Milling Vise Alignment In 13 Seconds

gr8legs

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I rarely remove the vise from the milling machine - just too much fussing around to get it back parallel to the table axis.

A recent project required several change-outs of vise and hold downs - so I came up with something that gets my vise alignment down to a few seconds, rather than the 3-5 minutes of twiddling and swearing.

Before removing the vise I put a laser pointer (I use a rectangular level with a laser included, but any laser of suitable size will probably work) into the vise and shoot a dot of light at the wall about 20 feet from the milling machine.

I mark the spot on the wall with a post-it note (and also make note of the Y-Position of the mill) and then remove the vise and do whatever other operation I have to do.

When it comes time to re-mount the vise I put it onto the mill table, put the laser back into the vise and reset the Y-Axis to the previous setting.

Now it's a simple task to jockey the vise around until the laser dot is spotted onto the same location on the wall - and the vise is right back in the same alignment!

Easy Peasy! Probably infinitely repeatable as long as the mill stays in the same spot and no earthquakes intervene and accurate enough for most jobs.

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How do you reproduce the y position of the vise on the table? My vise has two bosses on the bottom side but when they are in contact with the side of the Tee slot, the vise is aligned so I wouldn't need the laser. I found that as I tighten the mounting bolts, the vise will walk a bit so I bias the vise by placing a short length of 2 x 4 between the back of the vise base and use the column to bias the vise while tightening. It will generally get me to about .001" over 4".

Have you made any measurements regarding accuracy and reproducibility?
 
I think if the dot is 20 feet away the error at the vise will be so small it would be negligible.
Twenty feet is 240 inches. If the dot is 1/4" in diameter, .25/240 is about .001"/". I typically align my vise to be less than .001"/4" which would correspond to .060" @ 20 ft.

However, for many operations, .001"/" is sufficiently accurate enough and the 13 seconds mounting time is very attractive.

I wondered about the reproducibility because most laser leveling devices typically quote 1/8" inch accuracy.
 
My point was, I have yet to use a commercial laser that is not blurry around the edges or truly round for that matter, so repointing to the exact spot could be tricky resulting in error. Indicating the vise would confirm how close this technique works. The whole technique makes sense minus the blurred distorted dot.
 
Hmmm, Gonna have to try that.
 
I wondered about the reproducibility because most laser leveling devices typically quote 1/8" inch accuracy.

I don't depend on the level to do any leveling, just repeatably positionable in the same spot in the vise. I bottom the laser in the vise and then align the vise by comparing the horizontal position of the dot on the wall with my previous mark. Although I use an 'X' to mark the center of the laser dot, I suppose I could draw a box around it to better delineate exactly where the spot should align to.

Also, I'd guess a round-barrel laser flashlight would not be reliable for this as the beam is not guaranteed to be concentric to the flashlight barrel axis.

One other thing - as the table slots are wider than the bolts holding the vise I make sure that the same side of the vise is 'thunked' against the slot so I only move one end of the vise while aligning it to the mark on the wall.

Stu
 
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My point was, I have yet to use a commercial laser that is not blurry around the edges or truly round for that matter, so repointing to the exact spot could be tricky resulting in error. Indicating the vise would confirm how close this technique works. The whole technique makes sense minus the blurred distorted dot.
Agreed they are a bit blurry, however one can easily align a laser dot much it better than+- .25" and as pointed out above, even that much error at 20' would only be a thou off at the vise.
 
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