Using Two Mill Vises

ddickey

H-M Supporter - Gold Member
H-M Supporter Gold Member
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If you by chance had two identical milling vises would you mount both on your mill?
 
Depends on what I'm doing, most of my stuff clamps to the bed the rest is small enough only 1 vise needed
 
Back in the day we had two vises that we match ground for this purpose. Nice when you need to perform multiple ops on multiple long parts.
 
The CNC shop I visited recently had a whole row of Kurt vises installed in their mills. I think 4 vises per machine IIRC.

Our mill has 42" table has one vise mounted and that should be enough. If we need we can add jacks and other supports on a part
 
On a full size mill yes on my mill no. My projects seem to take weeks to finish if I had the space a extra vise would be helpful.
 
You can order 'matched' vises from Kurt for additional charge. If you buy 2 random Kurt DX6 vises, you will find up to .002 height difference, We have done this test with 4 DX6 vises here in our city, bought at different times from different suppliers. SO....

What I do is to tram in my DX6 and my taiwanese 633 clone so that the fixed jaws all reading as close to zero as possible. Then I use only 1 set of parallels to line up the work. I snug both my vises and re-tap the work in the vise with the parallels. I can then do the final tightening without the work piece moving.

I hope this helps.
 
I have also mounted two vises side by side .Then took a skin cut on soft jaws so they were squared up to each other.
 
I usually keep two Glacern 6" vises on my Tormach 1100. These were purchases as a matched set so the heights at key points are better than 0.0005". I have a Saunders fixture plate on the mill and tram the vises so the fixed jaws are at the same Y. Both vises are loose shot to the table, then set an 18" gauge block in the vises (movable jaw has a 1" Delrin round so the jaws don't cover the 1/2" attaching screws). Tighten the LH vise LH cap screw and run an indicator onto the gauge block face at that X. Then move the table so the indicator is on the gauge block at the RH cap screw of the RH vise. Tap the vise as needed to match the indicator number from the LH side. Then run back to the LH vise, LH cap screw to verify. When things look good, tighten the other two cap screws.

I've never run a CNC job on one vise while removing work from the other, though it'd be possible. My use has been for holding long stock; makes the vise into essentially a 12"+ wide vise.

Bruce
 
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