nicole Posted February 19, 2014 Author Share Posted February 19, 2014 Guys thanks for the recent round of comments, suggestions. In hindsight it is not such a shock things went dancing wildly..We will try some of these things for sure- one comment- we actually did try and heat the assembly in a large piece of pipe as an oven.. it was slow.. got impatient..perhaps to our detriment. I have plenty of stock available and so next go round will be practice on smaller lengths to experiment. Frosty's splints and tinning. Wondering out loud about how to slide the coils on the hot shaft, given they may be on the tight side when the shaft is expanded from the heat..All in good fun in a few weeks I hope :) N Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Unforgivun Posted April 2, 2014 Share Posted April 2, 2014 I'm interested to see where this has gotten to. I was in chat and commented "I wonder why no one every forges their own vise other than the massive amount of upsetting needed" to which Dodge responded that there was a girl doing just that! Brilliant. Can't wait to see more. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
arftist Posted April 2, 2014 Share Posted April 2, 2014 Guys thanks for the recent round of comments, suggestions. In hindsight it is not such a shock things went dancing wildly..We will try some of these things for sure- one comment- we actually did try and heat the assembly in a large piece of pipe as an oven.. it was slow.. got impatient..perhaps to our detriment. I have plenty of stock available and so next go round will be practice on smaller lengths to experiment. Frosty's splints and tinning. Wondering out loud about how to slide the coils on the hot shaft, given they may be on the tight side when the shaft is expanded from the heat..All in good fun in a few weeks I hope :) N When they expand from the heat they will get looser, as the ring diameter will increase. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nicole Posted May 3, 2014 Author Share Posted May 3, 2014 Well, I would like to summarize where things stand on this crazy project. Wrapping the screw turned out to be a bust. It was just too hard to control motion of 3/16 stock on a 1.5 inch shaft, with uneven heating. One of the things we did try was to heat in a muffle, and maybe there was some impatience as the part was so big it was really hard to bring everything up to an even temperature in a reasonable period of time. Fast forward to compromise #1: machine the screw with a square thread, and then wrap it with keystock, remove the spiral and braze/weld it into a piece of pipe to make the screwbox. Machining the screw, no problem. But things got a bit doomed when I did the math. The screw was cut on a lathe with 4 turns per inch (the lowest available). With 4 tpi and square threads, I needed to use 1/8 keystock. So I wrapped the thread and it became especially clear that brazing this in a forge was going to be messy and the bitty little threads would likely get fouled so..trying an idea my mentor successfully used for a larger thread box, I took the pipe and milled slots in it and tried to MIG the thing together from the outside of the pipe. Too small, too much spatter. Then I tried TIG. That would have worked better if I actually had some experience with TIG :). So by this time I had evolved pretty darn far away from anything remotely resembling a traditional method. Compromise #2: The other day I went into the machine shop, bored out a piece of 2" steel, ground some cutters for a square internal thread and turned the screw box. I have learned quite a bit about the thermal properties of steel and techniques and strategies for fabrication over the course of the project. But no payoff in terms of the goal. I will come back to it, and when I do, I will restart this thread! In the meantime, this weekend I will continue working on my franken post vise, which has one heck of a screw and screwbox, made in the modern way. Thanks again for everyone's comments, suggestions, interest and especially encouragement. Nicole Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anachronist58 Posted May 3, 2014 Share Posted May 3, 2014 Wow. Nice looking screw and nut assembly. None, I think, would question your pugnacious intestinal fortitude. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nicole Posted June 18, 2014 Author Share Posted June 18, 2014 Well, it is more or less a finished project; just need to work on the mounting to the wooden stand I am making for my anvil, tongs and tooling. The vise is fabricated from 4" channel; the jaws are 8", the screw and box were machined with square threads 4 tpi, the spring is from an old leaf spring annealed, forged, hardened and brought down to spring temper. I have a roller bearing between the head of the screw and the face of the moving jaw. The vise appears to work just fine, but just getting started with it. I owe a lot of thanks to my mentor Steve for helping me get through this and especially the patience shown in trying to create threaded screws and threaded box the old timey way (which did not really work out for me). In the end, it would have been cheaper and far faster to get a real post vise at a meeting but then, I would not have learned as much :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mitch4ging Posted June 18, 2014 Share Posted June 18, 2014 The photo's....where are the photo's! :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nicole Posted June 18, 2014 Author Share Posted June 18, 2014 Oh my, LOL here it is. I also have a pic of my anvil mounted on the same stand. I need to make the stand wider or put some sort of flange on the bottom. Torque on the vise screw destabilizes it... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
L Smith Posted June 19, 2014 Share Posted June 19, 2014 Nice job good looking vise! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dogsoldat Posted June 19, 2014 Share Posted June 19, 2014 Hi Nicole, I like your hold down in anvils hardy hole. I'm guessing that it has a crosspin of some sort under the heel to keep it from lifting out. And a mighty fine job on that vise! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dogsoldat Posted June 19, 2014 Share Posted June 19, 2014 Hi Nicole, I like your hold down in anvils hardy hole. I'm guessing that it has a crosspin of some sort under the heel to keep it from lifting out. And a mighty fine job on that vise! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
windancer Posted June 19, 2014 Share Posted June 19, 2014 Great project! Beautiful work and planning. Now the acid tyest: How does it work and are YOU happy with it? Dave Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nicole Posted June 19, 2014 Author Share Posted June 19, 2014 thanks LSmith; Michael the hold down has a slot milled in the hardie for a wedge.. I need a bit of chain I already lost it LOL. Dave, thank you..in this moment I am happy its complete but the real fun does start now.. using it, seeing if it need tweaks.. Nicole. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
will52100 Posted July 19, 2014 Share Posted July 19, 2014 I like it, don't know how I missed this thread. Only real concern I'd have is the hole for the screw in the channel iron. If it was mine I'd probably add a 1/4'' thick or so plate to stiffen it up a bit, but that may be over kill. I got to wondering about brazing the screw threads and even heating. What about a gas forge? Would still get some movement, but my main (non welding) forge is horizontal and has a chamber big enough to heat the whole screw at once. I've got acme threaded rod and nuts on the way to fix mine, but if it doesn't work I may try the wrapped thread, I'm not a good enough machinist to turn threads yet. Anyway, love it, though not sure about the purple paint! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nicole Posted August 4, 2014 Author Share Posted August 4, 2014 Hi Will, thanks for the comment about the reinforcement. Get this- I did reinforce the other piece of channel, but now for the life of me I can not figure why I did not notice I failed to reinforce the side with the bearing surface. Good call :) When we were trying to wrap the threads, we tried a muffle on a hot coal forge, and we tried it in the gas forge too. Couldn't beat the differential expansion of the keystock versus the much heavier rod it was wrapped around..thinking out loud I wonder what would happen if the wrapped part was brought up to temp very very slowly...but the vise is done and at least for the near future, I have moved on LOL. Now in regards to purple, it is my favorite color of course, and it is always easy to tell my shop stuff from all that boring grey, black blue and green out there ;) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
will52100 Posted August 5, 2014 Share Posted August 5, 2014 LOL, I hear you on the color, I've been tempted to spray paint my luggage some off the wall color to be able to spot it easily at terminals. Plating it shouldn't take long, and to be fair for most work it really isn't needed, I just like to over build. I did get my vise fixed using acme threaded rod and nuts, will try and take some pics later, so no need to re-invent the wheel with forge brazing. Though I know there's got to be a way to do it, if they did it 300 years ago we should be able to figure out a way today. But then I've got about 5 million projects I want to do! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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