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Extending the capacity of a machine vice

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philf:
I've often needed to hold a piece of material which is much wider than the capacity of my machine vice (Abwood 4" which has a capacity of about 70mm).

Some times this is just to square off a piece of plate but it means I have to remove the vice, clamp the piece to the table, do the job (which may take a couple of minutes) then put the vice back on and square it up.

It occurred to me last week that I could double the capacity of my vice for light machining very simply.

When I made new jaws for the vice I made them so that they stand 3mm higher than the body of the vice.

I had some 25 X 3mm gauge plate and I cut a length to match the width of the vice jaws. With the gauge plate on parallels in the vice I drilled 3 off 5.2mm dia. holes for the clamping screws and drilled and reamed 2 off 5 dia. holes for dowels. I then repeated this in the moving slide of the vice except the three 5.2 holes were drilled 4.2 and tapped M5.







So for a few minutes work I should save myself hours in the future.

The holes in the moving slide are positioned so I have a slight overlap in capacity. I could still machine another set of holes to further increase the capacity but I'm already about at the limit of my Y travel.

I am leaving the extra jaw in place as it doesn't get in the way and all I have to do to use it is to remove the moving jaw.

It works very well and has already saved me the time the job took to do.

It may not work so nicely on all types of machine vice.

Hope it was of interest and the idea may be useful to someone else.

Please don't do the mod to yours and then proceed to mill away much of the vice forgetting that underneath the part isn't fresh air!

Phil.

Stilldrillin:
Phil.
That's a bit clever!  :thumbup:

Well done!  :clap: :clap:

David D

philf:
Thanks David,

But I really ought to be making things other than tools!

The piece of material in the vice is a piece of gauge plate I bought at Harrogate last year for my loco and I've only just today been doing some layouts so I can get eight valve gear parts out of the one piece on the CNC.

Cheers.

Phil.

Meldonmech:
Hi Phil
               
          Thanks for the tip, I have exactly the same vice and have similar problems. I regularly remove the moving jaw to get that extra bit of capacity. I find removing the vice such a bind these days, and it always seems to happen when I am in the middle of a job.
                               Must find time to do the mod.
                                                                                 Cheers David

BaronJ:
Interesting concept.  I would imaging very adaptable to suit most clamping devices.  Certainly ideal for flat plate.
One thought though.  How much would jaw lift affect the work piece ?  Particularly if you needed parallel surfaces.


 

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