If you haven't seen toolmaker vises before, then it might not be immediately clear why you might need one. It turns out, however, that they are a very handy device to have in your work holding arsenal. Small tool maker vises are designed to be held inside a larger machinist's vise. Bigger Toolmaker vises can also be held directly to mill table via strap clamps or a magnetic chuck. Tool maker vises are excellent for holding delicate workpieces and also great for doing work on the end of a workpiece. Since the sides of the vise are precision ground, they can be easily used to do parallel or perpendicular work on opposing or adjacent sides of a workpiece without the need to re-indicate anything. Here's a quick video we put together with some ideas about how you might use a tool maker vise with a Tormach PCNC or other milling machine.
Other tool maker vise applications include:
- Working on the end of a pin or cylinder
- Flycutting and/or facing of small cross sections
- End Drilling
- Cross drilling
- Edge milling thin sections
We now have a whole family of tool maker vises available. Make sure to check them out here:
More Tormach Fab Lab Videos:
- 4th axis Basics - Using a 3 Jaw Chuck
- Fixture Plate Basics
- Getting Started with Tension/Compression Tapping
- Getting Started with Auto-Reversing Tapping
- How to Swing Indicate a Square
- How to Swing Indicate a Circle
- How to Bore an OD
- How to Bore an ID
- How to Use a Sine Vise
- Tips for using Strap Clamps
- How to Square a Block
