How to stop milling vises from jamming?

Just as the subject says, how do I stop or at least minimize the number of times that my vise movable jaw jams?

You know what I mean, when you can't get it to open past a certain point so you end up cranking it forward and back a couple turns at a time as you hopefully make slow progress toward where you need to be.

I have a bunch of TE-CO (690 style/size) vises in an array on our one large mill and I cannot seem to consistently keep them from jamming up. So frustrating to need to open the vise from 2" to 8" (usually to mill one part only) and have to spend 5-15min just getting the stupid vise open....so a can run a 5min program on that one part.

I have tried removing the movable jaw when I clean but that doesn't seem to make a difference. I think usually it's a small chip gets jammed under the slide somewhere...could be in the screw but I don't know. Seems to crop up most often after I clean everything down with the washdown hose.

I don't want to have to take the vises right off the machine when this happens and fully disassemble them (worth it to do once if that would stop it from happening, but not every time it happens). I don't have those thin "chip shields" in these vises either. I thought about buying some but I figured it would make them more of a pain to clean....the chips are going to get in there since the vises are in an array.

Anyway, curious if anyone else is having this issue and how you have dealt with it.

Thanks!

Leviathan

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Do a better job cleaning them. It's fairly simple to do with an air hose...

the screw will get chips in it, and there's nothing you can do but take it apart and clean it. I have several new Kurts where they've made the screw longer so it extends out the back of the nut. That seems to have cured it.

Leviathan said:

You know what I mean, when you can't get it to open past a certain point so you end up cranking it forward and back a couple turns at a time as you hopefully make slow progress toward where you need to be.

Click to expand...

Not really . Several years with Kurt 688's and that has never happened. I do make sure to clear out the underside of the moving jaw as the cavity will pack up with chips. Maybe that is what you have going on.

Regards.

Mike

Yeah, years ago with original short travel Kurts

Cannot remember last time it being an issue. Using some cast iron I think Chick double vises that never have any problems

Looked at an image on line of your vise . . . looks like that thin shield might just keep chips out of the screw. Worth trying I would think.

It's a matter of cleaning and maintenance. Taking them fully apart once a year or so ensures everything is clear. There's no reason it should jam consistently, take the whole thing apart and clean Stone and lube every sliding surface. Check the tension on the moveable jaw, if it's too tight or too lose it won't work right.

Other than cleaning regularly, having this screw that contacts the "hemisphere" (photo below) too snug can seem to make a vise finicky.

I believe Kurt recommends bringing that screw up snug, then back it off 1/4 turn.

688s dont jam. D675s do. I have two that I cannot wait to scrap. I dont know if there is a good answer to the question other than greasing the crap out of the screw every day like a lathe chuck. It is a terrible design.

I tried looking up the TC-690 but cannot find any detailed pictures. On a Kurt D675 It's the full length female screw that is the problem. The unused portion rusts when you have a long short job. The best way I have found to fix it is to use an impact gun and cycle it forward and back and squirt grease into the fitting as you do until it breaks free.

If you guys have not experienced this, then you probably have a vise with a full length male screw. The D688 has no issues - full length male thread.

I'm not sure what the benefit of the long female nut is, but I won't ever get a vise made like that again. I's so frustrating.

Get a Chick vise. It has a solid center... no chip jamming!

i have a few teco vises and that happens to only one of them. the issue i discovered was the collar against the vise body where the handle is put on. that collar can unscrew and then rotate with the handle and after a few turns it bottoms out on whatever its threaded to and your vice comes to a stop. try holding that collar in one place while you spin the handle

if you dont really care about it too much, you can switch to a impact driver to open and close them, i've even used a drill, im sure the the impact driver is like death to the bearings but the drill along with some air in the screw area helps when trying to clean it out without having to disassemble it when its jammed up, again, im sure its not the best idea for the vise but when its already a piece of junk, i really dont care.

If it is still stiff with the move-jaw removed from the vise? It is a chip embedded in the nut.
The nut is softer than the screw, so, that is where the chip gets stuck. Only fix:
Remove the nut (you should be able to screw the nut out of the vise without removing the screw, or the vise from the machine)
Look in hole with flashlight to find chip.
Pick chip out with some kind of hook or pick.
Reassemble dry. Grease just attracts chips. Coolant on the screw is all the lube you need.

It is a pain in the ass. And, you will never stop it.

Finally checking back in on this, thanks for the responses guys, I will check the threaded collar idea first. Because now that you mention that I remember noticing that a couple of them are loose.

If that is not the issue I will try the full disassembly to find the jammed chip.

If neither of those things work I will just buy some orange vises and be done with it. [emoji846]

Thanks again.

Leviathan

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