Soft Jaws

[thestelster]

In continuation from my last post about sawing aluminium with my new-to-me used horizontal band saw, I started working on the pieces for the soft jaws.

Face milling all the surfaces.

 

[thestelster]

I ganged all three pieces together to mill the tongue and groove sections.

 

[thestelster]

I needed a space to the rear of the jaws to accommodate the bolt handle of a rifle.

 

[thestelster]

What a mess!! Drilled and counterbored for the mounting bolts. The jaws are too deep, so I had the drill them from both ends. Then machined the angled faces.

 

[thestelster]

Installed the soft jaws on the chuck, and put a backing piece on the master jaws to provide tension.

 

[thestelster]

Machined the opening by using end mills held in the chuck of the tail stock. Went up to 5/8" end mill, then used the boring bar to open it to 0.693" (the diameter of the rifle bolt).

 

[thestelster]

Opened up the chuck, removed the backing piece, deburred, and cleaned the surfaces, chucked the rifle bolt, and measured run out and parallelism.

All is good, but won't know if this will work until I machine the bolt face, and lugs.