We buy bar stock and make soft jaws but we don't square them up. I'm thinking we should at least square a few pairs up so when those rush jobs come in we don't have to waste time squaring soft jaws.
What's your approach?
Jon Banquer San Diego, CA
Jon, My approach is to buy them from this guy:
I like to ream a slip fit for a 1/4" dowel so that if I have to reuse a set that I can line the two halves up easily.
Best, Steve
Wow. That is a good price. I always made my own but I make it 1.875" high so I can turn the around and use the bottom. If 1.5" thick you can use all four sides. Jerry
That is a good deal.....$9.00 a pair. That being said....we always square ours up when we make them.
Steve:
That's certainly a good price.
When we're slow we'll cut up a couple of bars, helix some counterbores and then have two sides blanchard ground. If a pair need to be aligned we either do the pin thing like you do, or machine the bandsawn ends so they can be indicated next time.
Here's another micro tip that doesn't deserve its own post. We were doing some long slotted parts in a Fadal and everyone knows how the blown chips can get inside an open bottom umbrella tool changer. Well, one of the manual guys running the machine came up with what I thought was a good idea; He got a plastic trash bag and a couple of button magnets (those 1/2" dia. strong ones), and covered the front of the tool carousel with the trash bag held on by the magnets. Now you can blow off the chips without them getting up into the carousel. Haas uses those spring loaded tool pot covers, excellent idea. Fadal makes some plastic tool pot inserts but in a shop that changes a lot of tools per day for different jobs or operations, they're more trouble than they're worth. For production use I can see where they would pretty much be indispensable.
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