Thoughts on a Basic face vise

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Calling the thread fit of the spinners on the screw “sloppy” would be a compliment. But, that is why they spin so freely.

The clamping screw needs to be perpendicular to the leg. The rear nut (spinner) is housed in an adjustable housing so that misalignment like this can be adjusted out despite the loose thread fit.

Note that this is the initial adjustment. The final adjustment is made with the weight of the chop in place.

 

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Renamed the project once again. “Face vise” is more accurate than “bench vise”

Assembled the clamping screw to the handwheel today. The handwheel was made from leftover butcher block strips from another project. I prefer making handwheels this way for two reasons. 1) the surface that you push on is all long grain, and 2) more resistance to breakage if accidentally dropped.

Looking at the axial force when clamping, the screw pulls away from the operator, the cross pin pushes the washer, and the washer pushes the chop. Thus the strain on the joint to the handwheel is substantially zero.

Drilling into a cylinder is dodgy at best. I rely on a center drill (aka countersink) to get a starter hole.

 

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This garter design is similar to Matt’s mentioned above. Since this handwheel is epoxied to the screw, there needs to be a provision for assembly/disassembly. The brass pin fits a cross hole in the clamping screw.

Remove the keeper to install or remove the pin.

 

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Here is the first assembly of the mostly completed basic face vise.

 

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Here is the first assembly of the mostly completed basic face vise.
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Looking forward to building one of these. Believe I have all of the components with the possible exception of the brass pin. Pretty sure I have something that will work, maybe not that long

 

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Looking forward to building one of these. Believe I have all of the components with the possible exception of the brass pin. Pretty sure I have something that will work, maybe not that long

Use what you have such as a spike. I had a brass rod handy.

 

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A prototype often reveals a flaw or two and this was no exception. One of the 1/4” lags holding the nut block stripped and the clamp screw had some binding especially when open wide. The binding was caused by the two nuts being too close together axially (about 1”).

Today I made a nut block without a recess and fastened it with assembly bolts. Now the spinner nuts are nearly 3” apart axially and the binding is gone. I can twirl the handwheel with one finger for its full travel. Here are the assembly bolt heads in the front of the leg:

The rear nut is positioned behind the nut block and still needs a retainer to be made.

 

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Due to limited space, I decided to screw the nut to the block rather than make a separate retainer.

After the nut is installed, next step is adjusting the nut block vertically to make the clamping screw perpendicular to the vise leg.

 

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Got the Basic face vise prototype together today:

And the front view:

Here it is holding my tall vise:

I feel that I achieved my objective of a face vise design that can be built for a few tens of dollars. It does grip firmly but it does not operate as smoothly as I would like and my next task is getting that sorted out.

One problem may be that I got defective dumbbell handles. The coating is chipping and that has not happened to me before. This same screw was used in the tall vises and AFIK they have operated smoothly and held up well over time.

 

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Two fixes today improved the smoothness of the vise prototype. The support nut fit was a bit loose and a laminate shim fixed that.

Made the nut block thicker so that the span between the nuts is now about 4” and that seems about right. The does reduce the maximum throat opening a bit but the opening is still over 6”. A tradeoff for more smoothness when turning the handwheel.

 

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Sometimes the handwheel was a bit hard to turn to open the vise after clamping stock. Since there was an extra spinner, I thought that doubling the clamping nut might help. First, a recess for the dome of a spinner in the nut block.

It took a bit of trial and error to get the double clamping nuts and the other support nut phased properly. This did help the vise to turn a bit more smoothly and definitely release with less effort.

Time to stop tinkering and start using the vise to uncover any shortcomings.

 

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On the vises that I have built, I have always lined both the chop and rear jaw with either leather or crubber. Other folk only line the chop so I tried that on this basic face vise. Today I was using a saber saw to cut the hole in these shelf brackets and the bracket moved as I sawed. I stopped sawing and glued a piece of crubber to the bench end face. IMO, you always need two liners.

 

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One thing that has to be determined before building this vise is the screw placement. The top screw has to be below the sum of the benchtop thickness, the mounting plate thickness, and 1/2 of the nut block height plus a 1/4" or so for adjustment. In this case it is 6-1/2"

The lower screw position basically sets the mechanical advantage of the vise mechanism. In this case, the screws are about 9-3/4" on center .

Dividing the two gives a ratio of 1.5. Based on the way this vise feels so far, I judge 1.5 to be about the minimum ratio. Thinking 1.75 or 2 would be better. Upside is stronger clamping, downside is reaching a little lower to spin the bottom nut.

My most demanding task for the basic face vise is holding my tall vise. I have to bear down on the handwheel to keep the tall vise from moving (but again this is fairly extreme for any vise).

BTW, I keep my Starrett combination square stowed and only use it when I need the extra precision. Those Swanson combo squares shown above have served me well for day to day layout (especially the 18" one). Pretty sure I purchased them at Homer's.

 

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In order to keep this design as simple and inexpensive as possible, I have resisted adding a knob to the handwheel. Yesterday, I decided to add one and it remarkably smooths the action of the vise when large movements of the chop are required. I recommend adding a knob now that I have done it.

I have made knobs this way for some years now. Take a piece of 1/4" brass rod about 1/8" longer than you need. Tap one end 10-24 using the full length of the tap’s threads. Rough out a knob on the lathe, drill a hole, and epoxy the brass into the hole. Here it is curing.

Wait overnight and finish the knob.

Here are the components ready for assembly into a 5/8" hole drilled through the handwheel. The brass rod that I had was a tad over 1/4" but a little sanding on the lathe fixed that. File the end of the brass rod to fit. FR4 bearings are $3.99 each at the Big Bearing Store.

 

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Progress on this project is slowed due to other stuff that need fixing around the house. I’ll be working more on it soon.

 

[whitecrane8]

Interested!

 

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Avoided COVID until last week when I got a moderate case. After a round of Paxlovid I am slowly getting some of my strength back and an hour or so of shop time each day. Gave me some time to think about an aspect of this Basic Face Vise design that need improving.

In the prototype, the two upper spinner nuts together support the chop and the rear one provides the clamping thrust. I plan on a redesign that uses (probably) plastic bushings to support the chop and just one spinner nut for thrust only. The spinner nut will be mounted such that it can self-align with the screw. These changes should minimize the chipping of the screw coating that I have experienced. I dressed some SYP for a second prototype today.

 

[smallboat]

Avoided COVID until last week when I got a moderate case. After a round of Paxlovid I am slowly getting some of my strength back and an hour or so of shop time each day. Gave me some time to think about an aspect of this Basic Face Vise design that need improving.

In the prototype, the two upper spinner nuts together support the chop and the rear one provides the clamping thrust. I plan on a redesign that uses (probably) plastic bushings to support the chop and just one spinner nut for thrust only. The spinner nut will be mounted such that it can self-align with the screw. These changes should minimize the chipping of the screw coating that I have experienced. I dressed some SYP for a second prototype today.

glad you are on the mend. I too had avoided it until this Christmas. Fortunately managed to keep the gift to myself. Hope your full recovery is quick.

 

[whitecrane8]

definitely interested

 

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Made a bit of progress on a second vise prototype which includes an important redesign. This implements a notion that popped into my head as I stepped out of the shower one day. The way that I was using the spinner nuts to suspend the chop was a mistake and caused the nuts to wear the coating off of the screw. This next design uses two plastic bearing plates to suspend the chop like this:

The single spinner nut is housed in the nut block with a little “wink” such that it can self-align with the screw and this should minimize wearing off the coating. This nut only supplies axial thrust and does not contribute to suspending the chop. A steel spacer spreads the thrust load.

The nut has maybe a 1/16” of play and sits below the surface of the nut block just a bit.

This rear bearing plate captures the nut and supports the chop. The hole edges are rounded slightly for smooth operation.