Thread: Tuning/Restoring of a Shaper Vice

Ray picked up a vice for the shaper some time ago and I have been planing to tune it up ever since but lacking any particular need to get into better condition has been lacking nothing has been done. Soon I hope to have six massive casting for the Master Squares that will need 5-6 kg of material knocked off it so now is the time.

The make and model of the vice is lost in time, it seems to be of a good construction and breaks down into manageable parts that I can grind.

The first step will be to take off all the built up muck and other detritus and measure it up to see what it is actually like.

Here are some pics

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for scale that bench is 1200mmx600mm

Every thing is cleaned up now, a quick survey of the critical parts

Base error in flatness ~ 0.22mm
Base pivot bearing parallel to base error ~0.09mm
Base pivot error in flatness ~0.02mm

Vice main body flatness error ~0.07mm
Vice main body parallel error ~0.03mm
Vice main body to parallel to pivot ~0.6mm but it rocks so hard to measure properly

Vice main body pivot error in flatness ~tbd
Fixed Jaw Squareness of to Vice main body ~tbd
Moving Jaw parallel of to fixed jaw ~tbd
Moving Jaw parallel of guides ~tbd

-J

Josh, pretty sure that's an Elliot, very similar to mine. Will be watching intently as I want to do mine up as well.
Will you scrape your table flat too? Not much point truing up the vice if you then bolt it to a wonky table.

Thanks Brian,
I have not had a good survey of the table, it looks to be in pretty good nick, but if it needs some carbide put to iron it will be done.

I put the swivel base on and ground the base parallel to the pivot bearing (two birds one setup) So the base is complete other than the pivot bearing flatness. I will have to scrape the inner bearing ring as it is the one that has less wear, I think I will grind the main body pivot bearing and use that to spot the bases pivot bearing.
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I will post down my 16 inch shaper vise when your finished
It needs a couple of good strong guys to pick up the main casting when it's disassembled so you will need Ray around, LOL

Jokes aside, watching with interest.
With my swivel base you need to take the vise off the table to rotate it as the bolts and locking ring are underneath, not sure why they designed it like that.

Dave

Forgot to add, be careful making lots of things shinny in the shop. In a non temperature controlled room you have to watch everything for rust, and the more you have the more work it is to keep them all in good nick.

Dave

Thanks for the shiny tip Dave; I think it's maybe a little too late :P

DSCN2703.jpg
Vice Jaws give an lick so that I have a surface I can gauge off for Fixed jaw squareness to the main body.

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Dill damage on the main body
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Move Jaw guide clamps give a new lease on life

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The Wear plates are no good they are now too thin and thats before I true up the clamp surface or underneath the wear plates. replacements wear plate will need to be made approx ~0.2mm thicker.

I should add that in dismantling the vice, half a dozen shims fell out from various spots.

Good work Josh.

What would be the standard clearance on the slide for a vice of this type? My shaper vice is the same style only bigger.......

Originally Posted by Ueee

Good work Josh.

What would be the standard clearance on the slide for a vice of this type? My shaper vice is the same style only bigger.......

Which slide clearance, the vertical one for the clamps? or the side clearance?

Originally Posted by Brobdingnagian

Which slide clearance, the vertical one for the clamps? or the side clearance?

Vertical, though i guess they should be about the same

Originally Posted by Ueee

Vertical, though i guess they should be about the same

Slight negative clearance about 0.02mm, at least that's what I'm aiming at to start with.

Hi Josh,

I have a couple that need some work also

Wear plates have me confused(unless they didnt make the pictures?).

On the nitpickey side of things, shouldn't you have scraped the top of the base before grinding the bottom?

Stuart

Originally Posted by Stustoys

Hi Josh,

I have a couple that need some work also

Wear plates have me confused(unless they didnt make the pictures?).

On the nitpickey side of things, shouldn't you have scraped the top of the base before grinding the bottom?

Stuart

The wear plates are in the last picture of post #7 and missing on in the second last picture of the same post. atm they are far enough out that the moving jaw will rock/lift with the bolts fully tightened.

I suppose there are two schools of thought on that one. In this case the pivot bearing on the base was flatter than than the bottom of the base, so I decided that if I mount the base on fresh ground magnetic parallels arranged around the outer ring on the pivot then when I grind it will mean that I have less to scrape. It works out pretty well, the pivot bearing ended up better than 0.01mm on the outside ring parallel to the base. the inner ring has a bit more of a slope but it is ok at 0.02mm from parallel to the base.

I'm currently doing the same on the main body. I have the vice on the small mag chuck with the ways face down on that grinding the base of the main body so that I can use that as the spotting master for the base pivot. It also means that I will only have to take of the minimum of the top of the ways.

-Josh


I'll edit with some pics..

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Originally Posted by Brobdingnagian

The wear plates are in the last picture of post #7 and missing on in the second last picture of the same post. atm they are far enough out that the moving jaw will rock/lift with the bolts fully tightened.

Going blind, I'd been looking at those holes thinking "well thats where I think the wear plates should go" but I didnt see them in the next picture.

I didnt mean scrap the top of the base parallel to the bottom, just flat from the bottom of the main body. So you wouldnt be taking off any more and shound t need to revisit the bottom of the base.

But I guess with your way you can tweak the top as you scrap it flat....... see what you are on about now

Stuart