Polishing a turd or fettling a HF X-Y vise

mattthemuppet said:
hmm, good idea. I might have to make it out of wood first until I can scrounge some metal plate of some description, although thankfully I do have a lot of wood in the garage. I'll see if I can find a flat piece of hardwood somewhere. I'm still kicking myself for not scrounging a large piece (12in by 12in?) of 3/8" aluminium that I saw in the metal recycling bin at work, thought I wouldn't have a use for it (slap). Never again :)

Also have to figure out a way of using the dial indicator (1in, 0.001") I have to get the vise properly perpendicular to the spindle. At least I have plenty of steel rods of different sizes I could use to cobble something together.
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I had a similar problem: the table on my drill press is so large that it interferes with the lower of the vise slide handles. I just blocked it up with a couple of chunks of a tractor drawbar. A plate would be better but you got what you've got.

Now that it's above zero in the shop again I may soon have something to post about the Avey project (if I can find time between bouts of snow plowing).
 
I'll figure something out :) Good to hear you're getting back to your Avey, looking forward to seeing your progress. It's warmed up a load here too, so instead of riding to work in the snow, I got to ride to work on ice. Yay!
 
I had one of those vises. I put it in the trash the same day it came in the mail. I was so ****** when I got it. Cheap junk. It even had a plastic lead screw nut. I have never seen such A thing. How can they get away with making such crap.
 
Fair enough, I'm sure quality varies on this type of vise but I've been moderately impressed with this one, even out of the box. As I said, I bought it viewing it as a kit and it's excellent value from that perspective
 
mattthemuppet said:
Fair enough, I'm sure quality varies on this type of vise but I've been moderately impressed with this one, even out of the box. As I said, I bought it viewing it as a kit and it's excellent value from that perspective
Click to expand...

You must have got a good one. The one I got was garbage. Did yours have a plastic lead screw nut?
 
I guess so, although the reviews on HF are largely positive. No plastic leadscrew nut - the leadscrew is captured against the end plate by a steel cylinder "dial" that has a set screw in it. The lower axis dial was so far from the plate that it took a few turns to start moving the vise, but that's a simple adjustment for anyone who'd want to buy this. It's a good enough set up to re-use it, but if it doesn't work well enough in use I'll just thread the handle end of the leadscrew and add a nut+nyloc lock nut.

Small update - tried making the brass thrust washers last night. All went well until I went to drill out the centers and realised that there wasn't enough space between the jaws behind the washers to do so. Being lazy and, it turns out later, having a high fever, I proceeded to do it in the drill press. One of the original holes (to hold it to an arbor for turning down the OD) must have been slightly off center, so I ended up with 1/2in holes about 1/16 off center. Buggeration. I was too knackered to want to do anything more, so when I feel better I'll chuck the washers with the inside jaws and bore the center hole back to center. There's still enough material there for the dial to spin on.
 
finished the top axis, pending ordering some proper bolts.

random mystery gold metal (sadly not gold), probably brass
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arbored up
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screw up averted. Both the brass washer and dial where they'll be touching were flat sanded up to 2000 grit then Mothers Mag polished. You can see the difference to the other ends (untouched for the dial, 220 grit for the washer)
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bearing installed, nice slip fit
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brass washer lightly superglued in place
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topslide. The rod that captures the moving vise half was sanded up to 2000grit and polished, plus the bolt that captures the vise screw was replaced with a wider one to reduce slop (there was a 1/4 turn before the vise started opening from being closed). Vise half slides very nicely
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I was going to show the leadscrew and plate separately, but I got caught up in putting it all together :) Gib nuts were rounded off on the gib end and the locking bolts were replaced with socket head bolts. Gibs were flat lapped and polished. Liberal doses of 3in1 applied to the sliding and screw surfaces
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With the dial snugged up tight to the brass washer there's very limited backlash (1/2 to 1 mystery graduation) and the slide moves very smoothly with no discernable movement off axis. There's detectable binding when the leadscrew is being turned clockwise (pressure on the brass washer) but it's still smoother than original. Might have to replace that with a proper thrust bearing at some point. Turning the handle counter clockwise (pressure on the bearing) is very smooth. I'll probably have to play with how tight the gibs are once I start using it but as it is I'm very pleased.

I think I'll use a smaller bearing on the bottom axis as the upper leadscrew plate limits travel some what (I may face off some material to reduce interference). Fingers crossed I'll have time to start that this weekend.
 
Thanks! It'll never be a palmgren or troyke (?) But it'll do for the time being. Made a good start on the other plate, going back out there when the kids go to sleep :)
 
I acquired one of these cheap X-Y vises (the 4" size, I think) along with a drill press purchase. I thought I would give it a try for some milling on aluminum for cutting sidewinder keys. A clamp on spindle was used for spinning a 1/8" carbide endmill. It cut just fine, and had plenty of rigidity, but the XY vise had just too much slop. After ruining two key blanks, I disassembled it to try to see what was wrong.

The problem is that if the gib screws were loose, the slide wobbled too much along with the sliding. If they were too tight, the slide would jam. The problem with any slop is that it wasn't xy motion, and the rotation would cause the cutter to dig too deep into the key blank. Thus, the cuts were off.

The dovetails were a little rough, but I did not see anything obviously wrong. I tried buying some prussian blue from the local auto parts store and rubbing it on the sliding surfaces. It kind of smeared all over, and I couldn't tell what to look for. The tube said that some very obvious shiny spots would appear, but I didn't see anything obvious. I cinched up the gib screws until the slide started binding, but did not see anything. Has anybody succesfully fixed one of these? thanks, Eric
 
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