Tapping in a vice

[John Gray 7Participant @johngray7]

I know this has been covered before, but humour me please. After some weeks away from my workshop following a hospitalisation spell, I spent an hour or two today just “doing stuff” that needed doing. One of the things I needed to do was to remount and clock in my arc versatile (without the swivel base) vice. I have researched other people’s approaches and intended to machine a top hat type washer to fit to one side that could be tightened up with the other side loose to enable tapping in. I found there is not really room for that type of washer unless I mill out a little space. This is still a possibility. I used the 2 mounting bolts with one snugged up to pivot on and one loose. I was astonished at how long it took me to get this anything near right, and I think I need a better solution, as I would like to not feel bad about taking the vice off. I don’t have the same problems with my 70mm toolmakers type vice as this has flat machined sides, and use of an engineers square gets me close enough for most activities, or can be proper sorted with a clock and a few taps. The versatile vice doesn’t have machined edges so this approach is not possible.
the vice came with a couple of keys that will have to be machined to fit the slots on my SX2P mill. My thinking is to machine these 2 keys to fit the slots then try a clock and see how close I am. If I push the vice forward so that both keys are in contact with the edge of the slot, I’m thinking that I could alter the position of the vice minutely by milling or grinding just one key, rinse and repeat until it’s correct. This sounds to me to be too good to be true, but the allure of being able to remove this vice and replace at will with a workable setup is messing with my head.
My second plan is to mill out one of the mounting lugs and make a bush or top hat washer to fit such that the vice could swivel about this point, presumably making tapping in easier. I found today that with one side snugged up there was just too much movement on the vice in all directions rather than just pivoting about the snugged up point, and I’m sure that that was what was making my task so difficult. I imagine practice and experience would help here, but it’s not encouraging me to take it off just so I can practice and get some experience tapping it in again. So what do folks think, fit and fiddle with the keys, or mill the vice base, or indeed both options?

[John HaineParticipant @johnhaine32865]

The technique for fitting keys to the vice (highly recommended) is as follows.

• Clamp a bar across the table deal square to the X direction.  Ideally use a big parallel.
• Turn the vice upside down and clamp its jaws on the bar, then machine a shallow groove wide enough – say 1mm –  to take a square key blank that is slightly larger than your tee slots as a tightish fit.  Make the groove in line with the mounting holes.
• Tap a couple of holes say M5 in the underside of the vice on the centreline of the groove to match clearance holes through the bar.  Good idea to counterbore the holes in the “top” of the bar (which will end up on the bottom).
• Attach the key blank with suitable bolts (socket head probably best to get them really tight).
• Beforehand you should very accurately measure the tee slot width which the key will drop in.  With the inverted vice clamped in place and the key firmly bolted on, take very small full-height cuts either side of the key to get it to a width which will be a snug fit in the slot.

Now, as long as the initial bar was accurately square to the X axis, you should find you can drop the vice in place with the key in the slot and it will be dead square.  I did this years ago and stopped worrying about dialling in my vice.

[HuubParticipant @huub]

I clamp a piece of flat stock in my vice (123 block) and register that against the flat side of the Z-axis using a flat and parallel piece of aluminum. Than I tighten the bolts and 9 out of 10 the 80 mm vice is within 0.02 mm (0..1″) aligned. For 99% of what I do, that is close enough.

I made the aluminum parallel by milling 1 side, placing that milled side against the flat Z-axis and milling the opposite side. Added a mark that shows the side that needs to sit against the Z-axis.

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