Milling Vise Alignment In 13 Seconds

Mines just keyed. Fine for most jobs and if I have to a quick swipe with an indicator gets it spot on. I was waiting for someone to say they clamped a rifle scope in their vise.
 
Mines just keyed. Fine for most jobs and if I have to a quick swipe with an indicator gets it spot on. I was waiting for someone to say they clamped a rifle scope in their vise.
Like you, I take advantage of the keys. However, for those who don't have a key vise or may have a mill with rough cut Tee slots, the rifle scope will work. Several decades ago, I needed to do some landscape leveling and made the level below/. It is a Western Field 3 - 7 x 20 .22 scope. It will easily resolve .05" @ 20 ft. which works out to about .001" in 5". I don't use it because I have an enclosure around the mill and it would be literally a pain in the neck to bend over to sight it. One issue may be that the scope may not focus on a target only 20' away. I tried mine it looks like it would be usable.

On trick that I used to make the trial and error adjustment procedure more tolerable was to fix one side of the vise so it acted as a pivot point. I would then sweep the fixed vise jaw with an indicator and note the correction needed. I would then mount a toe clamp on the table with a feeler gage equaled to the correction needed. Then pull out the feeler gage and slide the vise to contact the toe clamp and clamp the vise. This usually gets you close enough and is far less frustrating than the tap/measure/tap/measure method.

Bob

Level _01.JPG
 
Like you, I take advantage of the keys. However, for those who don't have a key vise or may have a mill with rough cut Tee slots, the rifle scope will work. Several decades ago, I needed to do some landscape leveling and made the level below/. It is a Western Field 3 - 7 x 20 .22 scope. It will easily resolve .05" @ 20 ft. which works out to about .001" in 5". I don't use it because I have an enclosure around the mill and it would be literally a pain in the neck to bend over to sight it. One issue may be that the scope may not focus on a target only 20' away. I tried mine it looks like it would be usable.

On trick that I used to make the trial and error adjustment procedure more tolerable was to fix one side of the vise so it acted as a pivot point. I would then sweep the fixed vise jaw with an indicator and note the correction needed. I would then mount a toe clamp on the table with a feeler gage equaled to the correction needed. Then pull out the feeler gage and slide the vise to contact the toe clamp and clamp the vise. This usually gets you close enough and is far less frustrating than the tap/measure/tap/measure method.

Bob

View attachment 112502


Novel idea.
 
A few shops I have worked in used keyed vises. I always indicated them anyway.

Like Bob I would snug down one bolt and use a brass knocker or dead blow hammer and indicated the non-keyed vises. After tightening both bolts I would recheck the alignment to see if it moved.

By-the-way, in most cases I would use double washers (two standard stacked) on top of the vise base if the washers were bent from over tightening by the previous machinist.
 
Using a laser is a neat idea; thank you for sharing it!

One option (instead of getting a longer shop) if you want/need more accuracy with the laser method - put a mirror where the current target is. Bouncing the laser back across the room would double the distance, giving you about half the error.

They do something similar for eye exams, so that the exam rooms can be reasonably sized but maintain the required visual distance to the eye chart.
 
don't most kurts have slots for alignment underneath
 
I feel it must be said that a tree would make a bad target, as a point on the tree will constantly be shifting as it grows, and even big ones shift in the wind.

I know that it wasn't a terribly serious suggestion, but I can't help myself. :p
 
Tom's Techniques gave me my current method which goes pretty quickly (though probably not 13 seconds unless I'm lucky). Eyeball the vise close to straight and lightly tighten the T-nut bolts. Mount a test dial indicator on the spindle, move the X so I'm at the edge of the jaw, adjust Y/the indicator until I've deflected the needle. Then engage my power feed letting the indicator drag across the jaw face and watch the needle. Give the vise a tap with a brass hammer until the needle stays on a number. Tighten the nuts and recheck. Usually successful in a max of 3 passes back and forth.

Bruce
 
Im too retro , i put a square in the vice and use a 123 block and another square of the front of the table :)

I used to use the keys on the bottom of the vice but wanted the vice at an angle one day.

Stuart
 
MY VISE IS KEYED TO THE TABLE SLOTS .
THE LASER SOUNDS LIKE A QUICK & SASSY WAY TO GET IT VERY CLOSE .

TO ME , THE LASER SOUNDS LIKE THE CAT's MEOW WHEN USING A SWIVEL BASE WITH
LEFT & RIGHT HAND SETUPS .
 
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