On Sat, 5 Apr 2008 08:51:48 -0700 (PDT),
wrote:

On Apr 2, 3:41 pm, "DoN. Nichols" wrote:
On 2008-04-02, Steve Lusardi wrote:

wrote in message
...
I have a Sherline vertical mill (the 5000 series) and I keep having a
problem with my aluminum workpiece pulling loose from the mill vise.
I have NEVER had very good luck getting the Sherline mill vise to hold
aluminum terribly well. Is this a deficiency of their mill vise?
Would a different mill vise solve the problem? Is it possible that .
010" cuts are too much?
I cannot imagine what you are doing to cause this problem from your
information supplied, but it is highly unusual. Please describe what you are
doing and how.

I don't know whether there there was more to what you posted --
both quoted samples that I have seen have not shown more, so I don't
know whether the following applies or not.

If the workpiece is sticking out of the vise by a height in
excess of perhaps four times the height of the jaw grip, then there is a
major problem with leverage working against you.



Good Luck,
DoN.

--
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Good catch. I put in a piece of 6061 scrap that I cut off the
workpiece with a bandsaw, one
small enough that it was just barely above the jaws--and I was able to
run an end mill across the
surface just fine. At .010" slices, it worked just great--not a
single snag, stoppage, or loosening.
I tried one pass at .015" and while it didn't stop, I could see that
this was the upper limit of what
I could do.

When I turned that scrap on end, so that there was about 3" sticking
above the jaws, the old
problems started to appear.

So, does this mean that if you have a workpiece that is fairly big,
you should get yourself a mill
vise with very tall jaws? Does someone make a mill vise for
micromills with varying height jaws?

Obviously, you should turn a workpiece the direction required to get
maximum grip from the jaws, and
mill vertically rather than horizontally--but sometimes that's just
not possible.


And always..always mill into the fixed jaw direction if you have a
sloppy vise

Gunner



"Pax Americana is a philosophy. Hardly an empire.
Making sure other people play nice and dont kill each other (and us)
off in job lots is hardly empire building, particularly when you give
them self determination under "play nice" rules.

Think of it as having your older brother knock the **** out of you
for torturing the cat." Gunner