Drill Press Angle Vise - Revisted

You may recognize the above vise from a previous post and you'd be right. For this post were going to revisit the Drill Press Angle Vise I previously restored. It was nice before but now it's much better.

There were issues I noticed after paint and assembly that bothered me and needed correcting. Just to remind those that have seen that post or show quickly those may be new here, let's take a look at this angle vise as I received it and how it looked after the restoration.

And how it looks now...

Yes a lot more work went into resurfacing the metal parts, bolts etc, etc. A lot more. I think you'll agree it looks much better now surface wise and I'm much happier with it now as well.

So what brought on the resurfacing and other changes that were done that I'll discuss shortly you may wonder. Well Grasshoppers, sit back, relax and I'll tell you...

After all the work put in to restoring it, which it was restored there were things that revealed themselves after assembly that I didn't notice prior to paint. Some of which ruined the paint in certain areas.

Let's take a look at the problem areas now.

First thing I noticed was in bringing the dynamic jaw all the way back it had caticornered or bound on one side peeling the paint off the inside right rail. I don't know if the paint was slightly thicker in that spot but by the time I noticed the issue, I had drawn the jaw all the way back peeling off a fair bit of paint. Though I'd already taken all the paint off the inside rail when I took the below image, the arrow showed were it peeled and bound.

Which meant if I removed it off one rail, I had to remove it off the other rail. Easy fix granted.

I also noticed the right front also had taken paint off and was off both the lower and use sections. This was a result of the factory grinding not being the same as on the left side. When you raised the vise at an angle the right side met and bound sightly part a 45° angle. The images below will help you understand what I mean.

Notice the difference in the space on the left side of the image between the base and the upper section where they meet at 0°, 45° and 90°. You can see the paint scraped off.

This is caused by two issues. First three factory grind on the right and left were different.

I pulled paint hoping it was just a paint thickness issue before figuring out what the real issue was.

Since I pulled it from the front pads, I had to pull paint from the rear pads.

And I might as well add the handle was chipping the paint on the front of the base. And I chipped paint here and there just bagging stuff against it while trying to figure what was up.

So paint was going to need repairs. And a note on Candy Paint, it's not easy to repair.

I also noticed the right pivot bolt wasn't lining up center to the pivot hole.

Another thing was the vise was limited to 87° degrees max or thereabouts. I thought that was just a stupid design. I wanted it to be able to go from 0° to a full 90°.

So, we're talking regrinding, resurfacing and repainting some areas. Or fixing candy coat. That's a lot of additional work. Especially doing it by hand. I don't have a mill to resurface or make precision cuts in metal.

But that's what set out to do. And did.

I reground the front so it could go to a full 90° now. But it will need new longer side pieces. I haven't made them yet but it's ready for them when I do. Before you can see how much longer they need to be.

I recut the best I could by hand the right side and leveled it. Which in turn centered the bolt threads to the pivot hole on the right side.

Sanded the heck out of the sides and bolt heads to remove putting marks. Put a high polish on the bolts and left the sides a polished mat finish.

Repainted the pads, front etc etc. Stupidly I did it in a poorly lite area and hit to hard and got a run in the candy. And ran out of Candy green. Aaaargh!! 😬

I'm not buying more candy green to try and repair the run in this so it'll have to do. Clear coated it as is. It doesn't look too bad but it's there.

And that's it. Whew!
I do want to add a rubber cover to the handle so it doesn't chip the paint and have taken much care not to chip it since until I do.

And here it is in an it's glory...

I hope you enjoyed revisiting this Drill Press Angle Vise with me.

Now it just needs a case to put it in right...
Maybe a stand too...
Hmmmh... 🤔
 Great idea! 😀👍

See you in the next project post then!

Till then, stay creative, stay Happy!
Cheers...