Kurt HDHM6 alternatives (air/hydraulic vises)

So, I am thinking of switching some stuff up. I'm getting ready to set up a new job. And, want to simplify the operator interface.
Looking to go air or hydraulic vises for this one. The Kurt HDHM6 is on top of the list so far: Kurt Hydraulic Vise Base Assembly, 6" - Kurt Workholding
Mostly because google hasn't turned up much else (the search function here on PM sucks). The machine is a Brother R450, 17.7" x 12.6" envelope.
The form factor of the HDHM6 is perfect because: it is short and fits inside the small 12.6" Y. Yet I can still fit three of them across the 17.7" X.
The plan: OP2 x 2 in the vise, and OP1 x 2, one part on top of either move jaw clamped with Pit-Bulls. This would net me 6 finished parts off each pallet per cycle.
(the stock starts as 1" square x 5" long, not that it matters)
I want a pneumatic torque-set driver hanging on a lanyard yo-yo inside the cabinet for tightening the Pit-Bulls.
This is very similar to a production part I already do over 1000pcs/week of. And, we use a total of 4 tools (not including the dead-blow to seat the parts) for swapping parts on that one.
A 3/8" Dewalt impact, ratchet, and two different torque wrenches. It is kind of a PITA, and wears on you after a while.
I would love to trim this down to the torque driver, and pulling a knob! (and, so would the wife).

I was originally thinking something like this: 4" Table Mount Vise 6 of those per pallet.
OP1 on one pallet. OP2 on the other (this is how the current job runs (but lots more parts per pallet)).
until I stumbled on the Kurt. The Air-Vise is cool and all. But, I wouldn't be able to double up both operations on one vise. The Kurts double the parts on the table!

I am not really finding anything else with the form factor of the Kurt. Which sucks. Because: the Kurt is not in stock anywhere. And, the website simply says "call for availability".
We all know that is never a good sign.

Anybody aware of a similar option?

I have found hard fixtures with mitee bites work WAY better for production parts , I tried the pallet thing but found pulling the pallets and blowing down parts outside the machine sucked ,, but with the R450 you would not run into that .

I have two vf2ss mills set up with pallets to hold pallets , its made it so I can drop a pallet in and pull up the program and push the green button and both machines are setup with the same tooling and offsets are linked to the program. change over is super fast and when I make the pallets I do two ,, so if I need some parts fast I can set both machines to run the same parts,,

Congrats on the R450 ,,

Messing with clamps vs pushing or pulling a button took about 2 cycles for me to decide which I liked better.

I would think there would be quite a few hydraulic options, why no responses?

DavidScott said:

I would think there would be quite a few hydraulic options, why no responses?

Click to expand...

I did too, I been watching this thread particularly for options.
only one I can think of is PAWS working holding, they might have something for modular hydraulic clamping vise.

D.D. on the pallets what type are you running ? do your pallets hold in vises or on the table?
reason I ask is I am running parts that cant be clamped with mittee bites in most case's as the blanks we get are ground from TCI.
so we ussually use soft jaws on the 1st off and vaccum fixtures, clamp fixtures or cut soft jaws for the 2nd 3rd 4th op etc. I do use mittee bites on some fixtures where I can. most of our fixtures fix with soft vise jaws

would love to find a quicker way for covering a wider range. I rarely take the vices off but change a ton of vise jaws. thought about the v groove quick change vise jaws. I need my jaws to repeat less than a .001 between changes with out cutting them every time. havent been able to do that with bolt on jaws.

The problem I have with vises is other person doesnt have the feel I have so parts are mostly tightened too tight( results in bending a tad) not seated perfectly etc. with a hydraulic vise I think no matter who loads the part it will be consistent every time.

I've seen so many hydraulic vises in person but when I search for them there doesn't seem to be much on the interwebby. Maybe it is some kind of conspiracy and they have been outlawed due to working too well.

D.D.Machine said:

I have found hard fixtures with mitee bites work WAY better for production parts , I tried the pallet thing but found pulling the pallets and blowing down parts outside the machine sucked ,, but with the R450 you would not run into that .

I have two vf2ss mills set up with pallets to hold pallets , its made it so I can drop a pallet in and pull up the program and push the green button and both machines are setup with the same tooling and offsets are linked to the program. change over is super fast and when I make the pallets I do two ,, so if I need some parts fast I can set both machines to run the same parts,,

Congrats on the R450 ,,

Click to expand...

Not so fast on the congrats. I ain't bought shit yet! LOL

I can see doing the swap-able pallet thing in a std. VMC. But, no freaking way I am going there in an APC machine. That is what the APC is for.
Swapping pallets is a giant PITA. I hate it!

Hardplates said:

I've seen so many hydraulic vises in person but when I search for them there doesn't seem to be much on the interwebby. Maybe it is some kind of conspiracy and they have been outlawed due to working too well.

Click to expand...

RIGHT?! This was exactly my finding. Every time I search this stuff, I am like: "where is all the damn info?!"
Most of the good info does not originate from the USA (go figure). And, I can't follow those foreign sites. They sure know how to make it crazy complicated to follow WTF your looking at!
I will never understand why they say the metric system is simpler. Simply because the people who use it certainly are NOT!

Perfect example: Multiflex Vises - Gerardi SPA
Go to the catalog, and, try to make some sense of it. I dare you.

Delw said:

I did too, I been watching this thread particularly for options.
only one I can think of is PAWS working holding, they might have something for modular hydraulic clamping vise.

D.D. on the pallets what type are you running ? do your pallets hold in vises or on the table?
reason I ask is I am running parts that cant be clamped with mittee bites in most case's as the blanks we get are ground from TCI.
so we ussually use soft jaws on the 1st off and vaccum fixtures, clamp fixtures or cut soft jaws for the 2nd 3rd 4th op etc. I do use mittee bites on some fixtures where I can. most of our fixtures fix with soft vise jaws

would love to find a quicker way for covering a wider range. I rarely take the vices off but change a ton of vise jaws. thought about the v groove quick change vise jaws. I need my jaws to repeat less than a .001 between changes with out cutting them every time. havent been able to do that with bolt on jaws.

The problem I have with vises is other person doesnt have the feel I have so parts are mostly tightened too tight( results in bending a tad) not seated perfectly etc. with a hydraulic vise I think no matter who loads the part it will be consistent every time.

Click to expand...

It is surprisingly hard to find people who have "the feel"!

Del, I just switched to the whole dove-tail jaw system (Orange).
They repeat pretty well. I wouldn't count on them to get a sub-.0010" toleranced first article through inspection without re-touching/probing the part.
But, they are worlds better than bolt on jaws for repeating. Especially when your pockets are complex contours.
Then your max deviation theoretically is the slop in the move jaw.
I do lots of stuff where I would have to smack bolt on jaws around a lot to get the pockets lined up correctly. Not so with the dovetailed jaws.

I have seen this pop up last year, now it seems they have for orange too, CNC Vise Actuator

wheelieking71 said:

It is surprisingly hard to find people who have "the feel"!

Del, I just switched to the whole dove-tail jaw system (Orange).
They repeat pretty well. I wouldn't count on them to get a sub-.0010" toleranced first article through inspection without re-touching/probing the part.
But, they are worlds better than bolt on jaws for repeating. Especially when your pockets are complex contours.
Then your max deviation theoretically is the slop in the move jaw.
I do lots of stuff where I would have to smack bolt on jaws around a lot to get the pockets lined up correctly. Not so with the dovetailed jaws.

Click to expand...

Thanks
I remember you said you were just switching but hadnt seen any update and didnt want to bother you.
my main thing was re-cutting, from the sounds of it I wouldn't need too recut for most work?

wheelieking71 said:

RIGHT?! This was exactly my finding. Every time I search this stuff, I am like: "where is all the damn info?!"
Most of the good info does not originate from the USA (go figure). And, I can't follow those foreign sites. They sure know how to make it crazy complicated to follow WTF your looking at!
I will never understand why they say the metric system is simpler. Simply because the people who use it certainly are NOT!

Perfect example: Multiflex Vises - Gerardi SPA
Go to the catalog, and, try to make some sense of it. I dare you.

Click to expand...

The Gerardi catalogue is reasonably clear, to me at least...

I was going to say that Gerardi have individual self contained air vices that you could use to build a configuration to do what you want, but the price point would certainly be significantly higher than Kurt.

They also have modular dual stations that use external hydraulic actuators, so not quite as neat, but have the benefit of having many interchangeable jaw types - gripper jaws on one side and machined soft jaw on the other with a hybrid jaw in the middle is all possible.

Regarding gripper jaws - wouldn't it make more sense than pitbull clamps at this kind of quantity?

Hmm, I didn't realize there was this much interest in hydraulic vises. Might have to get something going sooner than later.

I've tossed around a lot of designs over the years but was never really happy with any of them.

I'm now leaning towards a simple active system, meaning hydraulic power to clamp. It's not fail-safe like a passive system which uses belleville springs to clamp and hydraulic power to release, but an active system can be much simpler and easily adjustable.

The plan would be to add a simple pull-cylinder to a modified version of our Delta IV vises.

Orange Vise said:

Hmm, I didn't realize there was this much interest in hydraulic vises. Might have to get something going sooner than later.

I've tossed around a lot of designs over the years but was never really happy with any of them.

I'm now leaning towards a simple active system, meaning hydraulic power to clamp. It's not fail-safe like a passive system which uses belleville springs to clamp and hydraulic power to release, but an active system can be much simpler and easily adjustable.

The plan would be to add a simple pull-cylinder to a modified version of our Delta IV vises.

Click to expand...

I think a pneumatic release, spring clamp system has a lot of advantages though, especially in a pallet setup.

As with the Gerardi (and the like) - air release zero points on the table, pallet plate with multiple air release vices fixed.

Nothing needs to be routed to the table - plug in an airline at the end of the cycle to release the pallet, plug in another airline at the setup station to reload the vices. Unplug airlines when done.

wheelieking71 said:

RIGHT?! This was exactly my finding. Every time I search this stuff, I am like: "where is all the damn info?!"
Most of the good info does not originate from the USA (go figure). And, I can't follow those foreign sites. They sure know how to make it crazy complicated to follow WTF your looking at!
I will never understand why they say the metric system is simpler. Simply because the people who use it certainly are NOT!

Perfect example: Multiflex Vises - Gerardi SPA
Go to the catalog, and, try to make some sense of it. I dare you.

Click to expand...

Are you looking for something specific (I know hydraulic, but other than that) from them. I demoed one of their multifix vises, but just too short of a jaw width for us, plus would be too long for a small machine unless mounting sideways...

I know you hate MSC, but..

https://www.mscdirect.com/browse/tn...FJIYKH5-VDxqPUXGVn3SY7xbQ7WT0JNoaAuFfEALw_wcB

Click view catalogue page for more

Not double station, not sure if that is a deal breaker, but says in stock.

Jergens doubles

Hydraulic Production Vises | Jergens Inc

Roemheld -

CNC Precision Machine Vises and Jaws - Roemheld USA

Dapra -

Arnold Workholding Machine Vises - High-Pressure Vises | DAPRA Corporation


Not sure if a single station with a fixture would do what you want...?

The jergens 4" double is about 16" long. They offer a narrow body version that looks interesting. Not sure what availability is like. I've used 17.5" vises in the Y direction on R450s. There is room to hang tooling off the table a couple of inches at the front and back. I personally do not like mounting vises in the X direction. I try to avoid that if possible.

This was almost impossible to find on their site, but TE-CO sells Hydraulic vises and tombstones:
http://www.te-co.com/pdf/hydraulicflyer.pdf

I got a demo on this tombstone last year, pretty cool because it is self-contained so you don't need an external pump or feed from the machine:
http://www.te-co.com/pdf/self-contained-hydraulic-vises-2016.pdf

BROTHERFRANK said:

The jergens 4" double is about 16" long. They offer a narrow body version that looks interesting. Not sure what availability is like. I've used 17.5" vises in the Y direction on R450s. There is room to hang tooling off the table a couple of inches at the front and back. I personally do not like mounting vises in the X direction. I try to avoid that if possible.

Click to expand...

4" is too narrow for this app. 5" would be ideal, but don't really exist. 6" fits, so 6" it would be. I also am not a fan of X mounted vises.
Some of those long Gerardi's with many stations might make sense? But, with regular doubles, you pretty much give away several spots.
Sending you an email with more info Frank.

CNC Hacker said:

This was almost impossible to find on their site, but TE-CO sells Hydraulic vises and tombstones:
http://www.te-co.com/pdf/hydraulicflyer.pdf

I got a demo on this tombstone last year, pretty cool because it is self-contained so you don't need an external pump or feed from the machine:
http://www.te-co.com/pdf/self-contained-hydraulic-vises-2016.pdf

Click to expand...

Teco makes some good vises. Never used a hydraulic, but we had 2 of their 4 station tombstone/vise combos.

Mike1974 said:

I know you hate MSC, but..

Click to expand...

I have actually been using MSC for almost all tooling lately.
I managed to find a good sales lady. She got me hard-coded in to some good discounts on cutting tools.
I still shop everything around. But, MSC usually gets the sale.