Like a tail/inset vice thingamajig - Yes it's n0legs again!

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n0legs

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If you liked "Project Noxom" and loved the sequel "Project Dogs of Wonderment" you will adore "Like a tail/inset vice thingamajig,,,,,,,,,,but not fitted into the tail of the bench, because there's a wall in the way". Good working title, no? :lol:

Yes folks the daft taff is back again, good things come in threes they say. Well I'm not so sure these are good things but this is the third WIP of the n0legs volumes of works 8)

Yup! We will once again be creating wonderful and exciting objet d'art, using what we have to hand, tools not designed for the use they've been given and a few far east imports. Danger, sex, drink and drugs, rock 'n' roll and hopefully a bunch of chuckles along the way.
Okay, we'll leave out the sex. I don't have any sheep in the garden and I can't find my wellies :wink:

Let's get to it.
A tail vice is a wonderful thing. Insert wood, wind up tight and go at it with imagination and tools. Simple as that.
NO! Can't fit a tail vice due to shed/bench layout.
So without making myself a load of work (yeah right :roll: ) I decided I needed a variation on the tail vice. I did look at the Veritas inset vice, but that also needs fitting on the end of a bench :(

So the brief was quite simple, right?
Yes of course it is :shock:
"You see n0legs what you need is a tail vice come inset vice that you can wind up from the top". Don't really have any other choice do I.

There's no sketch up, no blueprints and not even a fag packet diagram. Quick question, how are people managing with these brown labeled plain packets these days? You cant draw on them, despite lack of room you'd need a white pencil. Oh I know, you need one of those silver paint pens like people use on christmas cards.
Slipped there didn't I? Nearly went down the rabbit hole a bit too early in this project. Naughty naughty n0legs.

So what is it we're actually doing? Well dear reader with the use of some gears we're making an inset vice.
One, that with a removable handle, we can let into the bench and tighten and loosen to our hearts content.


With a quick think and a ponder, the idea was for a gear driven vice. Namely a pair of bevel gears to take the drive from vertical to horizontal. So with absolutely no haste spared it was off to the Far East, via the bay of plenty for a little shopping.
And what do you know? Disappointed I was not, there's loads of them. So I settled on these.

LWG9NzHb.jpg


12mm bore and 20 teeth. All for £8ish. Well they arrived and fair play they are well made. The bore is accurate, well according to my verynear it's 12mm, concentric and the teeth are well formed and they mesh together very very well :D
Things are going right straight out of the gates.


A little more shopping/acquiring was carried out and a nice 1/2" BSF high tensile bolt was found, and a few other bits and bobs. This will be the drive shaft, just you wait and see :?

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Next thing to source was a suitable screw/thread/leadscrew. A 16 x 4 acme was found online along with a matching nut.

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Some Oilite bushes completes the required for the moment.

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As I said earlier there's no drawings or sketch so you'll just have to trust me. You do though, don't you? :lol:

First thing is to get the gear to slide on it's drive shaft. Now you maybe asking why I used a 1/2" bolt and not 12mm. Well all the 12mm I could find caused a sloppy fit for the gear. The world wide conspiracy to save materials extends to bolts as well. I could have used a shoulder bolt, these are accurately ground to a given diameter, but all the ones I found had a small socket head, not what I wanted. Here's a shoulder bolt compared to the 1/2"

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So to the lathe with some wet and dry in hand, to gently persuade our bolt to loose a few thou' so our gear fits nice and snug.
Didn't take long, cool :D

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This little bit of work also allowed the two Oilite bushes to slide onto the shaft, they wanted just under 12mm to play nicely ](*,)
I know,I missed a pic :roll:
Anyway this is as near as don't matter done.

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Another quick question. If you saw Phil Collins drowning, would you save him??
I've been wondering and thinking on this myself,,,,, jury's still out I'm afraid Phil.

Anyway that's all for now. Bits and bobs are coming in fast, so we won't be waiting long for some more.
Much love.
 
youre the first man I've known who can write in welsh, while still using the english alphabet.

I can overlay the voice of my friend from swansea and its its spot on boyo.
Good fun, cant make out what youre going to end up with. i like a mystery story.
 
Good to see you back in the workshop and on form.
I solved the same problem by buying a Veritas surface mounted vice, but it was surprisingly expensive and has been discontinued, so I'm sure yours is going to be better - I'll be following with interest.
 
Oh YESSSSSSSSSSSSSS!

This is gonna be good (don't you go and let me down now, you "Welsh Wizard")!

AES (still trying to work out how this is going to work, but maybe, just maybe, I've worked it out).
 
sunnybob":1ejf3jd6 said:
youre the first man I've known who can write in welsh, while still using the english alphabet.

:lol: :lol:
Cheers Bob. A mystery eh? It'll all make sense soon :D
 
AndyT":14ijejw1 said:
Good to see you back in the workshop and on form.
I solved the same problem by buying a Veritas surface mounted vice, but it was surprisingly expensive and has been discontinued, so I'm sure yours is going to be better - I'll be following with interest.

Thanks Andy.
I don't know about better, certainly over complicated, over engineered and quite possibly as expensive as :lol:
 
AES":3m77k7si said:
Oh YESSSSSSSSSSSSSS!

This is gonna be good (don't you go and let me down now, you "Welsh Wizard")!

AES (still trying to work out how this is going to work, but maybe, just maybe, I've worked it out).

Welsh Wizard :lol: It's normally Welsh (insert a word here beginning with W) :shock: :lol:
Thanks AES. Great minds, perhaps :wink:
 
Hello, it's me again.

The next bit we'll tackle will be the leadscrew. To the lathe :D
Now I was hoping for an easy time with this, but we all know hope is a cruel mistress that only exists to kick us square in the goolies. From the data sheet that goes along with the leadscrew it claims it's core diameter is 11.5mm max and 10.5mm minimum.
Well friends I was hoping for a fat one. I was wishing for this so I could reduce by the minimum amount to get the gear on one end, the gears having a 12mm bore.
Was not to be I'm afraid. At 12mm it still had quite a prominent thread, this would cause problems with the bushes as well as locating the gear. So with file in hand and vernier in the other we went for 10mm :roll:
We got the 10mm diameter at both ends. I do hit my targets, can't come away from it until I taste the sweetness of success :lol:

Just a few to assist with the story.

cHX01J4m.jpg


It was no biggie as I hadn't sourced bushes for this bit, but the gear has a 12mm bore and I've got a 10mm shaft #-o
Again, no biggie. In the drawer of goodness there's a little 12mm brass round. Into the lathe, faced off and drilled out to 10mm. I went up in stages of 1mm at a time and here's the result. A nice little sleeve and it fits a treat :D

i0wJaTym.jpg



Right, so here's what we've got now. Sleeve fitted to shaft and in process of being drilled for the gear locating/retaining screws.
Bush added for aiding in locating the sleeve.

V3Yl9Qrm.jpg



Gear locating/retaining holes done. I'll explain about the grub screw in the end another time, don't worry I won't leave you hanging :wink:

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Last but not least, the gear fitted as well.

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Right, that's it for this update. I've got to think about a chassis for all these bits to fit too and I think we'll tackle the handle next, as this I have thought about 8)

Thanks to all for the comments and interest. Back soon.
 
AES":1qfvwuqw said:
QUOTE:
...... (insert a word here beginning with W)
UNQUOTE:

Not ending with "er" by any chance?
:D

AES

I'm sure n0legs is a very competent Welsh Welder! :lol:
 
We're back. Sorry for the delay folks, stuff gets in the way, give people electricity for the past hundred years and they come to expect it all the time :roll: :lol:

Where were we, ah yes the handle.
Now as you may have guessed the other reason for using a hex/allen head bolt is having the choice to wind it up but enable the head to be recessed in the bench top.

We could just:-

633GBJqm.jpg


But where's the fun in that and we can do better.
So with some brass round 1" diameter and a bit of flat bar 1" x 4" x 1/4", along with some allen key and some stainless steel rod we have a bash at a decent handle.
With idea in mind, some times the best place to leave some ideas, we chuck up the round bar and machine a nice fat hole in the middle. Depth, about 20mm. Again employing a holesaw and chisel to square things up a little. Some pics.

asJP3hAm.jpg


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Next I drilled a hole, 9mm to be exact. This leaves a little meat around the edges for the next step. We actually the next step was to cut off the length we needed. Any way another pic :D

Cf7sU4Rm.jpg



So the next step, remember when we went broaching? Well that little toy makes an appearance here as well.
The plan is to cut off a piece of allen key and force it into the brass barrel of the handle.

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A head of a spare bolt was used to help with alignment.

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After a quick squishing with 10T of hydraulic push and the allen key offcut is stuck, good and proper stuck :D

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The next bit is a lot more straight forward, I hope. No, I jest, if it's not testing you where's the fun.
So, we took the brass bar and marked it out. Added a few holes for some decoration.

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Drilled a set of three holes at 4mm each for some fixing/locating pins, these will be stainless.

Qz1m4qEm.jpg




Superglued the two pieces together to drill through.

NPTw1o0m.jpg




I then cut some pins and hammered them in. I was hoping the percussive force would swell the pins in the holes, fixing them solidly. It seemed to work really well. But for belt and braces, I only do stuff once :wink: , I was soldering the joint.
I won't bore you with the process. Previously cleaned, fluxed and soldered. Tinmans solder (60/40) used, it goes nice on brass.


4jbqtqrm.jpg



I'll only include this pic for illustration. See how I've got it held for soldering. Second best tip I can offer for soldering, get yourself comfortable :wink:
Trust me on that one, honestly. You should see some of the positions I've had to solder in over the years. It's all done with mirrors :lol:. I'm not even joking.


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A quick filing down and a little rub with some abrasive and this joint is done. More sanding and polishing later


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Just a minute!
Back to Collins. The good woman peers over the screen one evening and says "do you want to go see Phil Collins?" :shock:
Well friends in the spirit of equality, love, friendship and doing what I'm told, yours truly is off to see Buster/Phil :roll:
I'll be a good boy, smile, make chit chat, look like I'm enjoying myself and listen to his ramblings but if I get bored I'll be applying my own Invisible Touch to his throat. If you notice I'm not posting anymore you'll know what's happened.
But, there's always a but. In a trade off the good woman says Phil Collins and I say Metallica. An accord has been made. Result :D
She did try Alison Moyet in the equation, (god bless her), but no matter how she arranged the figures she couldn't get the right answer. This was way beyond the A level maths she did at school. To be honest Prof Brian Cox couldn't get a resolution on that one. And neither could Hawking before anyone asks :lol:


Okay lets move on.
A little shaping took place next. Rounded both ends. Check out the washer trick :wink:
A hole drilled for M5 and tapped.

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The next and final bit is the actual human hand interface. Maybe knob for short.
Well I won't be turning a knob. I have a little 12mm brass round left over that'll do fine.
So a centre hole was drilled right through. Out came the knurling tool for some of n0legs special knurling treatment, thank god it's only brass!
A radiused hole was created in one end and the other end counterbored with a 9.5mm bit to about 10-12mm deep.
A locking nut applied to the set screw already installed in the handle. Zooming along now 8)


nQcE3C5m.jpg



Now the idea for the lock nut and radiused hole, is so the handle spins freely. It works pretty well to be honest, bit like a poor mans bearing.
So now to get it together.
Little problem. I need to be able to tighten a nyloc nut onto the screw, down in the counterbore.
A quick rummage and a crappy little 8mm socket thing was found, I did momentarily consider grinding down one of my proper sockets but could not bring myself to do it. So carefully I butchered this little socket. I only need it to work once,,,,,, I hope :lol:

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This is nearly done, but what to do with the hole in the end. We need some kind of cap.
Well half a dozen fags later, and near as don't matter turning the shed inside out I couldn't find a bloody thing :(
So in the tradition of the british working man I put the kettle on. Whilst in the kitchen I remembered Mad Pete colouring epoxy with coffee. Bingo :D
So fully recharged and invigorated I dug out the epoxy and a some graphite powder. A quick stir and a mix. Boom! the hole is filled.

tDBbsW7m.jpg


I left if for an hour or so while I cleaned up a bit. Then on with some sanding and a little polish. I was quite happy, radio on, abrasives in hand and then onto some polish. I used cutting compound, Farecla G3 to be precise, I get it free from the BIL :-"
Here it is. I'll probably have another round of polishing on it, but for now I'm chuffed :D


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Wow wee! That was a monster post. Sorry it's so pic heavy, but they do help.
I'll be back again soon, I'm pretty sure I know which way we'll be going with the chassis.

Thanks all for the continued interest and comments. I'm off for a drink, I really fancy a Malibu and Coke.
Much love.
 
=D> Genius. You're one canny b*gger that's for certain mate. Love the vision, the sheer hands on ingenuity and the wherewithal and technical skills to create that. Looks stunning too. Class mate. Pure class. 8)
 
That looks superb, still haven't the foggiest what it's for though!
James Hetfield for Phil Collins seems like a fair trade to me.
 
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