Adam Savage's One Day Builds: Tabletop Maker's Vise!

adam savage here in my cave and i've got a  different kind of one-day build today one   that i haven't done uh as much on camera as i i'm  doing this build more on camera than i've done   something like it before many of you followed  along while i built a die filer last year a   die filer is a reciprocating machine that just  moves the file up and down for doing sensitive   work i learned about them on clickspring and  actually found the links to the die filer he uses   uh through that and it was a kit it was a kit that  came as a bunch of cast iron parts that i slowly   machined over several months into a useful  device and that's what today's one day build   is also except instead of a uh moving  machine today i am building what's known   as an instrument maker's vice uh this is a picture  of what the finished product should look like   um an instrument maker's vice is not a musical  instrument maker's wise although i suppose musical   instrument maker could use it uh specifically for  machinists to hold work in complicated and precise   ways um and when you buy one of these kits this  comes from hemingway kits and we'll include links   to this kit in the comments below um hemingway  provides a set of full-size plans of all the   pieces that you are making uh and their relative  sizes to each other which is really helpful   plus a breakdown of some of the major steps  ah there's the picture of the device and they   include some cast iron pieces to utilize and all  the little bits of steel and metal and hardware   that you will need to make the thing that they  have sold you the kit for yeah this seems like a   perfect opportunity to increase my machine skills  i've just bought a new curt vice for my mill and i'm excited to fire it up  okay so today's one day build   an instrument maker's vice it is going to be dirty  dirty dirty work because i'll be machining some   cast iron and there's no circumstance under which  machining cast iron isn't filthy in the best way   all right so within machining a piece like this  this vice it stems off of this cast iron base and   this foot right here this little foot is  actually just for grabbing in a vise like this   or my wilton bullet vice over there and  to give you a better hold so what's really   important here is that these sides are roughly  parable but there's no parallel not parable parallel and flat and then they do i mean  obviously i'd like to be uh parallel with   the line that i'm drilling through this center  hole um but first and foremost is to clean up   the pieces of this cast iron on the bottom  sides top and the spindle hole there   i don't know this has been a hole just a hole  uh right okay they're using a dovetail for that   right they've got a right angle milling attachment yeah i'm gonna uh start  setting this up on the vise and   start uh taking it down with some carbide bits right now i am just going in here to uh to flatten  off this side i'm going to turn it over rest it   on the parallels flatten the other side and  then i will have some reasonable assurance   that these two sides this one this one and this  one are parallel once i know they're parallel   i will grab on to them to do  this part and then once i know   that's parallel i'll grab on to it again  and make these perfectly parallel it's a   little more work that i need to do for this  but you know what it's just the right amount so so   i thought the camera was running and it was not  and while i thought it was running i made this   little captured nut piece i'm pleased  with it uh this is you'll see where this   goes i made its mate this piece here it sits  inside this reamed hole and it's a nice fit   actually i'll show you it's a very nice fit that  is within about one and a half thou i'm glad about   that now i have to thread this i actually have to  add threads and i'm going to do that using this   guy i am not going to cut threads nope nope i'm  going to use the die uh so i guess that's what   you're about to watch always a good idea to use  your tail stock to set the flat and get it started oh right i'm also going to add some  cutting fluid to this and to here great oh yeah i want to lock that there we go now  each time i'm turning it i'm pushing the   tail stock so that it meets it and helps  it turn flat um i'm not using a standard   uh half inch 13 i'm using actually  a half inch 20 thread on this uh the finer increment will  give me more precise control   all right let's see here how we're doing so far there we go i know that all the books on tap say tap a full  turn and go back a half turn i have never found   that to be the case i have always found i had  my best luck when i tapped a half turn and went   back a quarter turn i don't know whether they're  working with bigger taps than i have or what but   all right let's get that out of there  and that out of there now we can once i've got it going i can kind of keep it going all right so here's what i have so far  i've got the main base very much cleaned up   sides are parallel and square i think i need  to use a dovetail to knock out a little relief   right there this is bored out to 0.4999 uh  this is machined to 0.4998 and it's nice and   just no rattling uh and then this is  the capture nut so what happens is   is that i'm going to clamp these guys in here  i'm going to drill a half inch hole through both   through both this and this and when i do  and thread a half inch bolt through it   which is the main support for the vice when  i clamp it basically turning the clamp here   moves this piece that way and pressures  this against the sides of the upright strut   so the next thing i need to do is the half inch  holes for these doing an overhang here so you   can see what i'm talking about so i've got i've  got the let's see here can you see them let's see out of the way okay got my parts here they  are sitting in a v block which means this is   perfectly level and i've checked it with i've  checked it with my hammer gauge i've also found   the center and i'm locked at the center here and  so now i'm going to use a a center drill like this to mark this hole i'm going to use the center  drill to mark this hole and then i'm going to   slowly successively go up to half an inch and that  will complete the basic body of the clamp design   of this uh of this machinist clamp i thought  the camera was rolling uh i center drilled this   hole and then i drilled a quarter inch now i'm  about to drill the uh 5 16 central here we go and the collet and we put this in all right there's a reason we step  up the drills rather than just drill   one right through and it took me  a long time to kind of understand when a drill bit is turning  here when a drill bit is turning   right that's the chisel point that  right there actually let me clean   that when you see the chisel point  you see that it's spinning you see   this little sharp edge here which is gonna peel up  material right but now think about the fact that   out here at the outer corner that's spinning at  the rpm of the of the mill and so if i have it set   at about 24 2400 rpm that's moving at  a certain speed and at the in close to   the middle it is also turning at 2 400 rpm but  because it's such a smaller radius the middle is   turning way slower so the middle of a twist  drill has to do a lot more work to peel out   so what i do is as i successively go up i'm  removing the middle and i'm removing the part   that's hard for a twist yield to remove and that  means that i'm inherently getting more accurate   more accurate holes because i'm doing most of the  work out at the edge of this drill okay here we go   7 16. that's the next one and these  actually all mirror the sizes of   the uh 5c collets i have these are stepped up  by sixteenth of an inch so it works perfectly   uh each time i drill bit gets longer i have to there we go i'm going to use this very pretty unused drill   oh i don't think this has ever been oh  it might have been drilled with once but   yeah it's a pretty one okay so this is  um 31 30 seconds am i right about that this is 31 64. uh so this is  uh 1 64th under a half inch   once i do this then i'll ream this out  and it'll be so exactly one half inch these are all very tight tolerances i'm going to  try spinning it half a rotation see what i can get i can loosen any of these tolerances i want   later but for right now i just want  to make sure that everything is really nice oh i can feel what a bearing  surface that is that feels amazing   the thing is i don't machine stuff that's  this precise yeah it's just a wonderful all right um this is the steal for the handle that goes  here and the handle that closes the vise so i'm gonna want to uh yeah i can't even tell you  how much fun it is to play i'm   each of these relationships is slightly  less than a thousandth of an inch i believe   maybe just about that so the way this works  just to make this crystal clear is that   this is a cap on this post and when  the two are joined together and a   a bar is put between them and i tighten down  on this one this little inside lip means that   this cap is now pushing upwards and pressuring  this rod between the central rod and the cap rod   yeah and the way yeah isn't that neat  i think that's going to be really   really nice and oh my god i'm just really  addicted to this that feel that feel man maybe it's because you know this old tony seems a   little bit misanthropic and  like nothing ever makes him   super joyful i mean he gets happy but like i  kind of temper my expectations but man when you when you feel that it's hard  not to feel that life is good   excuse me i'm just gonna  spin my deal okay uh handles   um what do they have here they have uh one two  three four five six twelve they have twelve flutes i guess i can cut these on the rotary table   yeah that's exactly what they have me doing okay  one and three quarter od and this is currently one and three quarter od great  we're right there uh so um i need to   drill out the center of this i need to face both  sides then i want to drill all the way through   then i think i'm going to then i think i'm  actually going to tap i think i'm going to tap now because it'll be easier to tap  them when i can grab onto this big   fatty and then later when i can't grab on to  it yeah yeah that's how we're going to do this   all right um i now have two handles that look  beautiful from the front they look beautiful they   look identical their backs are a horror fro yeah  i gotta clean up their backs i got to hold on to   these i have to hold on to these from both ends  to do some finishing with them and that's going   to require me to make a fixture a fixture is uh  it's a separate machine part just to hold on to   your machined parts i'm going to make a um cup  fixture out of aluminum to hold on to these from   the knurled side so i don't damage the knurled  side and then i'm just gonna use my two j collets   to hold on to them from this side to do the last  bit of cleanup up here uh so let's see what i got see what i could do here is i could find a piece  of nice round aluminum with a hole already in it   like this that's actually a really nice  chunk i'm not throwing it oh there's this uh i suppose i could do that seat  it down in there but that doesn't hm   i want to find the right amount of access to  this part it's almost like like that could be it   this this could be it right so what i  all i need to do all i need to do here is   machine a little step in here that just fits  this then slice this on the bandsaw and grab   that with my sixth jaw and that gives me a  nice strong access to all of this material   to take out all of that material here  i think that's going to be my fixture this right here this is the tasty round aluminum  chunk drawer all right i've turned the fixture   so you can see i have turned a  little bit of a step here and this fits really nicely in there so i'll take this out   slice it on my bandsaw and that should give me  nice access to this back side to clean it up okay look here's the nope there it is  here's my fixture there's the piece   i want to be fixturing um and  this is this is a great hold on   there's my fixture and there's my handle and  that's the god awful side i have to clean up um   why is this better than the lathe chuck the  lathe chuck one grabs things so it can mar   them when i increase the surface here when i  increase the surface area that i am grabbing   i am reducing what can be marred because i'm  spreading the load and this is a great way to   think about grabbing how much can you grab  this is i'm grabbing as much as i possibly   can i'm grabbing this on 12 contact points  all the way around this in the middle in the   late vice and i've got some real meat to  crank down on this so that i don't have to   hopefully worry about chatter over here just  a little bit of grabbing philosophy that's all my handles are done my hand wheels  i'm really really happy with how they   look i see some tiny witness marks of the  machining but for the most part they are observably identical oh   that is awesome i just want to make  sure that this is as smooth as it can be this is my uh this is my click spring shot oh feels good feels chocolaty that's great all right that was one of the yeah awesome this is half inch no that's 375. so because i had to drill the  flutes in the mirror and the handles in the uh clamp knobs because i had to turn the flutes  in the clamp knobs uh these guys here uh   these guys there we go because i had to turn those   well i uh i had the rotary table which  now i have to remove so excuse me all right gather around y'all uh this is one of  the vice jaws and i've just cut this beautiful   little v-groove in it and i think it's worth  showing you how i cut it now here is the mark   for the the horizontal v groove and i need to  hold this in my mill at exactly a 45 so a nicely   sharpened corner end mill a carbide that i've  got will cut that v-groove so i need to hold this   in my vise and to do that i'm going to use a  second smaller vise i didn't make this this   is a little tool maker's vice and i think right  so this is how i'm going to try and hold on to   this like this uh this has got a um a very this  has got a very positive grab system so when you   tighten it it actually brings the jaw in so it's  a really really great way to hold on to your work   secondarily um so now i'm gonna put this in the  vise like this try and get that uh that 45. now   my v block my issue is my v block is wider than  the piece i'm clamping so i need some other mode i was running into an issue where my v block which  gives me a beautiful 45 degree mounting angle is   actually wider than this piece so i can't use it  to position my piece in the vise because the vice   will clamp the v block before it clamps my work  so i'm also i'm going to use this which is another   another little tool maker's vice i picked up a  while back and can give me the same exact deal   except at a smaller and a smaller angle yeah  all right so we're going to get this one going   see if we can't get that uh all right 45 yeah  that's officially at a okay so let's see if i can it's a very light cut i'm making so i'm not  that concerned with the torsion on the machine   it's best to mount everything in the middle and  yeah okay so it looks like i'm grabbing my vise   not the work which is less than perfectly ideal  but it should be fine for this cut okay i think   i've got the line i think i've got the level i'm  gonna lock my quill i'm gonna back off my y feed and uh we're gonna try cutting this all right made the first little  tiny cut and it's a beautiful one yeah we're just gonna keep on creeping up on it that's it there we go that is a i think it's a  respectable pair of v grooves they seem to meet at   a nice little star there in the middle damn yeah  okay now it's time to drill uh those two holes okay that's the 5 16 pilot drill i like  not to move the xy when i'm in the middle   of a critical position it's superstitious  kinda because you can move it and use your   dro to get you back but just too many things  okay there we go a 5 16 24 hole right right   5 16 is 24. that's what this is just matching  up these yes yes yes that looks great   all right i'm gonna use the old momentum of  my quill technique for tapping let's get a   little thread cutter in here all right i'm using  a speed tap here i'm using a a a uh what do you   call it a champ a chisel point jesus i lost  the spiral point i'm using a spiral point so   what i'm going to do is i'm going to spin this up  then as it's i'm going to turn it off and as it's   winding down i'm going to feed it into the hole  it's going to and then eventually stop but this   tap is strong enough that it can take  that so i'm just gonna put a little   oh the first taste of oil all right here we go  hey all right i had too much momentum there but   i think it still works fine oh sh that was um  hell spells that worked out just magnificently okay oh that's not a 45 that's a 30.  yeah i don't look nice let's try it uh oh that wasn't awesome okay and we're just going to run this die   all the way down i'm keeping pressure  on the chuck here to keep this flat and then once i get it going i'm pretty okay i can check flatness  but it's really landing nicely this feels weirdly too easy but  let me see if i can slow it down yep i have uh cut the jaw down on the on the  band saw there's a lot of moving parts to   this but hopefully this is one of my last  cuts i'm going to clean that up on the mill okay uh this is just a test fit of all the pieces  this should this does the screws in there nicely really close oh my god i don't think i've  ever worked on two separate things that were   this close of tolerance together i'm going to rebuild half these parts  by the time i'm done but hopefully not   looks like i've messed up a critical relationship but when i spin that it should tell me right let's get a i really have uh it really  doesn't work yeah it looks like i'm   looks like i'm wide by a few thousands so  here's here's where we are with this guy   the individual relationships are correct  this uh this threads in here nicely that is awesome it's when you bring in this with its parallelness right now we seem like we're okay  but i can see it right now i can see again i'm also working under like i can  open up some of these measurements i can   make your relationships a little bit easier to get  along i already can't finish this today because   i don't have a half inch 20 threads per inch die  yeah i know i could cut it on the lathe i don't   want to go to the money today please don't make  me cut threads please don't make me guess friends   i got nowhere else to go oh my god these  relationships are so freaking close there's a whole other day i'm in the final mechanical stretch  on my machinist tool maker's vice uh   the vice itself the action is frankly better than  anything i've ever gotten on a machine tool um   this really looks like i knew what i was doing i'm  i'm it's and it is increased i didn't know what i   was doing it has increased my abilities that's  for sure so uh i'm gonna do a rough assembly   right yeah i'm gonna do a rough assembly and then i'm gonna do some uh final finishing  on this guy i might i i might actually   i have this wilton vice behind me that i think  i'm going to do a restore on and i think when i   do that i'm going to choose a color for the cast  iron in my shop i'm going to do the wilton vice   that color this that color and my um die filer  that color so that'll be a separate video but   we are really close hang on i think  you want to see this a little closer   the way that feels it's such a thing so awesome ah  you have a little bit of a ding on you don't you oh we can't have that really getting a whole through hole like  this it works both ways nearly impossible but actually there we go the thing i'm really happy with about  this is that i actually thought my um i thought that these two rods were actually off  by a a small degree but that would require me to   remake this half the movable  jaw the live jaw but i didn't um   it uh this is a really really awesome project  and these machinists kits are um super thrilling   from uh from a construction standpoint i uh gosh i  just love this thing it's so pretty and i made it   this built this from scratch that's i mean you  know a kit but still it feels like a real thing   there you have it my machinist instrument  maker's vice from hemingway tools hemingway kits   uh is complete first stage is complete i  am gonna choose a paint color for this for   when i restore my beautiful wilton vice  here and i'll make those two the same   color but for right now it's got some really nice  action it feels really good and i feel like my   machining skills have improved in the course  of this project i hope you feel the same way   thank you guys so much for joining me for this  one day build this has been really really fun   and yeah it totally took like two and a half  days i will see you guys next time stay safe you

Channel: Adam Savage’s Tested

Views: 166,788

Rating: 4.9404984 out of 5

Keywords: tested, machining, vise, machine, mill, adam savage, one day builds, one day build, tested adam savage one day build, adam savage one day build, one day builds adam savage, workshop ideas, one day build adam savage, adams one day builds, how to, metalworking, metalworking tools, Mini Machine Vise, machine vise, cast iron, vise kit, clickspring, adam savage machining, adam savages one day builds, adam savage builds, hemingway kits, machine vice, instrument makers vise

Id: of9qY62tWKo

Length: 40min 53sec (2453 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 10 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/LordRedHead]

I'm pretty sure his fly is down at the 10:00 min mark