[WOTDesigns]

I have been looking at fixture options for a few production parts and finally took a gamble on the cheap Shars 4" double station vises. My math said they would ALMOST let me reach 3" into the close jaw set which is what I needed.

Turns out they work well on the Tormach. I had to cut off 3/4" to get the clearance I needed, and also don't use the jaws for my production parts. I ran 4000 of my pivot nuts on these last night using soft jaws from Monster Jaws and had absolutely no issues. In fact the clamp impressively tight.

They are cheap unmatched vises but for the price they are great. For reference the slots cut in the picture are all dead on and repeated over 36 straight hours of machining.

Cutting to size on Jet 7x12
Attachment 257594

Left overs
Attachment 257596

All the way back


Brian
WOT Designs

[WOTDesigns]

Far as it reaches on near set without jaws (jaws have step and measure 0.44" thick) using AL soft jaws holding 3+ inch parts is easy
Attachment 257600
Attachment 257602

Hang over didn't bother me, but may for some. My enclosure may be a little unique in some ways like weighted curtains. 36 hours with 3/4 hp coolant and no issues.
Attachment 257604

All the way forward. And my weighted curtain doesn't budge
Attachment 257606Attachment 257608

Set up
Attachment 257610

Machined Attachment 257612

Straps I cut to go between and separate the 2.25" apart I need them
Attachment 257614

I already reused the jaws we held 4,000 x 0.25" x 0.275"L 7075 rods to surface to length but only having to turn one handle to load 32 parts was a big time saver since that time is saved when the machine is off.

He's a snap of those jaws though. I reused them on the HAAS last hight
Attachment 257620

At less than $250 each it's money damn well spent. Now I'll have to get me some nice 6 inches for job shop work. These just happened to fit the bill for my production stuff. Final length of just the body (not he cast handle section) isAttachment 257622

Brian
WOT Designs

[zhangweilong]

Nice machining work!

[WOTDesigns]

Thank you. Sure beats the old set up!
The speeder saved a full week of machining per run, but then the cycle time was only 30 minutes. I like running these straight since daily set up and dialing them in takes over an hour. With the hour I get now I can nap and run straight through till all 4,000 parts are slotted at 1.2 minutes each.

Attachment 257636

Brian
WOT Designs

[WOTDesigns]

BTW these hold 0.003 tolerance on the LAST of the 12 parts in each jaw set. I have to use Kaiser Precision Plate and have them saw cut into bars to be able to run them this way. Before we had to mic every single one and separate into groups. Epic PITA

Brian
WOT Designs

[CadRhino]

Very cool production work-around. I love monster jaws.
What brand of speeder do you have? Did you have to do any custom mods to attach it? Is it and ER16 collet machine?
Get some sleep.................

[pickled]

Great job! Talk about taking a risk that paid off...that is a sweet set up for productivity. I like your weighted curtain too. Quick access with containment=effective solution.:wee:

[mountaindew]

Nice vise custom sizing to table and your application.
Took a while looking at pictures to figure out you took the jaws out completely to get more capacity.
Your text descriptions kind had me confused as to what your talking about. Power nap might help that
md

[BAMCNC.COM]

I'm in need of that right now actually. Great idea. Wish I had a Horizontal bandsaw!

[rowbare]

I'm in need of that right now actually. Great idea. Wish I had a Horizontal bandsaw!

You don't really need a bandsaw to do that mod. You can mill it off easily enough. I am sure many of us here have seen first hand how easily a vise machines DOH!

But for everything else, a horizontal bandsaw comes in really handy. However if I was flush with cash, my first choice would probably be a Roll-in gravity fed vertical (or clone). The footprint is relatively small and they cut wonderfully.

bob

[WOTDesigns]

Very cool production work-around. I love monster jaws.
What brand of speeder do you have? Did you have to do any custom mods to attach it? Is it and ER16 collet machine?
Get some sleep.................

I use the Tormach speeder and absolutely love it. Been trying with buying another and modifying it to Cat40 to use on the big machine.

The Tormach speeder slips on and off in less than 5 minutes and multiplies the speed 3x so I can reach over 15K ram on the PCNC 1100. Yes it is er16 but I only use it for single tool jobs so far.

Brian
WOT Designs

[WOTDesigns]

You don't really need a bandsaw to do that mod. You can mill it off easily enough. I am sure many of us here have seen first hand how easily a vise machines DOH!

But for everything else, a horizontal bandsaw comes in really handy. However if I was flush with cash, my first choice would probably be a Roll-in gravity fed vertical (or clone). The footprint is relatively small and they cut wonderfully.

bob

Bob is painfully correct... The vise and even Tormach table mill VERY easily! I was milling some larger mounting slots in my 4" machinist vises the other night and took a nice chunk out of the Tormach table.

Meah... Machining holes in the table just makes it lighter, faster and more efficient.

Since CNC vises have flat sides they should be very easy to cut as deep as you can with an end mill, flip 90*, repeat. These cut like butter.

Fyi if you do get a band saw spend the extra couple bucks and get a Jet or similar. My HF 4x6 made me a hell of a lot of money, but the pivot holes in the casting were off so it cut out of square and couldn't be adjusted for very easily. This Jet cuts 0.003" off over 6" and while I could adjust it more... I'm happy with that.

Brian
WOT Designs

[WOTDesigns]

Nice vise custom sizing to table and your application.
Took a while looking at pictures to figure out you took the jaws out completely to get more capacity.
Your text descriptions kind had me confused as to what your talking about. Power nap might help that
md

LOL. Sorry. I was a little out of it still. Got 12 hours of sleep yesterday and on to the next project which also uses all three of these. I'll post pics later.

Brian
WOT Designs

[WOTDesigns]

I spent most of yesterday designing, programming and machining these vise jaws. Each one holds 16 parts, 6 sets means 96 per cycle start.


Spot drill for counterbore, drill, form tap 6-40

Attachment 257830
Attachment 257832Attachment 257834

The slotted top clamp is dual purpose. Out of 4000 parts I got +/-0.0015 so the shorter ones aren't gripped well. The top clamp has a step 0.025 deep and 0.035 wide to locate itself on the edge of the parts and prevent the tap from pulling them out.

Secondly the slots allow me to eject the parts into an angle aluminum piece machined and held by hand.

These show the clamp upside down
Attachment 257836
Attachment 257838


300 down.. 3,700 to go. I know where I'll be most of the weekend
Attachment 257840

Brian
WOT Designs

[BAMCNC.COM]

Almost identical to the soft jaw video I just posted, only my parts are vertical

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRdvjcTkbY0

[mountaindew]

Nice video, Always interesting to see different setups and execution of code.
md

[SCzEngrgGroup]

Almost identical to the soft jaw video I just posted, only my parts are vertical

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRdvjcTkbY0

I am curious.... With a setup like that, how do you ensure all those pins are actually getting clamped, so they can't pull up? Or does it not matter for the ops you're doing?

Regards,
Ray L.

[BAMCNC.COM]

Can you see the tape there? That tape is the secret Cell phone vid below

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jM1...IaPXAlFaHN5NgA

[WOTDesigns]

Almost identical to the soft jaw video I just posted, only my parts are vertical

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRdvjcTkbY0

Yep, I do almost the exact same thing to surface them all to length. The problem with those is that it takes 2:30 to unload, then load 34 parts, but only 30 seconds to face them. I have my employee just stand there and load. Took 8 hours to do the 4,000 parts in this batch. Another 8 hours to cut them from (19) 6 foot bars on the band saw. We just hose clamp them together, clamp the bandsaw, the by loosening the closest clamp you can just slide the whole assembly into the stop for the next cut.

I was paying $0.50 each to have these made. Total cost running them in house with this new set up is under $500 for materials, jaws and labor.

Here are the left overs.
Attachment 258058



Brian
WOT Designs

[WOTDesigns]

Damn smart idea on the tape Bam. I've done way too many of these and had "bad holes" we skip when a part spins in them. Bet the tape will solve that completely! Gosh... I love this forum!

We run a Tormach Facemill at 4000 rpm at 35ipm at these things and have to clamp the heck out of them. Hope I remember this in 2 months when I do these again!

Almost through drilling and tapping all of these. Actually started contemplating making two sets of jaws so I can load these while it's running. Interesting idea I've never seen done anywhere, but it may work.

-it would camp in the vise using regular jaws to hold a fixture made from soft jaws.
-using a set of soft jaws with the "fixed /referenced" jaw backwards so the bolts are on the side sitting against the vise jaws.
- Basically machine a step at the bottom of the "fixed" soft jaw for the moving jaw to rest on.
-machine all but the bottom 0.25" of the moving soft jaw face as a pivot (like hold down clamps)
-Machine and press pins in the back (old face) to align the X repeatedly on the actual fixed jaw.
-drill and tap a 1" AL rod to match the bolt pattern on the jaws.
-assembly the jaws with the bolts going through the fixed jaw, then through the moving jaw, and into the round rod.
-when tightening the bolts the moving jaw will clamp the parts and rest on the step. The angle error of the moving jaw is compensated for by the round rod and the step on the fixed jaw keeping it off the bed of the vise.

These should repeat within a thou and pop in and out of the vise in seconds. Right now it takes 9 minutes to change over the 96 parts. Changing 6 soft jaw fixtures should only take a minute or two. 6 minute savings * 45 loads = 4.5 hours of standing leaned over the machine GONE. HMM.

Brian
WOT Designs