Holding small work in a bandsaw vise

dewbane

Michael McIntyre
H-M Lifetime Diamond Member
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Mar 2, 2018
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I just looked at the date on the motor data plate, and I've had my trusty Grizzly entry level crosscut bandsaw for 19 years now. I bought it to cut pipe for tuned wind chimes, the first time I had a home business that didn't take off. I've shuffled it around a dozen times, but I never sold it, and now it has found a permanent home in my metal shop. I love this stupid saw, and I have pushed it to the limits. I cut a piece of mainline "high rail" railroad track with this thing. It took many hours to get through it, and I had to finish the last 1/4" with a hacksaw, but I did it!

So, I got off early today, and I decided to tackle the replacement bearing fingers for the steady and follow rests on my g0602. I tried using the stock bronze fingers, and I immediately said naw. The noise, the marring of work, just naw. I asked google if there were any better ideas, and found a thread on this very forum.

When I went looking through my stock pile, I didn't have anything that was close to the right size, but I did have some wide stock that was close to the right thickness. Cutting it to length was no problem, but what about "ripping" it to width? This seemed like a good candidate for my chop saw, but I would have wasted a lot of material in the kerf and made a lot of noise at 2:00 am. My bandsaw would make a nice narrow kerf, but how could I cut these wide bars into thirds with the ubiquitous 6" x 4" cheap entry level bandsaw? The vise jaws don't reach anywhere close to the cut line. Especially not the narrow jaw.

Hmmmmm....

So I came up with this. I threw in a couple lengths of square bar that are going to become tongs eventually, and I balanced the load by putting pieces of the same length on either side of the acme screw. It was a pretty crude job that is going to need a lot of cleanup on the mill, but by crikey, I got blanks that will work for this job without having to go order any new stock. I am amused with my own cleverness, so I took a picture, and decided to share this story.



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Great solution!! I do it pretty much the same by tack welding what I want ripped to some flat stock. If what I want ripped is 1/4" thick or less then I'll use the big band saw.
 
Double face tape on a sacraficial backer works well too.
 
I just use a C-Clamp thru the center between the ways on BS.
it sets low enough that it doesn't stop the arm from coming all the way down.
 
On one of those mods for the 4x6 bandsaw , one fellow used a small drill press vise on a block of wood. To prevent cutting the vise, he set a piece of plastic pipe as a stop.

I bought the small drill press vise, it came with a 1" to 6" mic set. Or maybe it was the other way around. A pawn shop pickup. I haven't set it up yet.
 
Tip the saw up and use it as a vertical?
 
I cut small parts like the OP did all the time.
 
Tip the saw up and use it as a vertical?
Thought about that, but it would have exceeded the limits of my patience hand feeding and trying to follow a line that many times. This was 5/16" stock, and the cuts took awhile.

It was definitely a good plan to set the saw to work and listen for the clunk when it finally finished. I know myself. I would have tried to force the work, and I would have had to put the blade back on and re-tension it a few times before I finally kinked it badly enough to need replacing. It would have been ugly. (This is what happened to my last blade, actually. Like I said, I know myself. )
 
As Downwindtracker suggested I bolted a machinist vice to a steel plate, channel iron would work beter. Not much you can't hold in it.
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For short large parts a joiner nut and two bolts work great to keep the jaws parallel. This works for a lot of jacking operations where you need to space or push things apart.
IMG_0390.jpg

Greg
 
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