What sort of vise for a mini-mill?

[Former Member]

Yes it is, its running very nicely. Next upgrade is ball screws on the x and y. I may even add a ball screw for the z, have to think about that a little more. Also add a rotary table (4th axis) software/hardware is already for it.

Truth be total now that I have it, kicking myself for not doing it soon.

ROI less than 6 months, I allowed 2 years. Now its making money, enough so that I bought a floor mounted drill press to move 90% of the manual (oversized) drilling duties for more CNC time. There is still some precision drilling setups done on the mill, but they make very good money so they stay.

If I had the space I'd be adding a full second CNC.

 

[Susquatch]

@Degen posted, I could add a third vise and maximize setup, but it does make the initial install significantly more difficult to align all the vises, two are difficult, three


I put 1-2-3 blocks between my vice separation's for an easier Y alignment . For your set -up, I would use 1" between each vise.
( provided the vices have a ground or nicely milled side faces... ) Clamp a squared bar up the length of the vises. Tighten vises down to 20ft/lb arm strong torque.
The dial indicator would take less than a few minutes at that point, tighten vices down the rest of the way, remove the side set blocks and your solid.
I hope your set-up works well Degen!

I noticed that you quoted Degen manually. The forum makes that easier. Just highlight the text you want to refer to and then click on the "REPLY" box that will pop up. Should make life a little easier for you.

 

[PeterT]

Took me a while to figure that out. Similarly: highlight text > right click > +Quote (repeat as many times as you like) will plop those text chunks into your reply.

 

[Susquatch]

Took me a while to figure that out. Similarly: highlight text > right click > +Quote (repeat as many times as you like) will plop those text chunks into your reply.

The popup includes the quote and the reply function.

I don't use the quote function much. I find it's like the proverbial cat litter box. It keeps filling up with crap. Every once in a while you have to clean the darn thing out! Then it sticks to my fur.