Drill press vice jaws

If you want to hole round bar vertically just put a Vee block against the fixed jaw and let the moving jaw find it's own position against the work piece

Hi Jon, don't get too concerned about the name on these things, the style of these vices hasn't been limited to Record. I have two No. 412 vices, one of which is a Record, which a previous owner had modified, the other one is a Fabrix one, of which there is an advert in Buck & Hickman's 1964 catalogue, but I don't know if it was made before, at the same time or after Record was selling their version.

A while after I made my last post, when out in my garage, I had the same idea about using a vee block in your vice as JasonB has suggested.

As you can see in the above photo, both the Fabrex and Record vices have used the same castings and are the same style as each other and the Soba one.

Regards Nick.

I had one of these - it was OK for the price but suffered the usual problems of jaw lift and general sloppiness.

I re-machined the working surfaces, squared off the jaw faces, and added an anti-lift plate under the jaw - the body casting was made in such a way as to suggest the designer had considered the possibility of having this feature.

It worked very well, including use on my Eliott 10" shaper - a duty far beyond anything it was intended for.

I ordered a pair of aluminium jaws with vertical and horizontal v ways and a v block that came today.

While i was waiting for the items to arrive i thought i'd have ago with just the drill vice on Monday, i thought it was secure and tightened enough, i was nearly through when either the drill bit caught or the bar slipped from the jaws and it started revolving, i now have a shallow groove on the vice jaws.

I should have waited for my order to turn up, i was only going to make a small 40mm long connector with a 8mm x1 thread to fit my 12v motor.

You learn by your mistakes, mine don't be impatient and wait in future.

Be careful as once you get a decent grip on the work it will be the vice that starts revolving. Ideally clamp it down or failing that have the end of the screw handle facing away from you and to the left of the drill column so that if it does rotate the column should act as a stop.