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Setting up multiple vises question.

gundog

Hot Rolled
Joined
May 31, 2004
Location
Southwest Washington USA
I have 3 Kurt 6" vises 2-d688 & 1-dx6 I have been using them on my bed mill doing second operation drilling on parts cut by my CNC router I cut full sheets of plastic parts on the router and then drill the sides of many of those parts using the bed mill many of the parts are long and the plastic is not always flat so the vises are spread out over the 32" travel of the mill. I am wondering how most of you setup the multiple vises to get them evenly spaced. I have thought about making a setup bar with some sort of pin or machined feature to clamp the vises together to space them evenly then sweep them in line. My other thought is bolting them to a sub plate.

Now when I install them I use a long 2" shaft that is straight sweep in the first vise and clamp the other 2 vises to that shaft and snug one bolt on each the other 2 vises remove the shaft and sweep them in to match the first vise I setup but they are not equally spaced. I use an edge finder to get their exact offset from the first vise. This method makes me edit my programs to accommodate the distance the vises are spaced each time I run that program. I run the same programs over and over so having to change the offset to match my setup is a pain in the butt.

Sorry for the dumb question but seeing the thread about the Orange vises and the pictures reminded me I need a better method.
 
We have a bed mill with 50” of x travel and 4 Kurt vices. Typically, if it’s Individual parts we use multiple offsets. Sometimes we have long bars in the machine and use all of the travel with one offset.

As far as setup, we have 2 dots stamped into the table (bad idea if you like a clean table, but this machine is beat up and nearly running. Dryers with anilam controls are surprisingly easy to hurt, but hard to kill) around each vice as a rough location. Then with a long bar of straight stock get the vices close. None are tight. Pick your favorite vice and tram it in. Then make them all match

For precision vice location, sub plates are a good way to go.


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Put them on the table close and fit them with soft jaws. Then you can machine them perfectly straight and evenly spaced. Much quicker than trying to tram them all in.
 
I have 3 Kurt 6" vises 2-d688 & 1-dx6 I have been using them on my bed mill doing second operation drilling on parts cut by my CNC router I cut full sheets of plastic parts on the router and then drill the sides of many of those parts using the bed mill many of the parts are long and the plastic is not always flat so the vises are spread out over the 32" travel of the mill. I am wondering how most of you setup the multiple vises to get them evenly spaced. I have thought about making a setup bar with some sort of pin or machined feature to clamp the vises together to space them evenly then sweep them in line. My other thought is bolting them to a sub plate.

Now when I install them I use a long 2" shaft that is straight sweep in the first vise and clamp the other 2 vises to that shaft and snug one bolt on each the other 2 vises remove the shaft and sweep them in to match the first vise I setup but they are not equally spaced. I use an edge finder to get their exact offset from the first vise. This method makes me edit my programs to accommodate the distance the vises are spaced each time I run that program. I run the same programs over and over so having to change the offset to match my setup is a pain in the butt.

Sorry for the dumb question but seeing the thread about the Orange vises and the pictures reminded me I need a better method.

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if vise and table slot keys it should be close then most use a indicator and shim (feeler gage or thickness stock) behind rear vise jaw. spacing can use indicator and digital readout. zero indicator and DRO at left side of jaw. move indicator to zero it at next vise jaw and read DRO.
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many use 2 combination square heads on a single 12 or 18 or 24" ruler. when 2 combination heads on same ruler you can use to get rough equal spacing's before using indicator. be aware if you loosen back vise jaw it can easily move .010" , many just use the combination square to space the vise stops within .010" and not worry about exact spacing. since its a ruler you can easily set the combination square heads like 8.00 or 9.00" spaced apart if you want a specific dimension. you can also just make or mill a spacing bar or setup bar if you wanted if spacing distance never changes. probably could also use a 12" caliper for spacing (have to compensate for caliper jaw width) but i find combination square usually good enough
 
Other way i do it is one long back - fixed jaw, soft jaw across all the vices with permanent pre spaced stops.

Just drop all three vices on the table, swap out the fixed jaw for the long one then true up as if one long vice jaw, clamp em down, pick up the first stop and your good to go every time. Its only the 6 jaw bolts to change and goes pretty quick.

Alternative is to call a different grid ofset for each run of the sub program, you can do that with either a rid shift G54-G59 or a simple edited bit in the program, but then you still have to edit - pick it up every time so gains are minimal.
 
Put them on the table close and fit them with soft jaws. Then you can machine them perfectly straight and evenly spaced. Much quicker than trying to tram them all in.

I can tram 4 vises square to one another quicker than you can cut soft jaws.
The exact distance between vises shouldn't matter, that's why you have offsets.
 
I have run my vises for years on fixture pallets. When I ran 3 on a 40 inch VMC I had two permanently mounted on the pallets and the third between with an alignment fixture. I run two double vises now again on shop made pallets.
I run my main products on fixtures and this allows me to swap from fixtures to vises in a matter of minutes
 
Like adama said, when I have a setup where I need the vises spaced by an exact amount, I make one long front (stationary) jaw that goes across all of them.
 
I have thought about making a setup bar with some sort of pin or machined feature to clamp the vises together to space them evenly then sweep them in line.

I like this idea. I use two orange vises and I put them in exactly the same spot, so it takes a while to get them on the table. But, once they are there, I know exactly where they are in CAM and don't fuss with them a bit. One offset to rule them all. I'd face a bar to get your straight edge and put dowels in it to get your spacing. Not sure how pallet fixtures work, I assume there is a bottom and a top that dowel together. Seems like considerably more time and money to get going. I suppose it depends on how often you're doing the swap.
 
some table have slots at right angles or parallel to X and other slots parallel to Y. often vises and fixtures have 3 keys on bottom to locate 2 in X AND 1 in . Y position
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thus if Y slots are 9" apart then vises can be spaced 9" apart when they go into the table slots if Y slots 9" apart. the Y slots are often not T slots just a straight keyway type slot used for locating. if Y slots farther apart than needed, you put key in slot sticking up and then a spacing bar like a gage block.
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hard to describe. usually bigger tables have slots perpendicular to one another
 
I can tram 4 vises square to one another quicker than you can cut soft jaws.
The exact distance between vises shouldn't matter, that's why you have offsets.

You realize that you just said basically that you can dial in 4 separate vises in, faster than someone can take a single pass with an Endmill. If we were standing in front of a Machine and you said that, I'd bet you a paycheck you couldn't.

You need to realize that in both situations, you still need to get them up and close-ish, bolt on jaws, and tighten the vises down. Though in your scenario, you still need to jog the indicator around, tighten as you go, back and forth. In the other scenario you drop vises, tighten them down, put jaws on, take a single pass, the end.

Sorry but there's no @&^%$* way!!! I have done it both ways lots of times.
 
I can tram 4 vises square to one another quicker than you can cut soft jaws.
The exact distance between vises shouldn't matter, that's why you have offsets.

My current bed mill is difficult to change the offsets due to how it is programmed at the control Trak AGE 3 control. I am not sure difficult is the right word time consuming and would be easy to get an error editing the events. I have a new to me mill coming in a few days that may make this a simple process I have to learn that control so I don't know yet. My CNC router makes changing the offsets easy because I can just change the CAD drawing to match that new spacing and recalculate all the tool paths. I maybe able to program that mill with my CAD/Cam program like I do my router I will have to see.
 
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Other way i do it is one long back - fixed jaw, soft jaw across all the vices with permanent pre spaced stops.

Just drop all three vices on the table, swap out the fixed jaw for the long one then true up as if one long vice jaw, clamp em down, pick up the first stop and your good to go every time. Its only the 6 jaw bolts to change and goes pretty quick.

Alternative is to call a different grid ofset for each run of the sub program, you can do that with either a rid shift G54-G59 or a simple edited bit in the program, but then you still have to edit - pick it up every time so gains are minimal.

I like this and I think I will give it a try.
 
You realize that you just said basically that you can dial in 4 separate vises in, faster than someone can take a single pass with an Endmill. If we were standing in front of a Machine and you said that, I'd bet you a paycheck you couldn't.

You need to realize that in both situations, you still need to get them up and close-ish, bolt on jaws, and tighten the vises down. Though in your scenario, you still need to jog the indicator around, tighten as you go, back and forth. In the other scenario you drop vises, tighten them down, put jaws on, take a single pass, the end.

Sorry but there's no @&^%$* way!!! I have done it both ways lots of times.

Being faster or not, why?
So if I understand, you take soft jaws and cut the face of them so they are all in line between multiple vises? I realize soft jaws are made for cutting, but it seems like a waste. Now you have 2,3,4 jaws (not pairs, if I understand this) that are all different from each other, except maybe a step in the Z axis being identical if you cut them like that... :confused:

edit: I get sometimes fast is king, but seems to me every time I took a shortcut, it bit me in the ass down the line. IE, skip squaring a fixture block/clamp/etc (because I'm not using the outsides, duh! :crazy:) only to need to modify it during the run, or just after setting it up, because a feature got added or removed. Now I'm dickin* around trying to re-cut to something that isn't square, or doesn't have a good pickup hole/edge.
 
I use a 2" x 2" x 30" piece of steel that I blanchard ground parallel. Clamp that in the vises and indicate the full length, then snug the vises down. That gets me timed to about .0005". I pull the bar and thump in the last half-thou individually.

As long as I am using matched jaws, everything stays inline.
 
Fixture plates are great and all, but anything more than a couple of 4" vices and your rapidly needing lifting gear to shift them, keeping them as separate vices at least makes that aspect manageable by hand.
 
Being faster or not, why?
So if I understand, you take soft jaws and cut the face of them so they are all in line between multiple vises? I realize soft jaws are made for cutting, but it seems like a waste. Now you have 2,3,4 jaws (not pairs, if I understand this) that are all different from each other, except maybe a step in the Z axis being identical if you cut them like that... :confused:

edit: I get sometimes fast is king, but seems to me every time I took a shortcut, it bit me in the ass down the line. IE, skip squaring a fixture block/clamp/etc (because I'm not using the outsides, duh! :crazy:) only to need to modify it during the run, or just after setting it up, because a feature got added or removed. Now I'm dickin* around trying to re-cut to something that isn't square, or doesn't have a good pickup hole/edge.

No, no, no. You put blank jaws in the vises (just holes and counterbore) get the vises close. Then run an Endmill down all 4 vises in a single pass.

But I work in a job shop, so getting a job down and a new one up IS king. I do 3 or 4 set ups on some days.

R
 
Fixture plates are great and all, but anything more than a couple of 4" vices and your rapidly needing lifting gear to shift them, keeping them as separate vices at least makes that aspect manageable by hand.

Yes, we have a hoist on a cart because the double vises weigh a hunderd pounds or so.


It is the leaning into the machine that kills you

If you note in my previous post, there was only one vise on a plate, and the chunk of jig plate doesn't weigh in that bad. In addition, on that machine it was not a big reach in to grab the pallet, you could pretty much slide it onto the cart without actually picking it up
 
i just use a shim behind vise jaws to get back jaws within .001", if you think you can get vise jaws within less than .001 maybe you dont realize the basics
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obviously and extremely basic depending on each vise tightness you can vary how far back jaw is deflected back and each part is squeezed or compressed a bit like grabbing rubber even if part is steel. obviously you can see this with .0001" indicator thousands of times a day as you tighten vise how parts moves and is squeezed. as each vise is tightened you can also get a slight bending action going. when multiple vises are loosened and retightened very very lightly 99.99% of time a long part is no longer straight, flat etc easily seen with .0001" indicator. many a time i have had to recut to get warpage or curling reduced on a longer part. not unusual to recut multiple times
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whats really frustrating is parts thats within .0005" flatness, straightness and the next day its not any more. some parts need time to relax. hard to describe. some parts heat stress relieved, some parts frozen, some parts vibration stress relieved to try to accelerate this movement or time delayed warpage
 








 
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