XY table revisited

- P
- Peter Fairbrother
  
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posted
17 years ago

Tue, May 30, 2006 8:14 AM

There was a thread about XY tables recently - just saw this on eBay:

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which is an XY vice. They call it a two-way machine vice.

It's only 3 inch size, and it isn't exactly a piece of precision engineering

- but it's only £25.50 delivered, which is a whole lot less than a Proxxon or Wolfcraft.

Might perhaps be a starting point for those into improving tools - it looks like it needs a lot of improvement!

There seems to be several available. Usual disclaimer, but I'm not even a customer.

- Z
- zedbert
  
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posted
17 years ago

Tue, May 30, 2006 9:20 AM

I've got a larger and older one of those things. It is the very thing for lining up to drill holes, or even a series of holes. When it comes to milling it just doesn't seem to cut the mustard. I have tried a couple of times, into aluminium, it just seems extremely wobbly, and my drill press (a fairly large one, although of the cheep modern varietey) is really not happy.

I understand from reading about these things, milling in a drill-press is not a grate plan anyway, knackers the bearings, upsets the balance of the world, causes global warming etc.

As the 'mercans say, YMMV.

- B
- bugbear
  
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posted
17 years ago

Tue, May 30, 2006 10:22 AM

APTC do these:

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I know no more.

BugBear

- T
- Tony Jeffree
  
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posted
17 years ago

Tue, May 30, 2006 10:42 AM

Interesting...these vices seem to change size at will (same pic used in all 3 pages ;-))

My experience with these vices is that if you treated them as a set of castings for making a cross vice you might end up with something half decent, but in "out of the box" condition they are fairly crap.

Regards, Tony

- T
- Tony Jeffree
  
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posted
17 years ago

Tue, May 30, 2006 10:45 AM

Should point out that the ones I have used/seen aren't the Axminster ones though...

Regards, Tony

- T
- Tim Auton
  
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posted
17 years ago

Tue, May 30, 2006 3:50 PM

[snip]

They look a lot like the ones Machine Mart sell:

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?p=040310180

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I've got a 5" one. As expected, it's pretty rough out of the box. Not even proper bushings on the ends of the leadscrews on mine - they just rattle around in the casting. The ways on mine are free of any noticeable slop though, so it is useable.

Tim