Hey everybody, Adam Savage from Tested here
with a One Day Build,
that happened over a weekend, another weekend build
that I didn't plan to shoot,
that I didn't plan as it as a One Day Build
but,
well, it's kind of ended up like that. Um.
This right here is my milling machine,
one of my favorite tools, and here,
in the, belly of the milling machine
is the milling machine vise
and vises are something I use all over the place in the shop
here's one for my woodworking bench, underneath my drill press
I have a whole host of different vises
for holding onto different things under
different circumstances
so, it was established
that vises are an important maker tool
and
I was watching some YouTube videos, and I was watching
someone make something for one of their machine tools using an old barbell
and, I've been working with cast iron for my die filer
but it hadn't occurred to me that old scrap cast iron could be used to make stuff
So, I went up into the bin, up in my loft
full of old crap
and I found this, um, an old little piece of a lathe that I used to own
and
In the course of a few hours, I
I made myself a little vise
uhh
and
ah
it's hard to explain
how much making this vise, kind of
altered me?
and, it's part of a bigger build, which
I'll talk about in more detail
when that other build goes up, but, suffice to say
there are times when you use your skills to execute something
that had never occurred to you before
and once you do, it opens up, it's like,
it's like putting a new lens
on your goggles and all of a sudden, you can see things
from a wider perspective
and this vise, is part of that
um, I didn't talk at all while I was making it
so, enjoy here, some vise-making
shots with some voice-over
(clattering)
Adam: Because it was a weekend,
I decided to just film this, without talking to the camera at all
remember I said in the intro,
I didn't know you could use cast iron to make stuff,
I hadn't, quite,
put it all together, but here's me cutting a chunk of cast iron
that I found in the loft, on my brand new,
portable band saw
it cuts beautifully, on the band saw, by the way
so, once I had the pieces cut out, I chucked them into the,
I chucked them into the vise on my mill
and, uh
basically, squared them up.
I-- I
cut all their various edges until everything was perpendicular
and parallel, and square
to each other
hm, yeah, here's me just going through the motions.
taking out material
Squaring it up.
This "L" shaped piece that's in the vise right now
will eventually be the main body of my vise
(machining hum)
It is very satisfying work, to, uh,
to do this kind of thing,
to, uh
take a piece that was,
not square
and make it square
and
especially since I have also just recently trammed in my mill very tightly,
which means that, uh,
when you do multiple passes like this,
you can't feel the difference between any of the passes, like,
(tapping)
the mill is tuned to less than a thousandth of an inch
across the,
width of the vise jaws.
It's a very precise machine mill, I'm very proud of it
(machining hum)
this is another chunk, uhh,
I'm not sure that I end up using this chunk in the build
but, since I had a bunch of chunks
I decided to square them all up before putting them into storage
(pneumatic hiss)
I will say one thing about machining cast iron
is that the dust from cast iron, makes you filthy
this is,
this is, a complete truism
I would go home at the end of the day of working on this vise
and my face would be gray
(machining hum)
Now, I'm using the auto-feed on my mill
in order to, uh,
make nice regular cuts
there's me cutting off the end of this chunk
look at that beautiful piece of,
cast iron
useful
yeah
here's another,
fin from one part of that
chunk of cast iron that I started with
There we go,
this is a nice, big, fat chunk
(machining hum)
I, uhh,
I discovered the glory
of carbide bits, while milling cast iron
high speed steel doesn't doesn't do quite as well,
it can tend to spark
the carbide eats this stuff for breakfast
again, you can see all of the iron dust
all over the table, there.
that iron dust gets absolutely everywhere
and it can really mess up your machine, so you wanna cover up the ways,
you wanna cover up the, uh,
the mechanics of your machine as best you can,
and clean regularly, I mean, I was vacuuming up,
probably three times a day to get rid of all that stuff.
but look at that gorgeous piece,
and when I put my finger over it,
it just feels like a perfectly flat piece of metal
yeah, that'll come in handy someday.
Alright, this little chunk is eventually going to be the movable jaw of my vise
and here you can see the main "L" of my vise
and I colored it blue, with blue marking fluid
and made some, uh, measurements
there's me, machining little fork at the bottom of the,
movable vise jaw
and, uh
that will actually,
There we go.
Okay, so, this is inspired by Chris at Clickspring,
who, does a final sand on every part that he makes.
So, I've got some, I think this is,
320 grit sand paper?
This might be 400?
and I put some light oil on it, and I'm going to do Chris'
very specific technique of, sanding
in little infinity symbols, little ouroboros,
little figure-eights.
You can see my tongue sticking out, always.
Some of my COVID, lock-down hair,
sticking out,
Um, uh,
On my left there, on the workbench,
you can actually see the vise that I'm replacing.
and, uh, as I'm wearing out one part of the
sandpaper, I'm moving on to the next,
but I'm getting a really nice little part.
(sniff)
This is super, super relaxing work.
There we go, there's the "L" with a slot cut out of the bottom
to fit the carrier for the live jaw
and I'm really pleased with how that looks,
that's the live jaw.
Yeah.
Okay, so this is a chunk of bronze,
that, uhh, I salvaged out of a boat that Jamie and I blew up.
(whirr)
It will come in later. This right here,
is, the, uh,
the thread
for, the driver for the live jaw device.
Every vise uses, well, actually,
not every vise, but, most vises use a,
threaded rod of some kind. Acme threads, uh,
but this is just a normal, I think,
uh, 3/8ths inch stainless steel bolt that I'm turning down the end of
so that I can capture that end, in the live jaw
of the vise
turning it down on my lathe
and I placed the lathe in exactly the position that you can't see what's happening,
Oh, there we go.
And a little tiny cut out the "L", okay,
so here's me, uh, drilling out the mounting holes
for the thread carrier, for the vise, and now I'm adding some,
cooling fluid, so I can tap those
two holes, and that is a little tapping block I made on Tested a few weeks ago.
Made of acrylic, it just makes sure
that I'm tapping perfectly
Uhh, uh perpendicularly, to the hole
I love tapping
I find it so
relaxing
I don't know, I feel you can tell how quiet the shop is right now,
like, that it's not a weekday.
There we go.
Adding a little more, for the second hole
can never have too much cutting fluid
I like how every now and again, you can see my,
unkempt hair enter at the top of the frame
So, now, I've got this little brass keeper
that hold the threaded rod, for driving the live jaw vise
I wanna round the top, so I've got a circle template here,
and I split the center, and now,
This- this is the most Clickspring shot in this whole video
this is like,
here I am, working up to the line
and it gets even better
Now, I'm gonna
sand it a bit,
yep, this is again, the same technique, sanding in little figure-eights
You get some beautiful results with this.
It's really quite lovely.
Uhh, I wasn't
perfectly happy with how the sanding was going on the sides,
so, here's me working with a file, and I think you can even see me working non-level.
Yeah
This piece kind of kicked my butt for a little while
but I managed to,
wrastle it into submission
and this is my guide filer, in action,
doing the final
fit and finish on this piece,
ah!
Look it! I mean, it doesn't move a lot of material
but, its hard for me looking at it like this,
it moves a lot of material
it is an incredible tool
one small thing is that triangular,
that triangular file doesn't, it's not as vertical as I want it to be,
it's out about a thou, I've gotta fix that
There's my part!
It's a beautiful part, okay, so,
here is, I'm now, uh,
cutting a piece of brass,
Oh! Right, this is gonna end up
being, um, this will sit on the underside of the live jaw
and help keep it
so, I'm just, like, squaring it off, so I can saw off a little-bitty chunk
and again, this is my upright bandsaw,
this thing was the the most useful tool for this build
I literally couldn't have done this build without this thing
That little piece, that's the one I want
(bandsaw buzzing)
and I'm now going to, uh,
chamfer the edges of my little piece
and flatten it out
and, just make it a little bit nicer,
really, I mean, you're pulling off, like
tenths of thousandths of an inch, right?
like, really, really small amounts
It allows you to
the die filer really allows you to
dial in a precision that I,
I wasn't quite aware of? (laughs)
Okay, so there's the main body of the vise
and that's the jaw,
that's the keeper that holds the thread
that's the little keeper that sits underneath the live jaw
this is some of the nuts and bolts
you see the threaded rod behind me
and some washers, and I'm gonna do a little, uh,
this is totally inspired by so many YouTube videos I watch
a little, hand assembling
of a complex little object in front of you
Now you can see that little
tongue that sticks out from the live jaw, and the brass keeper sits on top of it
yeah
Those little handheld Wiha screwdrivers are just the best
I think that one turns out to be a little too tight,
yep, I had to do a little mod
I actually ended up, by the end of the entire build
I ended up rebuilding that vise jaw twice
The, the live part that I'm screwing the, uh
screw right into, yeah
I had to build it twice, and ended up rebuilding the, uh
the threaded rod as well, because it wasn't as long as I needed it to be
in goes the little 440 screws,
that hold the brass thread keeper on there
there's still a ways to go with this,
but at this point,
I was so excited, looking at something that was, like, functional
that had just been in my sketchbook hours before
I, I know that sounds funny for me to say, because I build so many things,
but the idea of building an actual tool that I would actually use,
is, um, it's rare
there's the back of my threaded rod
I think I'm making the second one now
yeah, I've managed to place the camera in the perfectly wrong place
I'm checking,
check the diameter
okay
What are we doing here? Oh! This is gonna end up being the handle
for turning the vise. So this is a piece of steel
not cast iron, just a piece of steel that I've squared off
and, uh, this hole that I'm drilling now
will receive the threaded rod
and I might be using too much cooling fluid here,
I'd say I could probably go a little farther, but I really want this hole to be perfect
This is a tiny little part, so I'm going very carefully
I'm just like,
pulling out, maybe,
30, 40, 50 thou at a time.
So, now,
I've got all the parts,
this is a little turned down set screw,
that goes in, and the nubbin at the end of it holds on
to the end of the stainless steel threaded rod.
(blows)
You'll see me stick the stainless steel threaded rod in there,
ad then I turn the set screw a couple turns until it grabs,
and you can see, it spins, but doesn't let go
now, I've got to put the threaded rod
into the bronze keeper,
so I can put it all together,
this is, again, each time I put this together,
I Iearned something different about the order of operations that is ideal, but
here we go, so now I'm going to put in,
it later turned out that that bronze keeper was better
in one position than another,
so I put three little, uh
witness marks on its underside,
so I knew which way to install it
now I'm going to put the brass keeper on the underside
I think I also rebuilt that part twice,
with these high precision parts that have to meet,
at very tightly controlled
uhh, measurements,
you're off by a thou and the whole thing will bind, it's really intense,
but it's also super pleasurable to get close,
and then dial in that last couple of thousandths so that something is super smooth.
So, this is a set screw that goes into the handle,
the handle is still unfinished, it's still just a square of steel right now,
but, I'm testing operation,
so I've milled a flat on the end of the threaded rod
that the set screw grabs.
and, uh,
this, uh
632 long screw, long machine bolt, will eventually hold onto,
the handle, a little spiny handle,
yeah, there ya go.
It's a vise!
Look at that!
it's not quite as easy to turn as I eventually got it,
but, yeah man!
ahh, so exciting.
tightening those down a little bit, yeah.
(clinking)
There it is,
I took some pictures of it on my sketchbook,
I did pages, and pages of sketches of this thing before building it.
The ruler that you can see there will eventually be a stop, uh,
for where this vise will sit, and allow you to constantly
make pieces of the same length.
But I also tried bluing.
Now, you see the finished turn-crank handle,
and the crank knob,
and I've got them sitting on a bed of brass chips,
in a crucible spoon
and I'm slowly warming them up
this is something I've watched a couple of videos on,
on Clickspring, I find it so fascinating,
it turns out brass chips are like,
the perfect way to warm up steel, to not hitting it directly with the fire,
and getting scaling,
and, and
oxidation,
um, and this a while,
we're not gonna wait -- we're not gonna make you wait the whole while (laughs)
cuz it takes a while
you can see the brass chips getting darker,
and you can see the steel kind of smoking here,
and it's hard to notice at first
and then all of a sudden, you look at it,
there it is!
it's getting yellow and now it turns the same color as the brass!
This is so cool to witness, in front of you.
and you can see the brass chips really getting discolored around the edges, there
now, the crank-hand, yeah, look it's getting darker,
we're getting almost like a, a purple,
the blue is getting deeper, and,
Chris on Clickspring is totally right!
This is a magnificent method for bluing, man, it really, really evens it out.
It's just lovely, its also made it really clear,
how high of a polish you need to get something to,
in order for it to still be polished, once you've blued it.
Like, I actually thought the crank handle
was a little more polished than it looks now.
The crank knob,
totally perfect.
Well there you go guys, that was my vise making video
I hope you enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed making it
and I can't wait,
until you see the build that it goes into,
you didn't know, it's right here, and I'm not even gonna shoot it,
yeah, oh, it's like, right below the frame
oh my ga-- , is that a piece of it?
(whispers) that's a piece of it.
Yeah, I'm teasing the build that's coming up in a few more days
Um,
this vise, that vise, and this build,
sort of gave me a whole new way of seeing,
the making of things,
uh, it's not too --
That's not too overarching of a statement to make
Thank you guys for joining me for this One Day Build!
Keep making, stay safe,
and I will see you next time.
(woosh, bing!)
(woosh)