No I am not looking for some kind of transgender addictive habit, but an accessory for a drill press.
This is the type of vice that bolts to the table of the drill press and has lead screws with handles and a conventional opening jaw at the top. The lead screws make for fine adjustment in the X and Y axes.
I am wondering whether anybody has a good quality one of these. I am looking for a large one - 150mm or so.
So far, from Google searching, I have found two products:
- Machine Mart
- Sealey
I imagine these are the usual Chinese products and they may be OK, but I am certainly not looking for something with wobbly backlash.
Does anyone have something better or a recommendation for something better?
The quality of much of the Chinese machine tools has improved considerably in the last few years and much of it is equal to European equipment but at much lower prices. Where they do fall short (using things like poor quality set screws for example) it is often very easy to improve them. The basic casting and machining is certainly now of very good quality.
Warco
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have some but only up to 5" jaw opening.
Chronos have a nice Soba Compound Table (MX1209) but at 80mm it is probably rather small
They also have a 6" cross vice further down the page which might be nearer the size you are looking for.
Something worth bearing in mind if you intend to use these with a drill press is the height of the damn things. I've got a 6" jaw one and the top of the vice jaws are 5" off the table, the vice bed is
4.5" off the table. Unless you have a long column drill press this can be quite restrictive.
Obviously these vices are ideal for drilling but despite what a few purveyors say I've never found them adequate for even light milling. If you want to use a drill press for occasional milling (which it isn't very good at) you really need a machine vice like the Chronos
10074.
For heavier alternatives your best bet is the second hand market although cross vices are not common as they were never really liked in commercial machine shops.
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or RA Atkins in Guildford (01483
811146) might have something suitable. They also occasionally come up in industrial auctions.
That was one of my concerns - if there is a lot of backlash, or worse still a tendency to move, it would be a bit useless. I suppose that some replacement of screws could help.
Yes I saw this site - this one appears to be the same as the MachineMart one.
I
saw this product as well and looking at the photo, it does look as though the build quality is a lot better than the other products. It could be OK - possibly I could make something to clamp into it and then clamp work to that. Possibly they might have a larger one. My guess is that it's Japanese. A Google search for the web site seems unsuccessful though since it appears that soba is also a type of Japanese noodle.
I saw that too. It appears to be the same as the Sealey one.
Looking at various better quality pictures, it's hard to tell whether the MachineMart style is better or worse than the Sealey style.
Fortunately I'm OK here. It's floor standing, so no height issue.
Drilling is really the main application. I may occasionally do a little milling, but that is more likely to be in engineering plastic than metal
Nice product.
I'm not keen on using the drill press for much other than its original purpose. There are other potential applications such as morticing is wood, for which there are accessories. However, with the forces involved (in that case vertical), I'm not sure that it would do the bearings much good; so I avoided the temptation. Plus the set up time is considerable. I addressed that requirement with a horizontal morticer.
Looks as though there are a few other manufacturer names there as well, so I'll look a bit further at these as well.
I have a cheap X-Y vice that was bundled in with this Warco pillar drill. Faults are......
The clasp nuts are only fixed with nasty little grub screws going into threads cut in the cast iron. No matter how much I heave on these screws there is still a tiny slop in the clasp nuts.
There is a slight slop between the lead screws and the clasp nuts. There is no means (like a locknut) to tighten this up.
The grub screws that key into grooves in the lead screws and stop end-end movement need to be very tight, so much so that movements are hard work.
The jaws of the vice are very slightly off with respect to the X-Y movement. It means that when I mill (say) a slot in an aluminium plate then it is not quite parallel with the edges.
That said, even with all those faults, that X-Y vice has done some seriously good work, doing quick rectangular milling jobs, holding-safe material that can snatch (Brass!), etc.
I've probably knackered the headstock bearings though.
Not sure what you mean by clasp nuts.. Are these the assemblies fitted on the outside of the castings through which the lead screws first pass?
Mmm... OK.
I'm more interested in a quick way to align pieces for drilling a set of holes without having to completely unclamp the work. Occasionally I mill plastic...
The 6" one I have is about 8 years old and similar to the Chronos one in looks. I was looking at a Chronos one a month or so ago and it looked better finished than mine was (which reflects the significant improvement in quality in the last few years). That said the only work I did on mine to make it respectable was to throw away the various plasticine grub screws and replace them with real ones. The basic machining of the cast iron was fine.
Don't forget that both ways (x and y) have an adjustable gib strip and three adjusting screws with lock nuts on each strip to enable the dovetail to be adjusted to remove excess play. The gib strips on mine I polished a little bit with a fine file to give a smoother movement. With the adjustable gibs you can control the stiffness of movement easily and take out any slack on the ways. When correctly adjusted the vice is very solid.
There will always be a bit of backlash in Acme threads as they have limited clearance at the major diameters of the external and internal threads so that a bearing at the major diameter maintains approximate alignment of the thread axis and prevent wedging on the flanks of the threads. However it's more of an issue with positioning systems where you have to approach the target from either direction. If your concern is more about how stable the vice position is I don't think you need worry. Once you have adjusted the gibs (not something you need to do often) the vice certainly won't move when drilling, there is no creep at all
It's hard to tell from the little sketch photo, but do you remember if it looks like the machinemart one?
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Do you know of hand if they are metric (at least on yours) and can you suggest a source? Also, do they come with clamp bolts for the drill press table? Until now, I've been using my drill press pretty much in connection with woodworking and the table I have for that doesn't need them. I looked on the Chronos site, but couldn't see anything obvious by way of clamp bolts.
Yes, in fact for most of the things I can think of, it would be a case of approach from one side and increment.
the same common design or whether one factory supplies everyone. No matter who the vendor is the products are often identical! The only difference appears to be in the paint colour and minor detail. For example the Machine Mart has what appears to be a wing nut on the middle of the three gib strip adjusters presumably to lock the slide in place but putting one an another version of the vice wouldn't be difficult. I'm not even sure its really an improvement - if the gibs are adjusted and locked they shouldn't need clamping.
Mine were UNF, but I wouldn't assume anything until it was in my sticky mitts :-) They tended to favour imperial as the USA is their big export market. That said 6mm fitted the gib threads very well. Any fastener supplier will have stock - there are only about 4 grub screws - the rest are hex head or standard bolts.
No. None of them do. The size needed depends more on your table slots than the vice. For my table I used normal 10mm bolts into home made T nuts As the table is cast iron the T slot edges in the table are fairly fragile and you want a nut which is a good fit in the table slot. Chronos (amongst others) sell both clamping kits and T Nuts (search for TNUT).
Depending upon your table slots you often find the commercial T Nuts are too thick in the top section and stick above the table so can never be tightened until you take a bit off. Whichever T Nuts you get you will need to be prepared to do a bit of grinding and filing to get an exact fit.
The studs supplied in the clamping kits are all too long by the way and impede the vice travel so even if you buy a clamping kit you will still need to find shorter studs or bolts (I used bolts 30mm long). If you use studs you have a bit more tolerance to play with but not a lot as they foul the vice travel. 30mm bolts on my vice and table just go fully into the T nut threads without fouling the table.
Unless you want the rest of the clamping kit I'd buy just a few T Nuts for the table and use it with standard bolts or steel studding cut to length. I also found a standard bolt with a few washers on it was more secure than the usual clamp bolts under severe vibration.
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