Shop made swivel vice

[charangohabsburg]

As requested here by Lillian I am posting some pictures of my shop made wooden swivel vice in ANZLF's Jigs&Fixtures section.

This is the ready to use vice:



It's main components are 30 mm beech dowels and 30 mm holes, drilled with a forstner bit into 20 mm birch plywood.





The clamping is done via a M12 threaded rod. The moving block has a M12 nut inlaid in it's middle 20mm plywood.

The most sophisticated part is the handle respectively it's guts. I have no photos of this but it's just about the same as in my stringwinder:

The guts of the handle:




This is the rotating mechanism and how it gets blocked:



The vice works well and the clamping blocks do not tilt too much when clamping. But of course it is not as strong as it's commercially available cousins made of metal. The weakest point is the rotation blocking mechanism which allows a little bit of movement even when clamped firmly. But it's not really disturbing although it might break if I was going to hold branches and cut those to firewood.

[Lillian]

Thanks Markus!

[Taffy Evans]

Thats so well thought out and quality made it deserves some inlay work, don't you think? [I would put a clapping smiley here, but haven't learnt that yet]

[charangohabsburg]

Thanks Taffy.
The "inlay" always goes between the vice jaws .

I still have planned to make some grooved jaws (one rather deep groove on each jaw) which would hold a finished neck without the need to apply clamping pressure like an ox.

Edit:
For smilies, clappies or drinkies simply click on one of them:

smilies.gif (8.9 KiB) Viewed 44073 times

While you are still editing your mesage the clapping smiley will appear in the text as :cl , the thirsty man as :gui etc.

[charangohabsburg]

The "inlay" always goes between the vice jaws .

A-balone-y inlay:

A-balone-y inlay

2011_D70_3083-1.jpg (44.12 KiB) Viewed 44072 times

[ckngumbo]

Bwahahahahaha Inlaid!
Thank you so much for this post I have a new non-guitar project

[Allen]

Try gluing some leather on the faces of the jaws. It helps hold wood like you can't believe. Protects the surface of what you are clamping, and you don't need to torque on the handle.

Great design BTW.

[Kim]

I really like have Markus as a member here. He does lots of very cool stuff and shares little bits of a world we don't see too often.

Thank you Markus.

Kim

[charangohabsburg]

Thank you for the hint with the leather, Allen. I'll cut a patch out of a neighbour's cow...

BTW, this is a great forum, I should have explicitly expressed this earlier. It's really a good place to stay and read. Time for me to try to "give something back".

[Lillian]

Thank you for the hint with the leather, Allen. I'll cut a patch out of a neighbour's cow...

BTW, this is a great forum, I should have explicitly expressed this earlier. It's really a good place to stay and read. Time for me to try to "give something back".

Markus, I'd say you have already. I remember your hand being on the bilge pump handle almost around the clock when the crash occurred.

Thanks for all you have done already.

[kiwigeo]

Thank you for the hint with the leather, Allen. I'll cut a patch out of a neighbour's cow...

No need to bother the neighour's cow...I'm sure Allen wont notice another hole in the rear of his backless leather chaps

[Allen]

All my leather for for clamps and vises comes form those short skirts that the gals use to like to wear. Lot's of them to be had for pennies at the local Op-Shops.

[J.F. Custom]

All my leather for for clamps and vises comes form those short skirts that the gals use to like to wear. Lot's of them to be had for pennies at the local Op-Shops.

...Despite the fact that those (often elderly women) who run the shops now think you have some strange fetish for 80's leather mini skirts...

Small price to pay eh?



Jeremy.

[Allen]

Small price to pay to keep Martin's hands off of my chaps.

[charangohabsburg]

I have not yet decided where to get that leather patch from...

I recognised there were still missing some details to describe.

I fixed the crank on the threaded rod by pressing a M12 nut into the crank.

Some years ago I found out that pressing nuts into (moderately hard) wood works best when boring a hole with the diameter of the width of the nut and the depth of it's thickness...

2011_D70_3097-1.jpg (34.1 KiB) Viewed 43961 times

...then boring another concentric hole where the rod goes through, and finally simply pulling the nut in by tightening another nut or wing nut on the other side. This is a technique I use on nearly every shop made tool that features threaded rods and nuts.

Then I secured the crank with the inlaid nut with a M3 screw. Of course a simple splint pin would do the job as well. The M3 nut was pulled into the crank in the same before described manner. This is much more fun than only driving a nail through.

2011_D70_3085-1.jpg (64.09 KiB) Viewed 43961 times

2011_D70_3087-1.jpg (56.21 KiB) Viewed 43961 times

The fat washer in the picture above is screwed with countersunk wood screws to the plywood, similar like the washer on the other side of the fixed ply wood block. The M12 nut on this side is soldered to the threaded rod:

2011_D70_3090-1.jpg (64.06 KiB) Viewed 43961 times

The moving block accepts the soldered nut in order the vice can be closed completely:

2011_D70_3091-1.jpg (67.21 KiB) Viewed 43961 times

I forgot to mention that the vertical 30mm diameter dowels are hammered into 30mm holes in the blocks. No glue needed, it's a tight fit.

I had to widen the two 30 mm holes in the moving block. I did this on each individual 20mm Plywood pieces before assembling them. It's the sloppiest part of the whole thing.

[charangohabsburg]

Some time after having done this one I wished at times I had a second one.

This is how converted my Zyliss to a (turntable mounted) swivel vice:


youtu.be/

The turntable of this one is a different (and better) approach than the one of my first swivel vice.

It is certainly not the sturdiest vice in the world, and by no means it can compete with Bill's double bass holding swivel vice. But it is plenty strong enough for holding charangos, ukuleles and guitars (but not for holding the charango body while carving the bowl).

[P Bill]

Even my library can't do U Tube. I'll have to visit a mate tomorrow. I'm very keen to see what can be done with the Zyliss.

[charangohabsburg]

Hi Bill,

The video is not very instructive. The best part of it is the sound track. You don't need to wait until tomorrow to satisfy your curiosity, I found some still pictures of the conversion kit.

Turntable parts:






Turntable assembly:








I mounted the brackets upside down in order to not end up with a really tall vice:




I had to compensate for the opposed placement of the brackets or they would twist the bars:






The swivel jaw:




First test - it seems to work:




Almost-quick-mount™ of the yaw assembly:






The scribbled but scalable plans for those who want to copy the turntable:

• Part 1
• Part 2

If I had to make another turntable for a Zyliss vice I would make both base plates at least twice as thick.
The second best part of the video is where you can see how the whole thing bends when clamping (2'59")

[P Bill]

Cheers Marcus, you're a champion and a very clever craftsman indeed.

[charangohabsburg]

Thank you Bill, you're very kind.

The next step for me in tool making would be to make a nice tool (nice vice™ ?), not just one that works. I mostly just don't have the patience when it comes to tool making, especially when making a prototype.

Cheers,