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I've had this vise for several years now. It's cheap and it works but the jaws aren't very well made.
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Each jaw is held on by countersunk screws. Some of the screw holes aren't aligned properly, so the screws don't sit flush in the countersinks. Whenever I grip aluminium plate with the vise, the screws gouge into the surface of the aluminium. Time to make some new jaws out of aluminium.
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Each side of the vise has a small step, so the new jaws will have to have a step as well. The surface of the step is curved unevenly so I need to flatten them first.
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On the movable jaw, I just milled it flat. The mini mill didn't complaint too much about the hard material. On the fixed jaw, I had to grind and file, which took a long time.
You can't tell from the photos but the screw holes are each a different distance away from the step (my point of reference for measuring).
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My first three attempts ended up in scrap metal. On the first one, I forgot the size of the screw holes and drilled them 1mm too big (plus I forgot to centre drill them first).
On the second one, I cut the step 2mm too wide on the first pass, so I fly-cut the whole surface to start over, then counterbored the holes on the wrong side.
On the third one, I decided to counterbore the holes on the same side as I was drilling them so I wouldn't need to unclamp the work, but forgot that my drawing
was of the opposite side of the piece and each screw hole was a different distance from the sides of the piece.
The fourth one was uneventful.
On the fifth one, I didn't tighten the drawbolt enough and the endmill was drawned out of the collet an extra 2mm or so.
Fortunately, I separated the 14mm-wide cut into two sets of passes at 7mm each and this happened on the first set, so it was still salvageable.
I can see myself prefering to use an endmill holder instead of collets for sidemilling from now on.
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The first obvious thing I needed to do was draw more detailed plans.
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