Workholding stop for Kurt milling vise.

[John Conroy]

A few years ago i made a work stop for my Magnum milling vise. I was pretty disappointed with the vise so I bought a new DX6 Kurt vise for Christmas 2016. The vise is a few light years better than the Magnum! You DO get what you pay for. Any way the work stop attachment I made for the Magnum doesn't fit the Kurt. I used a couple of small blocks of tool steel I had in my scrap bin and made up a couple of small brackets to work with the arm of the original work stop I made. I drilled 3/16" holes in the set screws and added brass pads to prevent marring the round shaft. Hard to improve the Kurt vise but this will help a little.

 

[Tom O]

That is the same vice we have on our mill but we haven't bought any pins for it but we do need to make a stop for it.

 

[John Conroy]

I didn't buy the Kurt sine keys as they were crazy expensive. I made these from 5/8 drill rod. I machined a groove for an o-ring to keep the keys from falling out and the hole drilled through is so compressed air can be used to release a stuck one and so they can be installed and the trapped air can escape.

 

[Tom O]

Sounds like a plan! Does it tram up as square as they claim?

 

[John Conroy]

Dead square every time within .001" in 6 inches. A little tap with a dead blow hammer will make it perfect if you really being fussy.

 

[Tom O]

Dead square every time within .001" in 6 inches. A little tap with a dead blow hammer will make it perfect if you really being fussy.

Sounds good my Son has pulled it off twice now this time along with the 4 th axis we haven't tried yet. We are still getting use to the mill but that tool setter and probe is the cats ass!

 

[PeterT]

Looks good John. I've never seen the underside of a Kurt. Are the other holes in proximity essentially the same thing - you can relocate your dowel pins to those holes & now re-position vise a little closer/further?

My old vise had a key which I figured should be great because its contact area to the T-slot is longer. Problem is, any bit of grit or dirt anywhere along the longer contact is enough to bring it slightly out of alignment, so maybe works against you. I think your pins are better that way. Or if do they wear, rotate them 10 degrees & go another 5 years! LOL

I think my RF-45 slot sides are just milled rougher than other mill tables I see, so I haven't had as much luck trusting them. I've blued & lightly stoned them & I can see the rotational end mill cut mark highlights, so any kind of key is basically running on top of those hills. Fortunately my vise has ground sides so I use a machinist square between the side & front of mill table front. It gets me within a thou or so as long as I tighten the clamps that way & then tap-tap with DTI on the jaw thereafter if required.

I've heard a key also helps stabilize the vise during heavy or interrupted milling but I don't quite get this, it still has rotation axis freedom on one side even if one end of key or one dowel is still in contact because the T-slot is wider than the key or pins.

 

[Janger]

A few years ago i made a work stop for my Magnum milling vise. I was pretty disappointed with the vise so I bought a new DX6 Kurt vise for Christmas 2016. The vise is a few light years better than the Magnum! You DO get what you pay for. Any way the work stop attachment I made for the Magnum doesn't fit the Kurt. I used a couple of small blocks of tool steel I had in my scrap bin and made up a couple of small brackets to work with the arm of the original work stop I made. I drilled 3/16" holes in the set screws and added brass pads to prevent marring the round shaft. Hard to improve the Kurt vise but this will help a little.

Does the stop flex? Or perhaps why does it not flex? How do you use it practice?

 

[John Conroy]

Its used to position multiple parts exactly the same in the vise when you are making the same part over and over again. Or to be able to remove a part from the vise and put back in exactly the same. It doesn't have to be strong, you just slide the part until it touches the stop rod.

 

[Janger]

Its used to position multiple parts exactly the same in the vise when you are making the same part over and over again. Or to be able to remove a part from the vise and put back in exactly the same. It doesn't have to be strong, you just slide the part until it touches the stop rod.

I made this kind a while back. https://canadianhobbymetalworkers.com/threads/milling-vise-stop.761/

Having one on the vise ready seems handy. Still I wonder how repeatable placing a part is with the wrap around the vise type. Did you ever use a dial indicator to see?

 

[John Conroy]

Ive used it many times with good success but never measured. It is pretty rigid since the 2 main rods are 1/2" CRS

 

[Dabbler]

Peter, the stabalisation only occurs when you grind your keys toi exactly fit the T slots. Bert ground his and neverr uses a swivel base. His vise aligns withing one tenth every time, without aligning it - however he has to push it down onto the T slots because it is an exact fit. If you are worried about wear, same vise/same milling machine, heavily used, 35 years.

On the dirt/swearf front. before mounting your vise, the conditions should be surgically clean. mounting a vise on a dirty table/dirty T slots is just misuse of the machine.

 

[PeterT]

Interesting, you're saying the key is a tight slip fit in between the T-slot gap.

I'm pretty anal about cleanliness particularly when I mount the vise. But on my RF-45 I'm saying the vertical surfaces in T-slot (red arrow) are not quite as nice a finish as the table top (green arrow). I've seen other tables that look much nicer. Mine looks kind of end mill-ish. Not horrible, but not satin ground.

My external square / vise alignment method works quite well because the front of the table is better surface than the T-slots, (Bison) vise is ground true & its using all of I think 8x10 machinist square. I was concerned heavy milling might shift the vise with no key but when I run a dial on the jaw, it looks to be staying put. Mind you I don't do much heavy hogging & I have six 1" wide mounting blocks, 3 per side of vise one every odd T-slot so decent & distributed down force.

 

[Dabbler]

I think your using a square on your vise is a great approach! My vise doesn't have a ground surface anywhere that could be used to register.

Both Bert and I went to the trouble of milling those red arrow surfaces and making our T slots all the same width, to close tolerances. I never keyed my vice, because I liked using the swivel base, but Bert ground his keys to make a tight fit. So along with the T slot widths being all the same, and a tight key way fit, it helped make some milling operations noticeably smoother on Bert's machine.

When milling the red arrow surfaces you don't get a surface finish that feels like a ground surface, but can still hold to a tenth or 2 on a 5" key width.

[My apologies for bad typing on the above post - in a hurry, etc...]

 

[Janger]

I'm posting this here since it's about the same idea. I made this from junk lying around. Not as nice as John's..