I always do mine much the same except it's a cheapo vice and somehow the fixed jaw has a marginal bow in it's grind so I pop a parallel in and just finger tight the jaws, indicate off the far face of the parallel and accept the equal micron change from centre to each end. It should have been returned when bought but back then as a total newbie I foolishly thought 'twas me.

I use a straight, flat rule held in the vice and sight it against the edge of the table (ground on both sides).

This seems to give me an alignment within a few thou over a foot.

If I need better, which is not often, I do more or less what Andrew does. The loose and tight clamp idea is a good one.

Neil

Edited By Neil Wyatt on 22/08/2018 20:17:53

As I often have to remove the vice to make room for other fixtures I have fitted a tenon to the underside of the vice, this saves clocking the vice every time it is used, if the job requires the utmost accuracy I check the fixed jaw with a clock before use but find it is always within a few tenths of a thou.

I'm pretty sure it has been shown on this forum how to accurately fit a tenon for such use.

Emgee

Similar to the previous posts. I have a tenon fitted to the underside of the vice but I always push it against the side of one of the keyslots when I tighten the bolts. Therefore does not matter if the width of the key slot is wider than the tenon key. This method is accurate enough for most of the machining jobs and fast to set-up. For precision jobs, I check with an indicator.

Paul.

My initial setting is by bumping the back of the vise to the mill column. Closer than I need it for most of my work. The rough finish on the vise did need milling flat originally.

Does anyone try to align their vise with both holding bolts loose?

Clock reading at both ends of the jaw and halve that reading at the centre point, or one chosen as preferred. Cannot possibly take more than ten adjustments if carried out properly – think here of trying to fold a sheet of paper, in half, ten times! Or ten times the radioactive half-life will result in very little residual activity.

Mathematically, divide 1 by 2^10 and note the reduction. Final error should be 1/1000 of original, which should be good enough for most of us! Invariably fewer adjustments are necessary for most of us!

If a wide enough parallel were to be used such that its face was exactly in line with the fulcrum point, the adjustment could be done in one, theoretically – but tightening that other holding bolt might create an error…

Inspired by an article in MEW, a long time ago, I made up a vice alignment fixture, looking like a set of goal posts.

It was made from 1 inch round bar (25mm for those who are Metric).

The foot of each upright is turned to be a tight fit in the Tee slots of the table.

Each upright is drilled through to take a long bolt (more convenient than a stud) that picks up on the Tee nut in the slot.

The "crossbar" is secured to the uprights, by socket head screws, at a height that matches the vice jaws, and located to the uprights by a vee in one or the other.

The fixture is clamped to the milling table and a light cut taken along both sides, to produce a flat about 3.8" (10mm) wide.

You then have faces that are on the travel line of the cutter, even if the tee slots are not.

The vice is placed on the table, in the required position, but not clamped down, yet. The "goal post" fixture is placed within the opened jaws of the vice, and clamped down to the table. The vice jaws are then closed, firmly upon the fixture, before being clamped to the table. The vice can then be released, and the "goalpost" fixture removed and stored for the next time that it is needed. My checks usually show the vice jaws to be aligned within 0.001inch, (0.0025mm).

H T H

Howard

I bought a relatively inexpensive Soba (Shoba) vice from Chronos. When I got round to checking it I was pleased to note that the nicely machined mounting holes were parallel to the jaws. I simply turned a pair of press in sleeves to fit the slots in my mill. Simply placed on the mill and bolted down it’s within one thou parallel. Not sure why I bother but I normally “fuss” it until it’s spot on.

I have to wonder if a budget manufacturer can make a vice with accurately machined mounting holes why can’t some “premium” vice manufacturers do it instead of nasty as cast slots.

Hmmm…just had a thought (rare)..I wonder if a bearing on a rod in the quill could be used to line a vice quickly..

pgk

Vic

I like that idea. Been meaning to do something similar for "not telling you how many" years. But I find simply pulling the vice hard back so studs are tight against both lathe Tee slot and vice mount slot always gets me to a thou or so in four inches error. So hardly seems worth the bovver.

Of course I left the swivel base on so getting the basic adjustment right was easy. As is tweaking when it has to be dead nuts right. But I have a Bridgeport so loosing an inch of vertical clearance matters not at all.

This ease of tweaking is the only real justification I can see for the conventional swivel base. Theoretically it can be used as a sort of poor mans rotary table I suppose. But who does that? I might have done it once in 30 years.

Wonder how well re-working one vice slot to carry a fixed pivot would work. If the opposite slot were also machined to have smooth sides and faces an eccentric, hex headed, T shaped spacer bored a nice fit on the stud would make accurate, controlled, angle adjustment easy. I guess ± 20 thou / 0.5 mm adjustment range would be more than enough.

Big question is if a simple drop over ordinary studs set up would work or whether you'd need to arrange for the studs to be fixed down rigidly before dropping the vice on. Rigid studs or posts should theoretically be better but whether the better adds up to anything you'd see in practice is a different matter. Not in principle difficult but, as ever, the devil is in the details.

Hate monkeying around tapping stuff into place.

Clive.

Edited By Clive Foster on 23/08/2018 11:43:27

Dave, I think sometimes it helps to be anal about some things. I turned up some thick washers and use flange nuts on my mill vice. It looks like you’re a bit tight for space on yours though.

As I mentioned in another thread. A professional machinist I know of drilled right through his vice into the table for a couple of pins. Setting up his vice now takes no longer than bolting it down.

Standard operating procedure?

Tony