X/Y vise

[francist]

That’s brilliant!

 

[Cadillac STS]

I don’t think it’s a great candidate for rebuilding as it’s taken a number of direct hits. Spared the table thankfully!
(This is 100% cleaner than it was when I bought the press)

Worth a mention but probably is known to most.

That wing nut in the picture is the gib lock and both axis should be locked down before drilling to keep the table from moving.

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[MrWhoopee]

I've often looked at these and thought "what the hell good is that?" I figured they were kind of like those fishing lures that catch fishermen instead of fish. I'm surprised to hear that some people find them useful.

 

[mattthemuppet2]

I bought one from HF years ago and sorted it out so I could use it as a milling vise on my drill press before I got a mill. Did a bunch of work - made new gibs, made proper bearing supports (including thrust bearings) for the screws, improved the hold down of the moving jaw and added digital calipers to each axis. It wasn't great, but it did the job and I still use it today on my drill press, even though I now have a mill.

 

[Cadillac STS]

I say everything in a drill press needs to be clamped down. No hand holding for safety and accuracy.

The X-Y table makes things easier. Say you want to drill and tap a hole. You need to clamp it somehow. With the XY table you clamp it in, bring it to the spot with the XY table and lock the gibs and you are good to go.

You can and most probably do clamp a vise to the table and work that around, bump it back and forth each different way to get it in place then tighten the clamp to hold it, to get things set where you want them but the XY makes it easier. With the work held secure just turn the screws to get it right on the spot.

 

[hman]

I figured they were kind of like those fishing lures that catch fishermen instead of fish.

... which is to say ... ALL fishing lures

 

[C-Bag]

Everybody is different and doing projects differently. My HF xy vise sat on the shelf for over a year after I bought it and tried it and it didn’t do what I wanted at the time. Then one day the light went on for the project at hand and I mounted it up, did a couple of mods and couldn’t live without it after that. Not until I upgraded my DP was I able to go to the next level of xy rotary table and speed vise or I’d still be using the old xy vise. I’m just glad I could pass the old xy vise on to a fellow H-M to try out for free. He can always bring it back if it doesn’t work out and I’ll find someone else to pay it forward to.

 

[DavidR8]

Everybody is different and doing projects differently. My HF xy vise sat on the shelf for over a year after I bought it and tried it and it didn’t do what I wanted at the time. Then one day the light went on for the project at hand and I mounted it up, did a couple of mods and couldn’t live without it after that. Not until I upgraded my DP was I able to go to the next level of xy rotary table and speed vise or I’d still be using the old xy vise. I’m just glad I could pass the old xy vise on to a fellow H-M to try out for free. He can always bring it back if it doesn’t work out and I’ll find someone else to pay it forward to.

Do you recall its shortcomings and what you did to remedy them?


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[C-Bag]

Do you recall its shortcomings and what you did to remedy them?


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Kinda the usual stuff with HF. Did some cleaning deburring on the gibs and ways. Changed the gib clamp under the vise screw to a Allen head screw so I could tighten it if needed. I installed a prismatic jaw I’d picked up somewhere that had the correct spacing of the mount screws. Which didn’t work on any other vise I have. Great for holding shafts horizontal or vertical. Was also ok for flats. The center guide shaft on mine was not proud of the vise base so to hold flats level I used my adjustable parallel to support the other end. I was getting close to making another set of jaws for it when the UniDrill came along and made the whole thing moot. The last mod I did to it was cut and mill the boss the vise screw goes through. I was doing something and the boss was at least double what it needed to be and it was making the vise not open as wide as advertised.

 

[mattthemuppet2]

I can't speak for c-bag, but on mine there was a lot of back and forth slop in the screws, plus they bound up in certain directions due to a lack of thrust bearing. The Y axis (bottom one) has always been looser in the middle so it still requires fiddling with the lock screws if I'm working on something at either extreme of the travel. The top axis is fine though and was made better with a new gib and extra gib screws. The big downside to these tables in general though is that if you have something really large (like a 4ft long 2x4), it's a pain to balance it on top of the jaws as you no longer have a large flat table to rest it on. Most of my work is small though, so it's rarely an annoyance.

Here are a couple of pics of mine, including with my drill press in "mill" mode