Thursday, May 14, 2009

The Difference The Right Vise Makes

The Difference The Right Vise Makes

I mentioned a few days back
that I was machining a cheap drill press vise to make it more precise for use on the Sherline vertical mill--and what a difference it makes! I filled a ScopeRoller order last night where I could have left these three rectangles the size that they came out of the chopsaw--but there was enough variation that it would have looked bad, and besides, when you mill the edges, it looks so much nicer!

Anyway, this drill press vise has a lot more clamping force, and I was able to lock all three 1/2" thick pieces of Delrin in position at once. Because it clamped them so solidly, I found that the fly cutter was happy even doing .025" deep cuts across all three chunks, even turning the lead screw as fast as I could. What a difference! My vertical mill is now a source of joy, not frustration. Even machining big pieces of aluminum works well now.

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