mounting mill vise

Thanks to everyone's help here, I bought an Enco 4" milling vise. I unbolted it from its swivel base, since it's one more thing to not be true and it steals precious inches of height (I have a small mill/drill without much vertical clearance).

I want to mount the vise directly onto my mill/drill table. But after removing it from the base, there are two rectangular keys protruding from its bottom, about 1/2" square by 1" long. The keys are held in with bolts, but they also appear to be held in by punching the join between the key and the casting. When I remove the bolts, the keys still won't come out, even if I whack them laterally with a mallet (using a piece of wood to avoid denting anything). I didn't try whacking with all my might.

What's the right way to remove these, without damaging anything?

Reply to
Walter Harley
Loading thread data ...

In article , snipped-for-privacy@cafewalterNOSPAM.com says... The keys are held in with bolts,

If these key are accurate, they may be a good way to line up your vise with your table.

Jim Kovar Vulcan, Mi

Reply to
Jim

Unfortunately, they're aligned along an axis that is perpendicular to the flanges for the tee slots; so, if I have the vise mounted to the tee slots, the keys are sitting up on top of the table, keeping the vise from lying flat. If I mounted the vise parallel to the X axis of the table I might be able to use them, but I think that then the tee slots wouldn't line up with the flanges (plus, I wouldn't be able to clamp long pieces).

Reply to
Walter Harley

Try a piece of brass and a BFH. Or maybe a piece of round stock fit into the bolt hole to pry it out.

michael

Reply to
michael

Those are locating lugs to assist you in setting the vice parallel to the table by pushing both lugs against one of the table slots. They should be removable - like they should fall out when the bolts are removed. I've never heard of any being pressed in. Try removing the bolts part way out and whacking on the bolt as to effect a rocking motion of the key.

Reply to
Robert Swinney

Why would you want to remove them? They are the locating keys for the slot in your mill table.

Gunner

"In my humble opinion, the petty carping levied against Bush by the Democrats proves again, it is better to have your eye plucked out by an eagle than to be nibbled to death by ducks." - Norman Liebmann

Reply to
Gunner

The keys are at 90' to the vise jaws? Thats a wierd one. Most of the time they are parallel with the vise jaws. I dont think Ive ever seen em 90' out,. before.

Gunner

"In my humble opinion, the petty carping levied against Bush by the Democrats proves again, it is better to have your eye plucked out by an eagle than to be nibbled to death by ducks." - Norman Liebmann

Reply to
Gunner

Those are table slot keys - and likely used in the rotation base to set zero in the same spot every time...

The keys should fit down into your T-slots snugly and if not, additional keys can be bought from the vendor. (with luck).

I bought a pair for my Kurt and they really help in alignment / tramming.

Martin

Reply to
Martin H. Eastburn

Can the pair be rotated to another set of slots ? at 90 degree ?

I did that to my Kurt today - had been using the vise length way (not the normal way) on the table so I had the keys 90 out of normal. Today, being done with the project, I swapped the keys back and mounted the vise crosswise (normal way).

The item I was milling was a bit to deep for milling. For the life of me, I don't know why I didn't rotate the work - I think I was fixed on having the long sides in the jaws or something. Likely just a bad mental thought at the time. But the job was completed.

Martin

Reply to
Martin H. Eastburn

I have used the screw in my fingers to tip the block out.

Martin

Reply to
Martin H. Eastburn

When I got my cheap Palmgren vise it had no locating keys. One of the first things I did was to go out and get some key stock at the hardware store to mill up some keys. I milled my keys to be square rather than rectangular so they would fit into the t-slot either way.

If you are a daring individual, what you could do is to bolt a chunk of steel down directly to the milling table and then clamp your vise onto that, only upside down, and then mill those keys to be square, in situ. You should only need to mill the keys flush with the bottom of the vise, and you should be sire that the vise is square and plumb with the table during set-up.

In fact, the whole process could be summed up into several steps:

1: get a piece of steel stock that will just fit into the vise. 2: bore two holes in the stock, one near each end, and large enough to clear your t-bolts. 3: clamp the stock to the table using t-bolts 4: take truing cuts in the stock. Mill the faces of the stock that the jaws of the vise will be clamping to so that they are parallel to the x-axis of the table 5: clamp your vise upside down onto the stock. Do not remove the stock from the table, as this will disturb your alignment. Also make sure that the vise, when clamped in place, is level with the surface of the table. 6: Finally, mill down each key to make its "top" face square.

P.S. Of course, make sure that the bolts are reinstalled in the keys before milling them.

Reply to
Artemia Salina

Thanks for the helpful info, everyone.

Now that I know what to look for, it turns out that there are four key slots milled in the bottom of the vise. The keys were inserted in the slots that were perpendicular to the jaws, but there are also slots that are parallel to the jaws.

Whacking the keys out with a 3# hammer and a piece of brass worked, although the brass is a bit funny-lookin' now. The keys measure about .001" bigger than the slots that they were in; the other (parallel) slots look to be even a bit smaller. I think I'll try filing the keys down a tad.

Reply to
Walter Harley

Yeah, I only got a "quick vise" because of the height issue.

Reply to
Dave

PolyTech Forum website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.