Aligning A Vise on a Mill

[rgsparber]

A mill cannot machine true if the fixed jaw on the vise is not aligned to the X-axis. Here is a procedure to do the alignment plus background on what you can expect for accuracy. A video is included.

If you are interested, please, click here.



Your comments are welcome. All of us are smarter than any one of us.


Thanks,

Rick

[Toolmaker51]

I like the concept, despite labor intensive set up. How about something like a sine bar with extended rolls, in center to center distance wider than jaws, and a bracket/ vee block post?
I'd want the bar section protruding above vise jaw, suitable for indicating too.

[Frank S]

The way I've always done it which achieves suitable results for me is to clamp a long sine bar in my vice, visually sight down the edge of the bar to one of the t slots until it appears close, then use a machinist adjustable tri square by placing the body of the square against the leading face of the mill table slide the blade until it touches the edge of the sine bar next to the vice then move the square to one end or the other of the sine bar check if it touches the bar but not the table, wiggle the vice then set the square to the other end of the bar check again. By using the principal of half of a half of a half the differences from the edge of the sine to the face of the table by adjusting the blade once or twice and wiggling the vice until the 3 distances match the vice will be aligned with the face of the table, tighten the bolts and job done. No need t0 shift the table to the left or to the right, no need of a dial indicator attached to the quill with the whisker touching the fixed face of the vice just a simple straight bar and a tri square It matters not if the vice is mounted near one end or the other or near the center. My 3hp ENCO mill won't know the difference. My table is 30" the travel is less than 20 inches my bar is the same length of the table. As long as the X&Y gibs are correctly adjusted anything milled in the vice along either axis is going to be the exact same as the axis of plane it is milled on

[Toolmaker51]

As usual, more vise alignment methods than ways to skin a cat. Most depends on expectations of accuracy for next job.
Personally, might have an excess machine vises; but each have certain virtues. Most used are angle lock, with a single locator key, round though, not rectangular. Alignment is not much different than Rick's above. I run indicator over 1/2 jaw length and tap the body, continually lessening the observed deflection. At mid-point if very close to zero I'll continue across rest of distance. Whatever remains can be assumed 2x the final correction needed. Usually can finish in two trips, sometimes less.

Building frames for machine weldments, I mount 2 vises. One has keys; Securing a length of 1-7/8" TGP in first and laid in second. Often there was a distance between needed for drills to pass through, tape measure good enough. By securing bar in second vise while it 'floated', then strap clamping, never had issue with parallelism.

Additionally; regardless amount of X axis, it's common to alternate vise station from right to left which distributes wear more evenly and could correct or lessen binding of gib overall.
Sure beats rescraping......

[thehomeengineer]

Hi Rick

Hope you don't mind me sharing my post on clocking up a vice on your post?

But being a lazy engineer ( or just always trying to find the quickest way to get the job done ) Clocking up a vise can be achieved in seconds using two tee nuts/bolts thick washers, mallet, parallel and a clock and base.

This is the method I use to clock up most jigs,fixtures,rotary tables, work pieces and vices. Works every time with next to no setup needed to achieve a perfect alignment to the desired axis.

https://www.homemadetools.net/forum/quickest-way-i-know-how-clock-up-machine-vice-65939

Hope this will be of interest and my videos are no way as good as yours but hopefully it will got across the idea

The Home Engineer

[rgsparber]

Frank,

Any idea how far off the face of the vise is from the X-axis in thou per inch of X-axis travel?

Rick

[rgsparber]

Hi Rick

Hope you don't mind me sharing my post on clocking up a vice on your post?

But being a lazy engineer ( or just always trying to find the quickest way to get the job done ) Clocking up a vise can be achieved in seconds using two tee nuts/bolts thick washers, mallet, parallel and a clock and base.

This is the method I use to clock up most jigs,fixtures,rotary tables, work pieces and vices. Works every time with next to no setup needed to achieve a perfect alignment to the desired axis.

https://www.homemadetools.net/forum/quickest-way-i-know-how-clock-up-machine-vice-65939

Hope this will be of interest and my videos are no way as good as yours but hopefully it will got across the idea

The Home Engineer

You have the good fortune of having a bolt hole aligned with the front face of that bar. That makes all the difference. I do see that you picked up 1/2 thou of error from tightening the bolts. John Herrmann, a good friend of mine, suggested using spherical washers to prevent this.

I have used a similar arrangement and had a problem with the vise sliding around the pivot hole. I added a close-fitting bushing which helped.

Rick

[rgsparber]

I like the concept, despite labor intensive set up. How about something like a sine bar with extended rolls, in center to center distance wider than jaws, and a bracket/ vee block post?
I'd want the bar section protruding above vise jaw, suitable for indicating too.

The sine bar would be an improvement. It should be placed on the movable jaw side of the vise so it doesn't add error. The labor-intensive part of this for me was setting up the "nest" to prevent the pivot pin from sliding around.

Rick

[thehomeengineer]

You have the good fortune of having a bolt hole aligned with the front face of that bar. That makes all the difference. I do see that you picked up 1/2 thou of error from tightening the bolts. John Herrmann, a good friend of mine, suggested using spherical washers to prevent this.

I have used a similar arrangement and had a problem with the vise sliding around the pivot hole. I added a close-fitting bushing which helped.

Rick

Hi Rick

Thank you for your reply.

I am unsure of the bolt you mean? "You have the good fortune of having a bolt hole aligned with the front face of that bar." the bolt doesn't effect the method as the angle from the pivot point remains the same no matter where the parallel sits in the vise. The only thing that changes is the starting point of the dial test indicator (DTI) will be further from the pivot, but the vise misalignment angle remains the same.

The picture below will hopefully clarify this method.



As can be seen the axis error is constant no matter were the parallel sits in the vice and as long as the DTI is roughly over the centre of the locked down tee nut side of the vise (pivot point). The clock displacement once moved of this point is the amount the vise is required to be moved, to align, to the axis it is being set too.

Many thanks again
The Home Engineer

[BuffaloJohn]

Hi Rick

Hope you don't mind me sharing my post on clocking up a vice on your post?

But being a lazy engineer ( or just always trying to find the quickest way to get the job done ) Clocking up a vise can be achieved in seconds using two tee nuts/bolts thick washers, mallet, parallel and a clock and base.

This is the method I use to clock up most jigs,fixtures,rotary tables, work pieces and vices. Works every time with next to no setup needed to achieve a perfect alignment to the desired axis.

https://www.homemadetools.net/forum/quickest-way-i-know-how-clock-up-machine-vice-65939

Hope this will be of interest and my videos are no way as good as yours but hopefully it will got across the idea

The Home Engineer

Uncomplicated! I stumbled onto something similar but a little more complicated when I aligned my vise for the first time, but it was by accident as I was just lazy (no power feed, so I was cranking and cranking and got tired of cranking about halfway). With your video, now I understand and can do the alignment even quicker. A good short video that gets the point across is quickly is great!