Wedge Style Hand Vise - Part 5 (Patreon)

Wedge Style Hand Vise - Part 5

Wedge Style Hand Vise, Part 5, by Clickspring. In this video, I make the brass jaw ends, and assemble the tool. ________________________________________________________ A very special thank you to Patrons Dan Keen, Samuel Irons and Sean Kuyper. ________________________________________________________ 00:06 In this final episode of the Hand Vise build series, I complete the tool by making the jaw ends from this solid chunk of brass. 00:15 I'll be forming both parts side by side for most of the process, and although I've chosen to make them from brass, they could easily be made from copper, bronze or even mild steel if that better suits your purpose. 00:28 Brass is an excellent choice if you're mostly holding on to steel parts, and you don't want them marked, and of course its a pleasure to work with. But its a soft material and it bruises easily. 00:39 So it requires a bit of forward planning to protect the final surfaces, especially if the parts are to be riveted into place. So with that in mind, I reduced the stock to size on the mill, leaving on a small margin for some final finishing cuts at the end of the process. 00:54 Now most of the positioning of the features will be done using the DRO on the mill, but I do need a layout line to determine the depth of the cut for one of the angled surfaces. 01:03. And I'm sketching a simple plan on the part itself to keep me on track. The 2 red areas are waste stock, and this corner will be my datum reference for positioning the rivet holes in a moment. I used an edge finder to pick up that reference edge, and then formed the rivet holes. 01:54 A sine bar resting on gage blocks is a convenient way to position the work for the angled cut, although it does require dusting off some of that half forgotten trigonometry from high school. And I've learned the hard way that as much as I probably should be able to do this in my head, I tend to make a far fewer mistakes if I scratch it all out on a pad along the lines of something like this. 03:39 So I marked out the cut position, and then used a slitting saw to split the work. A light facing pass cleans up the rough saw cut, leaving two identical embryo parts ready for the next part of the process. 04:02 The next feature to go in is the slot that will accept the steel jaws made in the previous episode. And I'm going to use the same extra long end mill that I used to form the slots in the center pivot block. 04:13 In that case the extra length was required, to get to the bottom of a deep slot. But in this case, there's no doubt that the stick out is excessive for the job at hand. 05:02 And you can see how the holes in the brass will work as a nice drilling template to carry those holes all of the way through the steel. But before I do that, Its more convenient to put in the grooves of the jaw ends first. I'm using this single flute milling cutter to mill out the V shape, using a high spindle rpm with a modest depth of cut and feed rate. 05:36 A light touch with a needle file tidies up the burrs formed by that V cutter and these surfaces are ready for a finishing pass at the end of the process. Next up are the rivets, which are a straight forward enough part to make. 05:51 Although I did take a bit of care to make sure they were quite cylindrical, and turned to the precise dimension for a solid interference fit when they're hammered into place. A light chamfer on the end also helps them travel through the hole when being inserted. 06:23 The jaw ends were pushed firmly onto the jaws, and the previously formed holes were used to locate the workpiece underneath the spindle. 07:15 The rough rivet ends were then skimmed off with a fly cutter, leaving barely any trace that rivets have been used to join the parts. I used the belt sander to contour the remaining surfaces flush with the steel jaw arms. 07:40 And off camera, I took a light skim cut to reduce the parts to final dimension. And finally I used oil stones and 800 grit abrasive paper to clean up the corners and leave a presentable brushed finish over all of the surfaces. 08:11 OK, that's all of the bits and pieces complete, so lets put them all together and see what we've got. The tool feels quite well balanced in the hand, and I really like the action of those little return springs, they've got a nice snappy feel to them. And here's a quick look at the range of the jaws. :09:21 This is fully opened, which can accommodate stock a bit larger than the 5mm bore. And this is the tool fully closed. As you've seen from this video series, the tool requires a reasonable investment of time and materials to complete. 09:39 But there aren't many projects that will deliver an outcome more useful than this hand vise. Its a cracking little tool, and I think a terrific addition to any home shop. Thanks for watching, I'll catch you on the next video. Wedge Style Hand Vise, Part 5, by Clickspring.