Help please

[SMALMALEKI]

After few weeks of lazy weekends I spent the day in my garage. The task was to assemble my Workbench finally. The only part I was not expecting a massive problem turned to be the most disappointing job.

I have a chain driven Vice home made I had some amazing help from a friend. We were aware of few issues with the vice . 1- The screws are not absolute straight. 2- The holes on the vice jaw were slightly out of square. 3- to avoid the common problem with all heavy jaw vices we decided to creat a bushing for the screws to protect the bench apron.

I decided to mark the centre of holes directly from the end of the shafts. One had a sharp spike and was easy to mark the wood. For the second screw hole I marked two vertical square lines passing just to the side of screw shaft. I then used a pillar drill to drill two 35 mm holes.

I had tried the vice in function by clamping it to a portable workmates.

Somehow I ended with two holes 5 mm too close. Then I changed bench aprons around and measured twice and marked it and re-measured it. It was correct to the mm. Unfortunately I ended with holes 1mm too close. The apron bushing is made to a very low tolerance.
Now I have two aprons with useless holes in them and a vice out of action.

One option is getting everything made from beginning and trying to address the issues on the spot.
Second option is trying to salvage the current situation.

Any advice and help is warmly appreciated.

Regards

 

[rafezetter]

A picture would help. - when I had issues with my moxxon build I ended up basically starting again, twice. With a vice you've learned the tolerances for certain parts are basically zero, it's "dead on or start again".

but give pictures and I'm sure some clever members might be able to Macgyver a solution.

(PS - please read my PM re that planer you were interested in, I NEED an answer at your absolute earliest convenience)

 

[Doug B]

As suggested a photo or two would help, that said when making anything that needs to be spot on I tend to make a template of the critical part first to ensure a a correct fit, usually made from ply or MDF once the template is right it is then used to mark out my stock, prevents a lot of wastage.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

You have a pillar drill, so you can drill accurately. get a piece of 4" x 2" a fair bit longer than the width of the spacing of the holes and bore a pair. Try it and see if it fits. If not move the pair along a couple of inches and try again. Keep going until you have a pair the vice fits, then cramp the scrap and use that pair of holes as a guide. If you wish to use the apron as the rear jaw, you could rout say 1/2" out and put a seperate insert in to bring it flush, which would cover the unwanted holes (not a bad idea as it would be replaceable if damaged) , or if you want the rear jaw proud just use the templet to drill piece to fix to the apron - again it'll cover the holes you're not using. You wouldn't need to shift the vice more than a couple of inches to use the original apron - the first holes wouldn't be see again.

 

[Cheshirechappie]

The 'quick and dirty' solution is to open out one of the holes on the apron by chisel, file, coarse sandpaper wrapped round a broomstick, or whatever other means you have available, to a slight oval shape, until the bushes fit at the correct distance apart. There will then be a bit of a gap on the 'unopened' side of the hole, so jam in some slivers of wood, packed and hammered in nice and tight.

Do whatever works to get it together, then use it. If the 'quick and dirty' fix starts to give trouble in service, fix it by firmly gluing a plug into one of the holes, and re-drilling at proper centres.

Bear in mind that it's a bench, not fine furniture. If it works, it doesn't matter how 'bodged' it is. (Since it will be behind the vice jaw, you won't see it anyway.)

 

[SMALMALEKI]

A picture would help. - when I had issues with my moxxon build I ended up basically starting again, twice. With a vice you've learned the tolerances for certain parts are basically zero, it's "dead on or start again".

but give pictures and I'm sure some clever members might be able to Macgyver a solution.

(PS - please read my PM re that planer you were interested in, I NEED an answer at your absolute earliest convenience)

Hi there
Thank you for your reply. Here are couple of photos from the vice attached to bench top.

It seems nice and square. And photo of the apron.

It is obvious that the small bend in the screws which is due to poor workmanship of the machinist is causing problems as soon as the standoffs are screwed to the bench top.

I think I need to go back to drawing board.

Thank you for the offering help with the planer but currently I work from my garage and sharing the space with family storage. It is not practical to keep a power tool which will make dust and chips to fly.

Regards.