[mactec54]

Maybe in the 15 months since I posted the tip,he will have had time to either build a removable section in the table or to get hold of a model engineer size chuck.Of course,his machine might just have a lot of Z axis travel as many home builds seem to be built with this as a feature-in spite of the challenges it brings.I have to admit that I have been in several machine shops that had added a backplate to a three jaw chuck for use on their mills and it got even better if they had a DRO as they could quickly dial in the centre location and quickly move to any desired location.

You can't compare a Mill to a Hobby Router I have few Mills that I use lathe Chucks on and know where there use on a Mill is

You see a Chuck used on a manual Mill more than a CNC machine because it is hard to make profiled Vice Jaws on a Manual Mill, a Vice with Profiled Jaws is better to use than a Chuck any day

You don't need a dro to set up a Chuck on a Mill, if you are a competent machinist, to indicate something on a machine table off the center of the Spindle has nothing to do with a Dro

A model engineer size chuck would be a bad idea to hold something like this, you obvious have never done anything like this or you would know that a chuck like this is poor at holding parts like this for milling

A Dro will help for positioning but nothing else, so I guess you are not a time served machinist

[routalot]

I was posting last year for the benefit of an amateur with a hobby mill and he found my suggestion helpful.I don't really want to get into a bombastic pissing match like the fellows on the practical machinist forum.

[mactec54]

I was posting last year for the benefit of an amateur with a hobby mill and he found my suggestion helpful.I don't really want to get into a bombastic pissing match like the fellows on the practical machinist forum.

There is a difference between a qualified machinist that is experienced in using both methods and a wanna be machinist that posts what he has seen but never used himself

Something is only helpful if it was able to be used, or helped solve a problem in some way

[machinedude]

i happen to watch a video of a restoration of a vintage vice of this nature so these vices have been around for some time. i personally have never used one but it was enough to catch my interest to see how they work. this is only the first video i could find of this style of vise and have seen them in a size comparable to a typical 6" vise. typically i resort to milling a set of soft jaws for irregular work holding in a production type situation but everything is not always grouped into the same type of work situation.

i don't think there is a right or wrong answer when it comes to work holding solutions honestly. it boils down to the individual and individual needs of the job at hand. basically the job has to justify the extra cost of any special work holding solution and there are many options for work holing solutions out there.

[mactec54]

i happen to watch a video of a restoration of a vintage vice of this nature so these vices have been around for some time. i personally have never used one but it was enough to catch my interest to see how they work. this is only the first video i could find of this style of vise and have seen them in a size comparable to a typical 6" vise. typically i resort to milling a set of soft jaws for irregular work holding in a production type situation but everything is not always grouped into the same type of work situation.

i don't think there is a right or wrong answer when it comes to work holding solutions honestly. it boils down to the individual and individual needs of the job at hand. basically the job has to justify the extra cost of any special work holding solution and there are many options for work holing solutions out there.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tvnizh0XPOA

Yes those Engraving vices are great I used to manufacture a 6" vice just like that, they do it with pin plates as well, there are many ways to hold work, the engraving industry have a lot of different ways to hold odd shaped parts, by machining vice jaws like you have been doing, if done correctly it won't leave any marks on the clamping area of a finished machined part, using a regular 3 jaw chuck will leave jaw clamp marks on the part, so a Vice with machined jaws is always going to be better than a 3 Jaw Chuck, a chuck also can have machined soft jaws but this is not the norm for parts being machined on a CNC milling machine

[mactec54]

i happen to watch a video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tvnizh0XPOA

I should of mentioned that the 3D printing world has be printing these Fractal Vices, I think there are some videos of this great 100 year old vice

[machinedude]

I should of mentioned that the 3D printing world has be printing these Fractal Vices, I think there are some videos of this great 100 year old vice

typically when i do a set of soft jaws they are for secondary operations. on your first operation most of the time you leave your stock thickness around .100 over so you can hold your blanks in a normal vise. i try to do as much as possible in the first operation and do as few set ups as possible so you don't get error accumulating between set ups if possible. But when you work in a shop that have 5 axis machines most of the time they end up with the more involved parts simply because they can do things in few set ups. but you do run into times when they are backed up and your machine is open so you have to deal with more set up time to run a job in those cases.

hands down soft jaws are a winner in a production type job. but if you were doing one of's all the time something like this vise would be a time saver on fixturing so that would be my first thought on something like this.

[mactec54]

typically when i do a set of soft jaws they are for secondary operations. on your first operation most of the time you leave your stock thickness around .100 over so you can hold your blanks in a normal vise. i try to do as much as possible in the first operation and do as few set ups as possible so you don't get error accumulating between set ups if possible. But when you work in a shop that have 5 axis machines most of the time they end up with the more involved parts simply because they can do things in few set ups. but you do run into times when they are backed up and your machine is open so you have to deal with more set up time to run a job in those cases.

hands down soft jaws are a winner in a production type job. but if you were doing one of's all the time something like this vise would be a time saver on fixturing so that would be my first thought on something like this.

A factal jaw set like this for doing heavy cnc machining would be very expensive unless you could make them, they are normally only for engraving work and don't have great repeatability

I have a set of jaws that I machined with round pockets in the top of each jaw then you can insert 1" round bar ( or can be any size you want ) which has a cap-screw in the center to hold the round bar in place, these you can profile just like you do a jaw, you can get up to 4 different profiles milled into these round inserts, just by turning them to a different position, they can also be reused for the same job even if you have moved them, you can relocate them on the part again by having the cap-screw not tight, clamp the part to relocate the insert and then tighten the cap-screw this can really help for the one off parts