milling vises, not "Milling Vises"

Anyone throw a vice on their mill and mill the base and surfaces to true and re-face?

I have an old, large bridgeport vise that didn't do so well in the rust remover bath. Not only is it still rusty in places, its now pitted. I was thinking of clamping it up, real square, running a mill or fly cutter over it. If it doesn't work out, I won't be brokenhearted.

Several times, ..is it not how they are made?

Limy Sami said:

Several times, ..is it not how they are made?

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Seemed so to me. Thank you Sir!

Go for it. Worst case scenario, you learn something.

Bobw said:

Go for it. Worst case scenario, you learn something.

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As-in a Bridgeport may be an "OK" mill, their rotabs are "OK", but their vises are notorious for being anything BUT? Even brand-new?

Leave it TF as-is, migrate it to a welding op or such. Even a Shars has "pull down" if a decent used Kurt with Ang-lock ain't in the budget.

I've always ground vises....a good shell mill would do a decent job I rekin....fly cutter...what is it 1956?

plastikdreams said:

I've always ground vises....a good shell mill would do a decent job I rekin....fly cutter...what is it 1956?

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LOL. ya, I'm thinking face mill, carbide index.

Waste of time, it's not really a vice its a part lifter. might make a good welding vice or even better a door stop.

Mr-Mike said:

LOL. ya, I'm thinking face mill, carbide index.

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Phhht. Thermate charge!

May as well get some chuckles out of it. Everything ELSE has already come out of it.
BirdPort's own vise-shaped-object was the best sales force Kurt has ever had.

Have none of the naysayers never heard of ''having to make do with what you have'' ?

If it is hard enough you may want a smaller diameter cutter than a facemill or flycutter, unless it is a real small flycutter. I have never milled a vise but that was because I had access to a surface grinder instead but see no reason not to, well as long as your sure you can mill more accurately than the vise is now.

DavidScott said:

If it is hard enough you may want a smaller diameter cutter than a facemill or flycutter, unless it is a real small flycutter. I have never milled a vise but that was because I had access to a surface grinder instead but see no reason not to, well as long as your sure you can mill more accurately than the vise is now.

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That vso is as hard as warm butter.

jaw lift PITA... I have a nice old L&W vise, put new jaws on it etc very handy for large stuff as long as I don't need to worry about the part being lifted all over the place as soon as the jaw goes tight. Its a moderately annoying design, 1" bar down the length of the base holds the moving jaw down, so that flexes like a piece of spaghetti, nothing much to do with it to improve the situation. I toyed with boring and bushing the moving jaw to hold the bar better than decided life is too short and got some better vises, lots of good used ones out there. Maybe santa will bring me a Kurt someday lol

Get the thing on a surface grinder and make it sanitary. Then buy new jaws.

my primary mill vise is a yuasa, (160 well spent), but I recently needed two vises for some long parts, so out came the old doorstops (BP vises).

about .003-.005 uplift.

popped off the movable jaws, a few minuets with the 120 disk on the angle grinder, (amount to be removed- determined by feel), taken off the bottom where the "gibs"/retainer plates attach, put them back together, (ok, yea, had to stone the bottom of the fixed ways a bit on one of them..), and now a measured lift of less than .0002-.0003 from loose to mallet tight.

whats the big deal? they seem well worth the seventy five bucks each I paid for them.

you would think nothing was ever milled within 5 thou before the Kurt came on the market, but somehow, good work was done before that..

If it's still got rust on it, I would attack that first. Another trip to the bath, wire brush, Scotch brite, even sand paper.

Then evaluate it in terms of function, not looks. A pit or two below an otherwise good surface is OK.

Be careful of the surfaces that you take a milling cutter to. Observe how the vise functions first. You don't want to wind up with something that is "loose as a goose". You can almost always take a bit off the bottom if that is not flat. The vise will just be a bit shorter. Likewise for the faces of the jaws. They may wind up just a bit weaker, but I have flattened and squared the fixed jaw of several vises with no real detrimental effects. Just be sure of your set up first; you don't want to introduce errors there.

But the top surface of the bed could be problematic. Generally the movable jaw will ride on it. You need to observe what other surfaces align, guide, and constrain the movement of the movable jaw before changing any of them. The main thing that the top surface of the bed should be is parallel to the bottom of the base. If it is, and if the movable jaw rides on it properly, then I would be very hesitant to mill or grind it down. Some small to medium sized pits there should not be any problem.

If you still want to make the surfaces look better, you might consider lapping. It won't remove any but the most shallow pits, but it will improve the appearance of the rest of the surface.

moonlight machine said:

Waste of time, it's not really a vice its a part lifter. might make a good welding vice or even better a door stop.

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Very handy as an adjustable opening female (lower) press brake die in a shop press.

cyanidekid said:

my primary mill vise is a yuasa, (160 well spent), but I recently needed two vises for some long parts, so out came the old doorstops (BP vises).

about .003-.005 uplift.

popped off the movable jaws, a few minuets with the 120 disk on the angle grinder, (amount to be removed- determined by feel), put them back together, (ok, yea, had to stone the bottom of the fixed ways a bit on one of them..), and now a measured lift of less than .0002-.0003 from loose to mallet tight.

whats the big deal? they seem well worth the seventy five bucks each I paid for them.

you would think nothing was ever milled within 5 thou before the Kurt came on the market, but somehow, good work was done before that..

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Aye. With clamp sets. On milling machines. You know. The ones with proper horizontal spindle axis.



But wot the hey? If holding five thou is all a Kurt is good for? Glad I gave it a miss.

... in favour of the QUAD-I and the five Gerardi Modulars @ $200 ea..

The James Morton dasn't count. Its for weird stuff. Serious weird. Y'all aren't surprised that I would be he to have such a need, yah?



But seriously - it isn't the uplift as you do the setup. It's too many arses of too many hands too many times bitten when they won't keep the grip once in the cut.

Mind - it may all have been part of Bridgeport's grand plan toward reminding folks they were only MEANT to use endmills about HALF what so many folk insist on pushing, thereby stressing a lot more than just the VSO.

Limy Sami said:

Have none of the naysayers never heard of ''having to make do with what you have'' ?

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Surely. Copper foil. Scissor-snipped to a height to cover upper 1/4 of jaw rise + enough to form it over the top of the movable jaw with the rawhide side of your Thor.

Not really all that big of a nuisance.

Wasn't yet old enough to drive a motorcar when I was taught that trick, so I don't think I had even yet SEEN a Kurt.

Lest we forget whilst throwing rotten tomatos, LOTS of vises were FAR WORSE than a BirdPort VSO, after all. It wasn't especially remarked in the day. Usually it was at least NEWER and less sloppy than a heavier one as had left the foundry 40 years before the first BeePee HEAD had ever hit the market. Mostly we hadn't yet gotten to even expect anything to NOT tilt or lift or slip.

Taken for granted it was just the way vises were - any vise - by the nature of how they had to be made - open at one side or top, not fully enclosed with balanced pull.

Many of us out in the hinterlands thought the "pull-down" and Ang-Lock claims just had to be purely sales bullshit. Old hands just knew there just was no place to store any magic in an ignorant VISE, yah? L&W hadn't done it. Brown & Sharpe nor K&T, either. Must not be possible. Nothing for it but greater mass and a rod or shim.

Spoiled, now, we have become.

My QUAD-I is the second-gen cheaplified SPI Badged one. No "pull down". Belt and braces. Yet today I still have that Copper foil handy! ISTR it was about $70 and should last me just shy of 400 years at my current rate of use.



Beats all hell out of trying to mill something into any "plain" vise as won't much help unless one could change the geometry to genuine "pull down".

Especially if one does not already HAVE a BETTER milling vise good enough to hold the bits of the marginal vise whilst being milled!

"Catch 22" izzat?

I'm good with that Copper... the Gerardi's don't need it..

DavidScott said:

...I have never milled a vise but that was because I had access to a surface grinder instead

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I've never milled a vise either, but I've had a few employees who did...