Cross vice riser block
Quite a few years back I looked at an Axminster Cross Vice. One of the biggest issues was the vertical height. It gave very little clearance when placed on the drill table and then too much clearance when placed on the base of the drill. So since then, it’s hardly been used.
This weekend I had a small job that could take advantage of the cross vice. So I set about making a riser block. I had some planks about the right size so I glued two together and added a strip on each end to strengthen the join and protect the end grain from oils and fluids from drilling. Some large coach bolts screwed the cross vice to the block.
The plan was to bolt the bock to the base using long bolts and some home made T-Nuts. There were a couple of issues with this, firstly the nuts were too large to pass through the holes in the base. Secondly, the slots in the base were crudely made and slightly different size from the ones in the table.
So to mount it I had to shuffle drill to the edge of the table and mount the nuts from underneath. Then to remove it, reverse that process. Given that I don’t use the cross vice very often this will have to do.
My first results showed reasonable spacing and no issues with the vice moving sideways. However, I did have a bit of misalignment on my middle hole which I believe to be the drill wandering. It’s only a 4mm drill so perhaps I needed to run it at a higher speed.
I did also notice a terrible amount of backlash in the screw threads. Almost a turn and a half. There does seem to be some adjustment on the collars so I’ll see if I can work that out and create a video of how to fix it.
Posted in: Tools
Tags: Cross Vice
Metal sculpture in brass, mounted on an 1800s French Coin
