Ball vise purchase

[oakleave]

hello fellow Engravers,
Tools are very importand in every profession. A key item for Engravers is the Ball vise. As an engraving Student my budget is streched and therefore I was looking for an economic solution for my ball vise. I like to share with you my experience.
After analysing the prices for used and new ball vises I dcided to buy an imported vise with 30 acessories and shipping for $200. The vise came the day before I started trying with Master Engraver JJ Roberts. We compared his US made and my import vise side by side. What a difference his vise turned smooth 360 degrees without problems. mine had rought spots every 40 to 60 degree. I put it away and when I came home overhauled it. Here the story.

After dissasembeling and cleaning I inspected the parts. all surfaces were very rought. high support and low tool speed. The surfaces of the ball which rotate on each other looked from the top like the Rocky mountain landscape. There were also lental size (Lunker) cast enclosures.
I used 80 grid paper to start smoothening the surface than 220 and than 320.
The Breaking mechanisem did not work proper. The tip of the tigtening screw had the wrong geometry and I reshaped it symetricly.
Since I did not know the materials used I decided to put a leather patch between the stoping screw tip and the turning ball half to avoid dents. I also reworked wthe running surface of the top ball half with band grinder sandpaper.
The vise spindel had 0.8mm (hoehenschlag) I corected it to 0.2mm.
I polished the race of the ball bearing and inspected and adjusted the ball bearing cage.
After deburring, grinding, leveling and somoothening all surfaces I cleaned everything with break cleaner. This is cheap (2.50 $/can) and sprays away all grinding and other dirt.
Than I cleand every thing with a micro cloth (M3)
Before I assembled every thing I lubricated the spindel with grease and the ball beatings and half ball with oil for now.
It would be better to use lithium grease for the spindels becaus this is a high performance greace and does not make a mess. As oil I would use a special blend as used by my associate in Ft. Bragg. He is a Master Rigger and uses his own blend for the sewingmachines for decades sucessfully.

After 2 days I assembeled everything and it turns now smooth and you have a linear fine dosed breaking action.

Conclusion:
Is it wise to buy an imported vise?

This depends on your time and skills available. If you have a lot of time and solid machinist skills (not a one week course) I would recomed the cheap import ball vise.
If you have a payed job and moderate machinist skills stay away from low quality import vises.

keep the chips flying

Bernie

 

[Roger Bleile]

Bernie,

Thanks for writing your experiences with the vise. I would strongly recommend trying to get to Scott's Engrave-In in September. You can learn a lot there in a short time and make connections with many other engravers from beginner to master. I think JJ is looking for someone to team up with him for the trip.

Also, I'm thinking that hoehenschlag may be what we call runout in English. Is it the same as Rundlauf?

Roger

 

[monk]

you seem to be effectively "paying the price" for paying less than what the better tools require. i hope this works out well for you in the long haul ahead. send fotos of your work when you can.

 

[Marcus Hunt]

“It's unwise to pay too much, but it's worse to pay too little. When
you pay too much, you lose a little money - that's all. When you pay
too little, you sometimes lose everything, because the thing you
bought was incapable of doing the thing it was bought to do. The
common law of business balance prohibits paying a little and getting a
lot - it can't be done. If you deal with the lowest bidder, it is well
to add something for the risk you run, and if you do that you will
have enough to pay for something better.”


― John Ruskin

I've used this quote before but this case seems to illustrate it perfectly. As the old adage goes "Buy cheap, pay twice!"

 

[thughes]

Marcus is correct. It took me well over a year to get my shop put together, piece by piece. In the mean time, I studied photos, read books, and did lots of drawing. I certainly couldn't afford to do it all at once, but I just wasn't going to get stuff I knew I was not going to be satisfied with for long.

Todd

 

[monk]

early on, i couldn't afford a gravermeister or the magna block. an outrageous price i thought, but thankfully i did buy those things, and you know, they are still doing their job. same with the grs positioning vise- to me worth twice the price !

 

[Wade Patton]

I considered getting one of those "import models" currently flooding the market. I even placed an order for one, but cancelled the order after I saw what sort of feedback the seller was getting (it was getting worse by the day/item).

I had bid on a one or two vintage vises, but they left my price range pretty quickly, and there are yet a couple out there that seem priced fairly, but more than I can spend.

Then there was that pair out of Cali on the eBay today. I was sitting tight on both of them. I let the first one go when it went over 142. I wanted the second one more. Luckily the sniping action on the first one let me know what to expect on the second one.

So I watched and watched as bidders sat on their hands.

10 bids came in the final seconds. 2 were mine. I won.

Ain't my first online action pardner, (blows down the bbl of his bidding finger).

Sorry if I knocked anyone here off it. There may be a better vise posted tomorrow. Gotta bid like you mean it.

The prize:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-Ech...Bx8okVHLTF7B0CqCp7ylI%3D&orig_cvip=true&rt=nc

It may be junk, but I'd rather refurbish vintage junk than "finish/complete the work of" modern production junk. I just couldn't do much with my machinists vises or my wood-working vise.

Also, I'll be quite and rather happy to spend the going rate for a top-notch and well-engineered vise (industry standard) just as soon as I have the buying power to do so.

Or if my pal ever gets his machine tools running, I'll build what I want with three-phase powered chip makers.

Howdy, I'm Wade, this is about my second post. I'm getting geared up to learn engraving. Methinks this is what my whole previous existence has led me to. I'm surveying land presently and I'm into the pre-cartridge guns and accouterments. Have gravers and fixtures, a pile of 12L14 scraps, a ball vise, next up is OPTICS. And I'm about settled on Megaview if I can't scare up good use OPTIvisor. But I'm out of bucks for a while now. Good luck bidding! Cheers!

 

[Rstripnieks]

Hochslag is rundlauf , I would explain it for example when you do turning on a lathe and part is not centered perfectly on its turning axis .

 

[Roger Bleile]

Hochslag is rundlauf , I would explain it for example when you do turning on a lathe and part is not centered perfectly on its turning axis .

Yes, rundlauf is what we call "run-out" in the US.

 

[sam]

Ebay has become the Harbor Freight of engraving equipment, only most of it's not as good as Harbor Freight.

 

[Dave London]

Ouch but true :clapping:

 

[MoldyJim]

I figure that HF or cheap import tool are just kits, parts to be taken apart and finished properly.
Just don't bet your health on the strength of the castings.

 

[aleks177]

Yes,Yes, the cheap tool from China this true evil.
The Chinese sphere has stayed on my workbench about a month. And then in one sad day when I finished study on a korner setting, was more 200th cube of zirconium with a diameter of 2 mm there, and at the next blow to the tool, the sphere has jumped out from a support, and has fallen not just to a floor - he has reached concrete in situation "a pendant down". Thus also the central stone has been segmented, and all pendant is crumpled.

After that I have thought - if good a ифдд vice taking into account delivery costs so much why don't I remember the skills of the mashinist and not to design the version of this tool?

I reflected approximately so:
Ball vice is a:
rotation,
movement
inclinations
and their combinations.

I have decided that if all these actions belong to different details, then any of them can be stopped or released irrespective of the others

I have realized inclinations through two wedges which rotate and clog in any situation - if they opposite, then the top part is horizontal if are unidirectional - a full inclination of 60 degrees

Above wedges - the rotating disk, is just turns.

Above him - a vice with the pendular movement to place the engraved part of a pattern on the center of rotation, under a field of microscope

And at last, sponges of a vice - they move in a groove freely, but I can be fixed in any place why the subject can be shifted together with them, for the room in sight of a microscope too.

 

[tdelewis]

Some place there was a link on the Café that showed how to make a vice yourself.

 

[tdelewis]

I think I found it. Try this, http//www.homemadetools.net/homemade-engraver-s-bowl-vice
I hope I typed it in correctly.

 

[jerrywh]

I have a custom vise that I paid a lot of money for a long time ago. For quite a few years it served it's purpose very well and I have never been sorry for the expense. However today with the advent of the turn table I never use the rotating feature anymore. Perhaps if I did smaller work I would but most of my engraving is on larger parts. I wish somebody would make a ball vise that did not rotate just for use on turntables.
If anybody goes that way the same principal goes for turntables. you best get a real quality turntable. What Marcus said can't be said much better. You really can't afford junk. I would rather borrow the money for good equipment.

 

[Dave London]

Jerry

Steve Lindsay makes a vise just for turntables MTC

 

[gazzman151]

Once I got the turntable, the vice has stayed locked up.

 

[aleks177]

I think I found it. Try this, http//www.homemade......-bowl-vice
I hope I typed it in correctly.

The idea certainly interesting, but isn't present shift of jaws, that is it is impossible to place the processed area in the center without change of an inclination. And it gives patches of light.

And here is how the listed movements look:
1 screw fixes turn of everything that above, including wedges, that is replaces a rotary table for a vice.
2 screw fix turn of the top wedge rather lower, that is an inclination of the top rotary disk
3 screw are a fixing of rotation top
disk at which the work inclination concerning a microscope doesn't change
4 screw (it is visible badly) this shift of a vice in the parties to place that place which is engraved on the center of a vice.
And the top row from four bolts allows to clamp one of cams not movably in the right place of a guide

The only shortcoming - if pays the engraver or the jeweler a visit, requests "begin make to me same"

 

[jerrywh]

Jerry

Steve Lindsay makes a vise just for turntables MTC

Trouble is it is not heavy enough. It still need to have the weight. For best results on guns it should be about 40 lbs.