Originally Posted by
Smertrios
The real vise will be 3 3" long bars of 1/2" square aluminum each with 2 holes drilled 2" apart for mounting to the table. Part #1 and part #2 are the fixed jaws, part #3 is the movable jaw that will be pushed by the screw(s) in part #2.
I'm not sure about using the surface of the table to slide the aluminum jaw on but I think with a little grease or even without it will work fine.
Any ideas?
Better to build it onto a tooling plate, so that if you make a mistake and the z plunges below the table you won't have killed your mill (it happens - I had a customer saw his table in half almost)
I use edge clamps for work like this, with a bar at the other end. The edge clamps pull the work down as they clamp, and have a generally low profile (I think about .25")
But I have seen milling vises like this (a bit bigger though) and they work fine. Aluminum against the anodized table should slide fine.
Nick Carter
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