Slim Vise -- Day 8

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Bottom of the fixed jaw, showing mounting and alignment details. The dowels were suggested after I'd already drilled the holes for the cap screws and tee nuts.
A better arrangement would be to have the dowels closer to the ends of the jaw. It would also mean that the two tee nuts on the left end would be staggered, and easier to load into the tee slots. It would also allow putting two set screws into each dowel.
Building the vise would have been much easier if the dowels had been put into place earlier in the process.

7a

Here is a piece of 1/2" x 1" bar stock held in the vise.

1a

2a

Unfortunately, even with the riser block installed, there isn't room to reach the near end of the bar stock with the milling cutter.

If maximum Y travel is a major consideration, a second version of the slim vise could be built with rabbet cut further toward the column. About 1/2" more travel available by doing this. However, that would cover up the tooling holes which are currently drilled and tapped in line with the rear tee slot. How necessary are these tooling holes? Time will tell.

This slim vise is about 0.9" thick. Notice that with the cutter extended as far as possible in the -Y direction, the fixed jaw of the slim vise just barely slides under the bottom end of the milling column. YMMV.

3a

Here's the same piece of bar stock set in the vise in the other direction. This allows easy access to the work piece from five sides.

4a

Notice that the fixed jaw is almost at the +X end of the table. I will probably cut about 1" off the right end of the movable jaw.

6a

The slim vise is now almost ready to use. The biggest remaing chore is drill and tap a pair of holes through both jaws. A nut(s) to the left of the fixed jaw will put tension on a piece of #10-32 threaded rod screwed into the movable jaw.
After shortening the movable jaw, plan also put a push block to the right end of the movable jaw. Another planned project is to make a pair of Dave Hyland's "Fly Cutting Clamps". One or two of these could be used to push against the side of the work piece, between the fixed jaw and the movable jaw.

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