Tiny Vise Syndrome

[ibohan]

When it comes to milling things on the Carve King, I tend to bite off more than I can chew.  Well, actually I mill off more than I can clamp.
My biggest vise is 4", and on a few occasions I've needed to mill stock larger than that when I can't use hold down clamps.

So I took a lesson from This Old Tony and decided to make my own Two Piece Vise to fit on the Carve King.




I decided I'm going to make the two vise bodies from teak that I have laying around.  I spaced the mounting holes to line up with the T-slot rails on the machine bed.  Luckily I have enough material to align the grain along the x-axis, which would be the direction of compression when I'm clamping a part.
I've also decided to leave some landing pads for hold down clamps if I need to move the vise into a spot where I can't use the T-slots.

Aside from the body, there's not much to the vise.  I'm using 1/4" sheet aluminum for vice jaws, a 3/8" cap head screw to move the aluminum jaw and two 7/8" acetal rods as guides for the moving jaw.
I'm going to risk it and thread the acetal guides into the moving jaw using a 1/2"-20 thread.  I'll be turning the acetal rod down on my lathe.

The cap head screw is threaded into a brass insert that's installed into the teak body.  Turning the screw into the body will push the aluminum jaw out.

Here's a screenshot of my McMaster-Carr shopping cart.



Here's the link to the Fusion 360 model.  Feel free to download and modify/create as much as you'd like.

a360.co/2NQxM7N

[Bruce]

Thanks for posting. Looks interesting.

[Derek the Admin]

Looks awesome. Please keep us posted on how that does. I’ll be interested in seeing it in action.

[ibohan]

Here is the finished results.  I had a few hickups, but overall it turned out pretty well.
I'd like to see what improvements other people come up with if they decide to make their own.









I decided the make the guides smaller to save on material and to add plastic bushings around the guides so they had a smooth surface to slide against.  If I were to make another set, I'd make the clamping spots bigger on the moving jaw to have more room for a wrench or to adjust the clamp.  I updated the Fusion 360 file with the changes.
For some reason the Carve King was cutting too small, so I had to finish most of the features by hand.  I'm going to check the steps per mm in grbl and see if that was the culprit. 

[Derek the Admin]

Looks good. Thanks for sharing!

Maybe I'm being dense today but I want to make sure I understand the clamping operation. One of the jaws has your two guides running though it. The aluminum piece on the face of the jaw is attached to the slides is pushed on by the socket cap screw when tightened. Is that right?

[ibohan]

Yeah that's right. The socket cap screw is threaded into the body with a brass insert and presses the moving jaw out when its tightened.

[Derek the Admin]

Cool. I thought that's how it worked. Have you run ops using it yet?

[ibohan]

I haven't yet, but I have a couple projects on the list that I'll need to use these for. I tested the holding force by smacking the block with a mallet. Seemed pretty solid.