That vise looks like a very doable project that might result in the pattern eventually wearing out from reuse. Cast in ductile, that would be super sweet, grey iron would be mighty fine too. Pieces are, what, 30 pounds or so each? Here is some interesting info on torture testing vises with some somewhat surprising results. And the same guy built a vise that looks pretty strong and of fairly (too?) large jaw capacity. The only problem with his build is that no castings are used. ;-) His thoughts on screws for a vise are interesting. Denis Denis
They'd be about 30 lbs easy and I agree the pattern would get worn out from making so many castings. I can get hold of a rusty one for casting dimensions. My horizontal mill could gang mill the three sides of the moving jaw and I suppose a broach would cut the square hole in the fixed jaw. Three castings including the nut and one ACME screw and a handle. I see on Ebay they are asking $700 or so for a second hand one. I have watched those vise test videos, I'm not sure tightening to destruction is a valid test but the impact test is more likely in a workshop and yes, the fabricated vise is quite good...I still prefer to cast one of course.
If I see the setup correctly the moving jaw only bears on the protruding pad in front and beneath it and also on its upper margin. So the square hole only needs to be machined on its upper surface and on the sides extending down only 3/4" or so. That would be a perfect shaper job, though you could certainly set up a fixed cutter in your horizontal to act like a shaper. (I have done keyway cutting on a Bridgeport and that setup would pale compared to what your horizontal is capable of.) The lower pad would be simple face milling. Looks like the offset in ductile comes in a range of sizes up to 55Kg. A 30 or 40Kg vise would be oh so nice! Denis Added: I’m talking about cutting internal keyways using a stationary cutters driven vertically using the quill of the mill—-motor off. Cutting the relatively small bearing surfaces on the internal square in a similar way but with a much solider and beefier setup could be done on the horizontal very nicely.
I believe there are 4" and 6" currently although there may be a 5" too which would be lighter than the 6". I wonder how practical a large square hole drill would be at cleaning up the fixed jaw hole. There has to be some fast practical way of cleaning just the bearing surfaces of the fixed jaw casting. I think the idea of a broach or two made from square carbide inserts that clean up the corners only. The casting could have the hole sides slightly relieved compared to the corners so that only the corners contact the moving jaw.
I’m all familiar with that pain on your side of the world . A few months ago, I bid on a very very... rare original casting from New Zealand for $250 NZD, The shipping was $900. The total weight was 60 pounds being shipped to Canada. I’m actually glad the seller had no clue what he had. On a open eBay auction, it would’ve sold for over $1000 + Shipping. This is what I got .
Yeah it is a overhead table saw guard arm from the 30-mid40s. There should’ve been eight different castings there. I got seven of the eight. It was on a Yates America which was the wrong table saw altogether from what it started its life on. Somebody had already stolen (or it was cut through and thrown out) the original crown guard, with the original nose piece casting was on it. Somebody fabricated up a sheet metal crown guard. This was OK with me, as last year I managed to get from England (for £150 plus £125 for shipping) The original bronze crown and nose piece. In the late 40s they changed it from bronze to aluminum. This is the Yates America saw it was on.
Ahh it's off a Wadkin, that explains the popularity, the price and the fact that parts can be bought from all over the world they were exported to. There's a machinery salesman who often visits my foundry friend's workshop, his family came from a city that Wadkin had a factory in: they all worked at the Wadkin factory. Denis: I watched that video about cutting a keyway in a mill. My universal mill doesn't have the Bridgeport style quill so I'd have to build some kind of crank device for it to get a linear stroke. About the simplest method I can think of is a simplified single tooth corner broach driven by a hydraulic press and push it through the casting four times. Maybe a compact right angle drive made from a 4" angle grinder head would allow a tiny face mill to go through the casting too.
Here's an off the wall iron casting idea.... Watch this short segment. I think it's starting around the right place. If not, go to 10:10 And no I'm not an audiophile.
I watched a video once on a multi millionnaire collector(I’ll see if I can dig it up). He stated for machinery, make it work better than any other machine/Device you’ve ever used before and then add some artistic flair/sexiness to the castings... they will be sought out after for decades to come. This is all been put into a underground bunker under an old antique home. Some of the early Wadkin pattern making machines, had great functionality with an absolutely sexy look in my eyes. I only own two machines so far and I’m keeping my eye open forever with my bottom feeder pricing. Every machine I have are all vintage except for my jointer/planer, my air compressor and maybe my Startrite Chopsaw. I do love the vintage, and how they used to make them look sexy. I have a 1942 DoAll bandsaw (daily user) I would love to cast a few lost pieces for. http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/museum-of-making-ian-macgregor-1.4287475
I was figuring you would use your horizontal mill table feed to drive the work piece past a HSS cutter (no need for carbide at such low speeds) that would work like the single-point shop-made cutter I showed in the video. Just that your setup is likely orders of magnitude more robust so the cutter and its cuts would be considerably larger. I was thinking of mounting the cutter in the rotationally-locked arbor of your mill on a fabricated stem that would have a right angle in a plane parallel to the table so that the cutter was pointed parallel to the table travel and allow sufficient travel (looks like about 4 inches) to clean up the corners of the square. I think your idea of casting the sides of the hole with relief so that the lands in the very corners only would need machining is just the way it should be done. Nice soft cast iron whether grey or ductile will shave off sweetly with each stroke. Drilling clearance holes at the two apices of the shoulders (lands) would be good engineering and make cleaning of the actual apex of the corner unnecessary. The cutter itself need not be huge---it could be stepped over several times to clean up the width of the land in the corners and then advanced to take off another layer a couple thou deep until the corners cleaned up. Then machine the jaw to fit. Here is a pathetic sketch of the lands as they might generally look in the bearing corners.The other two corners are non bearing. (I am in my Fusion 360 infancy as you can see.) This is a project that begs to be done. Denis
Hi Denis, I've found a set of 5" jaw castings which I think is a good casting size to begin at, Peter the foundry owner had one a bit worse for wear. He mentioned that the grey iron versions of these vises were regularly broken in the shipyard he worked at when the object in the jaws were hit with a hammer, so the extra length of one side of the jaws must increase the leverage of impact forces and impart unequal forces too. This would mean that using ductile iron is preferable to grey iron. Hifi is a personal interest of mine and a cast iron record turntable would have all sorts of desirable anti-resonance properties...I do plan to cast one. That said, I can't see how that guy keeps a straight face while selling his wares.
He's been suckin on too much ahem... helium. Does the white album really sound that much better played on a cast iron turn table?
I'd buy the white album if I could only get it in the same media format that Agent K uses on Men in Black. I'll have to cast the turntable platter in iron and rig up a tilting pad bearing to float it on air:
I knew a guy with a three tonne screw press in his workshop, it was his prized possession, I'm sure the the extra bar for leverage they were taking it up to 5 tonne probably. If I were to make one it'd be cast in ductile iron with a single vertical arm with heavy ribbing to give greater access for items being pressed.
