Mobile vice and small anvil / welding table

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Fred
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Mobile vice and small anvil / welding table

Post by Fred »

I saw a few cool things on the interwebs a while back:

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...and started collecting parts...

440mmx50mm steel disks:

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Record number 6 150mm big engineer's vice:

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MAN truck hub and matching brake drum:

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So the idea is to put a piece of pipe/tube on top of the hub and into the bottom of one of the disks, extend the disk back with some 10, 12, or 16mm plate to bold the vice to, and have a very stout table for beating/welding things on. I can put the railway iron vice on it if/when I get that done.

On the bottom will be a plate of some sort and a pair of castor wheels facing sideways on one side - the side with the vice. A separate piece will be made that clamps into the vice holding two more castor wheels so it can be safely moved around on its side, rather than upright. The plate will have some locating tabs welded to it that fit snugly inside the bottom of the drum. The plate and drum will be drawn together through 2+ of the drum-hub bolt holes and threaded rod screwed into tapped holes in the plate, with nuts/washers on top on the outside tying it together.

My vice setup downstairs at the moment is at a comfortable height - jaws are at 1150mm and bench under it at 960mm. I think I'd like to keep this dimension, or maybe a little lower.

The record number 6 is 217mm from base to jaw top. The mounting area should be exactly 220mm long/deep, and at least 206mm wide (just base), or more (some bench space on each side). Holes are 14mm in diameter. Jaws open around 200-210 (currently has no limits, so not sure), and 135mm opening clears the rear of the base giving full table space, not too much of a pain to unwind if required.

The hub adds 170mm to the drum, but the pipe will start 10-20mm below that depending on if inside (~20mm) or outside (~10mm). The drum is 240 high face to lip, and 410 overall diameter.

The railway iron is 140mm high, and will be about 135mm high once machined to my liking.

Referring to my forever faithful and trusty precision bench thread...
  • Standing work surfaces 920-970
  • Min usable eye-level work height 1100
  • Max usable eye-level work height 1200
930 table height
220 vice height
1150 jaw height
880 bottom of table plate
10 + 240 + 150 = 400 to start of pipe/tube

Thus the tube must be at least 480mm long to meet bottom of table plate, or less with fittings. Will probably weld a plate to the top of the tube and drill/tap the table plate for some cap screws to mount it.

Tube diameter should be either ID >= 124 or OD <= 110 - will probably weld it onto the hub, but if I can find a nice way not to, then that'll be preferred.

Tube will be filled with dry non-salty sand to deaden any impact blows and prevent ringing.

More next week, or sooner if I start drawing ideas for vice/table layout at the top end or feet/wheel layouts at the bottom.
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Re: Mobile vice and small anvil / welding table

Post by Fred »

Table/vice-mount/table-extension design idea:

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Base idea with castors and brackets for them, would likely need adjustable feet below the plate to get it stable/level, and gussets on top to stiffen it:

Image
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Re: Mobile vice and small anvil / welding table

Post by Fred »

On second thoughts, maybe it's better to drill/tap/bolt some brackets for the castors direct to the drum.

That way the drum sits on the ground solid and there would be no flex / bounce from the plate sticking out beyond the drum.

Unless the plate is another 440x50 disk :-D
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Re: Mobile vice and small anvil / welding table

Post by Fred »

And second thoughts for the top: It'll be a lot less expensive and lighter and less hard work if I do the "wings" in 6mm plate and only have thicker plate under the vice itself.

Vice mount in the 12-25mm thick range, 210mm wide, 220+mm deep, 220 in the middle, but more to meet the 440mm diameter evenly across the back.

Tabs welded to the vice mount plate will bolt into drilled/tapped holes in the 50mm thick main table and gussets with feet will circle around and back up under the main table to bolt on from below either side of the tube.

Wings can have similar tabs and bolt to both the main table and the thick vice mount sides.
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Re: Mobile vice and small anvil / welding table

Post by Fred »

Bought the vice mount plate (220mm long piece of 200x20 flat bar), and the mounting tube and plate for the top of it (~200mm square 12mm plate, 128.2mm ID/141.5mm OD/6.65mm wall API schedule 40 seamless pipe, 480 long).

Also got a couple of other bits of flat stock just because.

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Mounting holes in vice are 14mm in diameter. Thickness of vice base is 30mm and plate is 20mm. So M14x2 or M14x1.5 50mm long should be ideal, 45 also okay, longer might be okay depending on diameter of shank - I won't be drilling out the vice holes!

Marked out the plate for drilling/tapping last night. One hole is perfect (or will be once drilled), other two are close, but may need tweaking before going full depth.

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Re: Mobile vice and small anvil / welding table

Post by Fred »

Holes in hub are 20mm, in drum are 22mm: https://twitter.com/FredCookeNZ/status/ ... 5258799105

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Spigot isn't tight/snug, needs shimming.
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Re: Mobile vice and small anvil / welding table

Post by Fred »

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Re: Mobile vice and small anvil / welding table

Post by ehb »

That looks really really awesome!

I absolutely need to find those same parts. :D
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Re: Mobile vice and small anvil / welding table

Post by ehb »

I recently scored a nice large vice too. 30 €, woohoo. Had the baby one already, now I need the whole family in between... *sigh*
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Re: Mobile vice and small anvil / welding table

Post by Fred »

^ those look really sweet! 30 euros is an absolute steal for that IMO :-) Nice work!

The drum and hub were both brand new, so there were a bit of a rare score, however you don't need them to be new, so a truck wrecking yard of some sort should be able to supply a pair like that.

I thought it was a pretty elegant option to transition from drum to post without abrupt angles, gussets, etc. Just a nice natural sort of horn :-)

I have two updates on this today, went out and bought 940nzd of top of the range China drill press to drill and tap the plate: https://twitter.com/FredCookeNZ/status/ ... 9052575744

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And bought the cap screws, hardened washers, and Aussie made intermediate tap to do the same: https://twitter.com/FredCookeNZ/status/ ... 9694398465

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Also bought yet another vice, a precision Vertex VA6 Kurt machine vice clone. Very nice for Asia... 1/3 the price of the real deal, and more than good enough for my use: https://twitter.com/FredCookeNZ/status/ ... 3292139520

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