Lotus Elan and Lotus Elan Plus 2 Forums

No need to be afraid of damaging your con rods from incorrect clamping in a bench vise.

Here is a DIY Con Rod vise that can be built in the well equipped home workshop,
the materials cost less than $16.00AU from the local engineering steel merchant.
Learn More here:
http://elantrikbits.com/lotus-elan-blog/conrod-vise-how-to-build/

CeeJay.

Another way to save yourself a lot of grief is to machine the teeth off the vice jaws.
You can't just take them off and hand grind them, face them off in a lathe.

They will still work fine.

Thought about that to, and then decided to build a proper con rod vice. Even now with eng prep work going on, it is surprising how much the CR vice has been used already, and besides, it was a great DIY project to build. But yes, if you wont be needing to do much work with it, do as you suggested.

CJ.

I always made slip on soft jaws as soon as I installed a bench vice, my father bought me my first vice when I was around 12 years old, he was fed up with me damaging the jaws on his vice, he was a woodworker, he also immediately made soft jaws for it, at the same time as giving me the vice he built a lean to on the side of his shed just for me and then locked the door to his woodworking shed, I was forever after banned from using it.

So I continued enjoying getting my hands dirty and Learning all things mechanical and he could happily continue with his woodworking knowing that if he needed a metalworking vice there was one to hand.

Fast forward 40 years and now I am the woodworker, in all my workshops I have both metalworking and woodworking vices so no longer have a need for soft jaws.

I guess most people have a mission in life, yours must be working with wood, mine is working with metal, whether that is turning, milling or drilling, or fabricating, welding and forming, and also metal casting, the only wood work I really enjoy is constructing foundry patterns.

Quite wrong, I was firmly in your camp but it must have been in my DNA because in my 40's I started woodwork as a hobby, luckily I had 4 years before losing my father to have shared his passion and picked up many skills from him, also to make some things for him like hardwood gates that he was no longer capable or confident enough to do.

Now my days are spent renovating and converting buildings, I get plenty of opportunities to do carpentry and cabinet work but now my second passion has become work, on the other hand the few occasions that I get to do some proper engineering and metalwork I thoroughly enjoy, in fact I probably create situations giving me the excuse to indulge when it wasnt really necessary.

I still have my lathe, mill, Meddings pillar drill and full fabrication Equipment including guillotine, brake press and bending rolls in the UK, trouble is I am here in France so the fabrications I do arent as precise as I would like and other than a fobco pillar drill I have no machining facilities here. When I return to the UK its to do repairs and building work and once again my best Equipment is in France

Gradually I have been doubling up on things.

I like Learning new skills.