kizmit99

More progress...
I milled the center section out:




a .375 slot from the top, and .625 slot from the bottom - meeting just about .010 above the center line of the cross-holes...




I drilled the mounting holes in the base for the fixed jaw, carefully transferred the positions to the fixed jaw, then drilled the holes in the fixed jaw.   The holes in the jaw are off by about .050"....  




I thought that maybe they would be "close enough" so tried tapping one - Nope, aint gonna work...  
Next step appears to be remaking the fixed jaw...


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## kizmit99

I remade the fixed jaw...




Then turned to the movable jaw...




Made the thing the movable jaw pulls against this afternoon:




At this point it's basically complete:




And even works:




Plans for the next steps are to fly cut the top, sides and end to make all the edges on the separate pieces as smooth as possible.  Then to bevel a slight undercut on the inside bottom edges of the jaws so I can run a mill across the faces of the jaws to try to get them as flat and true as I can.  Then finally a couple of grooves on the movable jaw to help hold round stock...

Almost there...


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## David Kirtley

Looking really nice.


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## Rick Leslie

This has turned out really well. I like the hold down much better than the usual cross pin. That's my beef with mine: removing the pin to adjust the jaws. Looks like I might be building a new vise...


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## Andre

Looks great, good job!

Do you know anybody who might be able to surface grind it for you?


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## kizmit99

Andre said:


> Do you know anybody who might be able to surface grind it for you?



Unfortunately no - but I have high hopes for the fly-cutting.  I'm going to have to do some experimenting first though, I've only ever done that on aluminum and I suspect this steel is going to react quite a bit differently...  fingers-crossed though.


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## JimDawson

kizmit99 said:


> Unfortunately no - but I have high hopes for the fly-cutting.  I'm going to have to do some experimenting first though, I've only ever done that on aluminum and I suspect this steel is going to react quite a bit differently...  fingers-crossed though.




About 40 some years ago I watched a guy flycut some v-blocks he made that had been case hardened.  He was using a carbide (or maybe ceramic?) cutter at very high speed in a Bridgeport.  Very light cut, and slow feed.  Sparks were flying.  The surface looked like it had been ground when he was finished.  I've never tried this, but with some experimenting I think it would be a good option.


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## John Hasler

kizmit99 said:


> Unfortunately no - but I have high hopes for the fly-cutting.  I'm going to have to do some experimenting first though, I've only ever done that on aluminum and I suspect this steel is going to react quite a bit differently...  fingers-crossed though.



Flycutting steel is to flycutting aluminum as turning steel is to turning aluminum.


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## kizmit99

Thanks for the input guys!

I just ran the fly-cutter at about 250rpm and had the table feed at a reasonably slow rate.  Took 2-3 thousands each pass and everything was fine.  I'm not getting the criss-cross pattern, and the "tail" of the cutter is actually taking a bite - so I think I'm going to have to re-tram my mill head.  For what I'm doing here though, I think it's good-enough...  The overall finish certainly isn't polished, but it is significantly smoother than it looks in the pic.  And to the best of my ability to measure it, the sides, ends and top are all square to the bottom.




So, now I'm on to the final step - truing up the faces of the jaws...
You can probably see from the pic above that the faces are not meeting flush with each other.  They meet at the bottom edge, closest to the camera, and are furthest apart (.008") on the upper corner farthest from the camera.

I think I need some advice on this one.  At first I was thinking I would cut a relief into the bottom edge of each jaw face, then mount this vise in my mill vise and run an end-mill across each face, using very light passes.  I'm now second guessing this approach.  Does anyone have any suggestions on how to proceed?

Thanks in advance!


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## zmotorsports

Very nice job on the vise.

Mike.


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## dulltool17

Fantastic!  I really like this design.  Now I'm gonna have to make one too!

As for the .008 mis-align, I'll let other, more experienced fellas advise.

Do you plan on making any v-grooves for round stock?


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## John Hasler

kizmit99 said:
			
		

> I think I need some advice on this one.  At first I was thinking I would cut a relief into the bottom edge of each jaw face, then mount this vise in my mill vise and run an end-mill across each face, using very light passes.  I'm now second guessing this approach.  Does anyone have any suggestions on how to proceed?
> 
> Thanks in advance!



It occurs to me that you might want to load the jaws while you do that the way you would while trueing a lathe chuck.


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## kizmit99

John Hasler said:


> It occurs to me that you might want to load the jaws while you do that the way you would while trueing a lathe chuck.



Yeah, that's the problem I think I would run into with the approach I was thinking of...  I think the fixed jaw would be fine, but the while I could tighten the movable jaw without it clamping against anything (with the adjusting screw just pulling straight up/down) there's no way to ensure the whole jaw isn't racked just slightly.  The fact it has the 'legs' that fit over the base would stop it from getting too far out of whack, but any slop there (and the fact it can slide at all means there has to be some) would just be translated to the face.

I'm kind of thinking now about milling the fixed jaw in place, then setting up the removable jaw using the top (which was just fly-cut) as the "true" edge and fly-cutting the face.  Worst thing that can happen is they still aren't true...  I actually suspect that most of the "out-of-kilter"ness I'm seeing is in the fixed jaw.  Not sure why I think that, but I do...



dulltool17 said:


> Do you plan on making any v-grooves for round stock?



I do.  One horizontal, one vertical, both in about the center of the movable jaw.


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## John Hasler

kizmit99 said:


> Yeah, that's the problem I think I would run into with the approach I was thinking of...  I think the fixed jaw would be fine, but the while I could tighten the movable jaw without it clamping against anything (with the adjusting screw just pulling straight up/down) there's no way to ensure the whole jaw isn't racked just slightly.



Drill a hole to take a screw or pin in each end of each jaw.  Put blocks big enough to hold the jaws apart a convenient distance between the pins and tighten the vise.

I may do that to my junky vise.


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## David Kirtley

Stop.

Do not do anything.

You need to establish a reference surface. You need to first get the fixed jaw square before doing anything.  Then you work on the moving jaw.

The real question is what degree of accuracy are you shooting for? You might as well shoot for perfect as you could have bought a cheap chinese vise for less than material costs.  

I wouldn't feel bad about not having the surface grinder as it really is a starting point to do before lapping and scraping. You can get to the same starting point by a bit of careful file work and sanding. It seems like it would take forever but it really goes pretty quickly once you get started.


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## spindle

Great! Now its time to tram the mill to the best it can be. And +1 on the reference surface.


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## iron man

Nice job alot of work and very well done.


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## kizmit99

I cut a relief bevel on the fixed jaw, then mounted the vise in my mill vice and took several skim cuts across the face of the fixed jaw with an end mill.  That was taking material off exactly where it seemed to need it (starting in the "lower right" (facing the face of the fixed jaw) and working it's way to the "upper left" as material was removed).  That helped, but didn't fix the problem completely.  After cleaning up the fixed jaw, there was a .003" gap on the the "right" side (again, facing the fixed jaw face) between the jaws.  I setup the movable jaw, face up, in my mill vise with the "top" of the jaw against the rear jaw of the mill vise and the "back" of the jaw facing down, sitting on parallels.  I then ran the fly-cutter across the jaw face.  After retesting, I have the same .003 gap on the "right" side...




I'm going to have to do better than this, because a piece of 3/8 aluminum plate clamped in the jaws can be easily "twisted" out.  It ends up just pivoting on the spot that is tight...




So I'm still looking for some way to get the jaw faces square and flat.  
Suggestions welcome!  Thanks!

PS:  I was just wondering if maybe the fit of the movable jaw to the rails it rides on in the base is little too good?  Maybe the movable jaw needs a little bit of play in order to properly seat against a piece of flat stock and apply proper clamping force?  Am I in left field on this?  I can't see testing this theory out, as the current fit is very good and I wouldn't want to make it looser just on a guess...


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## David Kirtley

It is a chicken or the egg kind of problem.  A milled surface from being held in a vise is not a reference surface.

First of all, do you have a surface plate? It makes things a lot easier. If not an actual surface plate, you can start of with something "kinda flat" like a nice thick piece of plate glass.  Next best would be a nice polished granite tile.

A precision square and straight edge would help a lot. Also an indicator stand and an indicator that can get to at least 0.0005"

Take a look here at a nice video showing the process. What he is doing is worthless as far as the plane goes (in my opinion) but he shows a great sequence for how to make something flat and square with basic hand tools.

[video=youtube_share;YvZFOyo63Ks]http://youtu.be/YvZFOyo63Ks[/video]

Yes, it is a fairly slow process but accuracy takes time.


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## JimDawson

I have been thinking about your alignment issue for a couple of days.  I am going to make a couple of assumptions 1, that the fixed jaw is square with the rails, and 2, that the fixed jaw is vertically square to the top of the rails.

What may be happening is that the screw is pulling the movable jaw out of alignment.  There may some miss-alignment between the pins.  The fix for this is a conical washer and a mating socket in the top pin.  Every precision vice I have seen has this feature.

Here is the screw assembly out of my vice.




To check the alignment of the movable jaw, indicate in the fixed jaw, then place the movable jaw on the rail and see where it is, and see how much play it has.  Then find the center of the play, and clamp the movable jaw in place with your clamp set, not the screw.  Now take a light cut about 1/2 inch down to get an indicating surface. Then put the jaw in the mill vice and indicate on the surface you just cut, and the rail surface to square it up.  Then machine the entire face square.

That should get you pretty close.  If I didn't make any sense above, I can stage this in my mill and get some pictures of the proposed setup.


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## kizmit99

David - thanks for the link to the video.  I haven't had a chance to watch it yet, but will.  I do have a small surface plate (9x12x2 granite from Grizzly) and some "precision" squares from India...  I'll watch the video and see what I can learn.

Jim - your approach makes a lot of sense to me.  I don't think tightening the screw is introducing a shift in the movable jaw, but I think with your approach I should be able to identify whether it is or not.  I think I'll start by seeing if I can "find" the alignment issue between the two jaw faces...

I'll report back when I know more...

thanks guys!


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## David Kirtley

Even cheapie squares can be trued up. That's what they make files for. 

Just in case you don't already know, the way to check a square is to mark a line off of it and then flip the square to the other direction and mark a line next to the first. Adjust until it marks the same from either direction.


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## chuckorlando

Have you made sure the datum your using to true up the fixed jaw is true? It's imperative to start with a proper square. Any variation on the contact surface will transfer to the work and no matter how many cuts you take on the back jaw you will keep getting the variation. I learned that in a book but I made sure I ignored it at least once. Just to make sure it really would waste my time and materials ahahaha. Just flipped the block in the wrong direction when squaring my stock and made a real crooked v block.


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## kizmit99

I think I made some decent headway this evening.  I was following Jim's suggestions and to start I ran an indicator across the fixed jaw on my mill vise, and I found it was out of alignment with the table.  It was out by quite a bit, it must have moved since the last time I checked it.  Anyway, I realigned the mill vise, then clamped the mini vise in the larger one (with the "back" of the fixed jaw against the fixed jaw of the mill vise) and indicated the face of the rear jaw.  It was off a little so I took a skim off that face again.  It then indicated true.  Then I used the indicator to get a feel for how much "slop" was in the movable jaw (trying to understand how much rotation of the jaw the rails allow) -- to my great surprise I was unable to measure anything more than about a quarter of a thousandth of play at the edges of the jaw face.  My process for measuring this was simply to move the jaw (freehand) against the indicator, then try to twist the jaw without letting it slide forward or backwards - so it's certainly open to human error, but try as I might I couldn't introduce any noticeable twist.

I decided that since there didn't seem to be any appreciably twist introduced by the locking screw that I should be able to just lock the movable jaw and run an end mill across the face of the movable jaw.  I did that, and after milling it ran an indicator across the surface again and it indicated true.  When the two jaws are brought together they seem to be very true left-to-right, but I still have about a .0025 gap (according to my highly precision Harbor Freight feeler gauges) at the very top of the jaws.  The gap seems very consistent across the top edge, ending about a third of the way down the face (or more precisely, getting below .0015 (the slimmest of the feeler gauges I have) at that depth).

I consider this a pretty good improvement.  When I clamp a piece of 3/8 aluminum plate in the jaws (and tighten to what I consider a reasonable level) I am unable to twist the plate out of the grip of the vise.

David - I watched that video, interesting how much time the author put into 'perfecting' a wood plane - personally I'm not sure how measuring the chip with a micrometer tells him much more about the plane than the sharpness of the blade, but whatever...   The techniques he used to verify squareness are pretty-much what I've done (hold a square up to side and look for light.  TO the best of my ability to discern, the sides all seem square to the bottom and the top seems square to the sides.  I don't have a precision straight-edge, but I'll check for flatness with edges of the squares tomorrow.  I suppose I could try to the true up the jaw faces to each other using a file, but frankly I suspect I'd do more harm than good at this point, but I may give it a shot in any case - I think I have plenty of meat left on the faces of the jaws.

Thanks again guys for suggestions!


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## David Kirtley

kizmit99 said:


> David - I watched that video, interesting how much time the author put into 'perfecting' a wood plane - personally I'm not sure how measuring the chip with a micrometer tells him much more about the plane than the sharpness of the blade, but whatever...
> 
> Thanks again guys for suggestions!



I cringed every time he was saying it was "unusable." I guess he doesn't know what that little lateral adjustment lever is for.  I also figure he is unaware of the Japanese way of creating the hollows that he is working so hard to remove.

The micrometer shavings fetish?  Well, there is a lot of that in the woodworking world. They even have competitions for it.  Of course it has absolutely nothing to do with actually making anything.

But anyway, he does a lovely demo of scraping and squaring.


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## John Hasler

I'd shim up the back of the minivise and take a .0025" wedge off the movable jaw.


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## kizmit99

Using some of the ideas from the video David posted above I took another look at the vise.  As far as I can tell the bottom is reasonably flat, and the sides are as square to the bottom as I could hope (checked with my machinist squares (which also seem reasonable square)).  The top side of the vise (which the movable jaw rides on) is square to the sides, reasonably flat, and indicates parallel to the bottom.  However, the back of the vise (rear side of the fixed jaw) is not 100% square to the bottom.  I would say it's out by about .003 over 2".  The faces of the jaws are also visibly out of square with the top of the vise (using the square and looking for light).  I could see with the back out of alignment that the jaw faces could have been milled parallel to the back (as it was the side against the fixed jaw on my mill vise when I faced the jaws last), what is odd though is that both the fixed and movable jaws are "out" about the same amount, but in both cases the top edge shows the gap (with the square on the "top" side of the vise...  Not certain how the movable jaw got cut basically the reverse of the fixed jaw unless the mill was slightly tapered as well?

Anyway, I was going to fix the rear face of the vise.  But after indicating my mill vise to ensure it's fixed jaw was still true (in both X and Z axis), when I placed the little vise in the mill vise (back side up, bottom against the rear jaw, sitting on short parallels, with a piece of copper wire between the movable jaw and the "top" of the small vise, the top surface (back of the small vise) indicated it was flat?  I ran the flycutter across it anyway, taking almost no cut, and the cutter touched everywhere the same amount (almost nothing, just enough to mark the surface).  The only thing I can think is that the combination of only clamping only the last inch of the small vise bottom, and it sticking out of the mill vise 3", and potential jaw lift in my mill vise (it's a Chinese vise, not a Kurt) is introducing enough tilt that I'm left with the vise being held slightly out of straight...

After that I decided to go ahead and give hand working the jaw faces a shot.  I used the squares against the top side of the vise, and started hand filing the faces of the jaws.  After maybe a half hour of slowly working them I was left with this:




The faces read square to the top side of the vise (which indicates parallel to the bottom of the vise), there is no visible crack between the faces (I can see no light between them) and I can't fit my smallest feeler gauge (.0015) between the faces anywhere.  I was careful not to make the faces concave so they aren't just touching around the edges.  Anyway, I'm pretty pleased with the results - not what I would have expected, that hand-working with a file would be more "precise" than using the mill, but that's what I discovered...

I also had to make one final tweak to the design to make the "retainer slot" closest to the fixed jaw end of the vise usable.  I had to mill out a little extra space to make room for the pivoting grabber-thing...




I'll probably take a shot at squaring up the back of the vise with the files.  And I'm planning on making a dedicated wrench for tightening it.  But other than those,  I think this project is basically done.

Thanks for the input along the way!


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## David Kirtley

Looks really nice.

The machines are nice but nothing you can't do otherwise. It just takes careful work and patience.  Right now, you are really at the starting point if you wanted to get crazy accurate with it. Just touch it to the blued surface plate and scrape carefully until it is perfect. There are tricks to make it go faster and to keep from going too far, but basically it is just that simple repetitive cycle.


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## JimDawson

Nice job.  I'm still not sure why the surfaces didn't machine true, but I think you're right, it may have lifted in the mill vice.  A lot of times when I need to get really accurate in the mill, I use a known good angle plate or just clamp down to the table to take out some of the variables.

It may be time to work on your mill vice a bit.  I had an import 6 inch mill vice, Kurt style, and had to do some rework on it to get it accurate.  The fixed jaw would flex about 0.0025 at the top when I tightened it.  I replaced the original 1/2 inch cap screws with 5/8 inch cap screws and tightened them all I could pull on a 30 inch breaker bar.  Pretty much eliminated the flex problem.  I'm going to do the same thing with my Kurt vices I have now.


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## spindle

Gread job, I think you pretty much nailed it. Now try to mill a perfect little cube to see how you did.


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## dulltool17

You've done a wonderful job making a great tool!
this could be a case of "a job well done is its own reward," but I think you'll be rewarded with good results every time you use this vise!

Doug W


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## brav65

Great work!  Very inspiring project.  I am a long time woodworker and have a garage full of jigs and fixtures I have made over the years.  Every time I use one I think back to the project that I made the jig or fixture for.  I am sure that years from now that you will look back and remember the lessons learned creating your own vise.  Well done!


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## Torbo

Great work!


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## Silverbullet

Nice job , will have to make my own also. I have two very heavy 2" x 2" square weights from a exercising machine. What kind of steel they are made from I don't know but I hope it works for a few projects I want to make out of them. I also have an old power hacksaw to rebuild using that to cut the bars will Help tell me what kind of steel it is. So many projects so little time .


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## Peter Dahlman

Looks great


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