Simple Vice Stop

I was asked in another thread for some details of my vice stop, rather than loose it in that thread I will describe it here.

The two main parts of the stop are 30mm lengths of 10mm square bright mild steel, one of which has a notch milled into it leaving a small lip that hooks over the protruding edge of the vice jaw. The two halves are kept inline by two 3mm dia steel pins and a M4 cap head screw cloamps them onto the jaw.

What I like about this one is that the lip is quite narrow which allows the vice to grip work down to 1.5mm thickness, there are commercial ones about for those who would rather buy but they are a bit thick, at least for some of the small work I tend to do.

Construction is quite simple the 3mm holes are reamed all the way through the block with the lip but only part way through the other block, this gives a nice press fit as the rods are pushed into the tapering hole left by the end of a hand reamer. It would also be OK to just drill the holes and use something like Loctite 638 to retain the rods in one half.

The central hold of the lipped block is tapped M4 and a clearance hole drilled in the other half for a M4 cap screw.

If you prefer in metric then 3/8" square stock can be used together with 1/8" pins and 2BA screw.

Drawing To Download

J

When Lionel asked for details of your vice stop, I thought "vice stop" what is a vice stop..? I was going to ask but thought no, I wont show any more of my ignorance, I will wait and see what turns up. I do know what its used for though, but I only know that by going back to your Jowitt build thread to find it...lol

Thanks Jason that is another tool for me to make.

Ron

Edited By Ron Laden on 20/10/2018 21:00:25

Please forgive my ignorance, but what exactly do these vice stops do? I thought it was the aligning block that we used to use to quickly get a vice close up to square. The photos show this is not the case so if your don't mind Jason, can you explain where or when and how these would be used?

Thanks,

Ian

The stop attaches to the vise jaw. It provides positive location of a part in the vise jaws. Very handy when making multiples of the same part on the mill.

Ahh a work stop, wow that's very neat, not at all like the big clumsy things we had when I was in a machine shop. Thanks for the explanation John.

Ian

Now I've seen the pictures all is clear. Something for me to make hopefully next week

Many thanks for sharing Jason

As John says it clips onto the top or side of the vice jaw to give a repeatable X position when you have one than one similar part to machine so you only need to locate the first one rather than having to do it every time.

Edited By JasonB on 21/10/2018 10:02:00

Neat!

Um, X position?

Thanks, changed to X

Being idle i just use the left hand end of the fixed vice jaw as my reference.

Andrew

Same here. If I’m being really picky though I do use a vice stop, mines the pin type.

Don't say that too loudly Andrew, previously when I have shown a small part being held at one end of the vice everyone and their dog got up out of their armchairs and slapped my wrists for not holding in the middle where they said it was more secure

I'd listen to the dog, but not the people.

From a practical point a lot of my parts are longer than half the width of the vice. Or I'm making more than one so I use another part at the other end of the vice.

Andrew

What a neat and (so it looks!) easy to make a design. Thanks Jason, I'll be making one of those in the next few days, the one that came with the miling vice on my machine just has an M6 tapped hole so you can wind a bolt in or out a bit. Fine, but as you say, anything that is narrower than 6mm (well, it's no against the fixed jaw, more like 9 mm) and you can't use it.

Edited By Chris_C on 21/10/2018 15:52:12

I know this is an old thread but many thanks Jason. I have just made a vice stop to your design/plan and really pleased with it. It is one of those simple additions to the workshop that you wonder how you managed without it.. Many Thanks, John

I have two other types of stop, and I had never thought of this design, I must add it to my list of things to do.                 It will fit on the ARC vise, but the Bisons have only got about 1/2mm jaw projection

Edited By old mart on 26/10/2019 22:25:47

Thanks jason l will have to make one of them as well,will get a lot of use from that .

john

A nice addition would be to extend the thin portion downwards, to provide a vertical fence.

Yup, or a bit of stock - or anything metallic - of about the same thickness...