bjorn rettig Posted February 20, 2012 Report Share Posted February 20, 2012 I was working on the end-cap and did a test fit, just to make sure that I had drilled all my holes correctly (my drill press isn't the most accurate, but usually within "specification"). What I found was an extremely tight fit, so tight that I wouldn't be able to turn the screw. I investigate a bit and found that the milled Benchcraft parts are not in alignment with the boring template. The template is printed correctly to scale. I lined up the left screw hole with the template. You can see that the right screw hole is off by 1/16". I drew a pencil circle around the middle hole and when removing the milled part you can see that it's clearly no centered around the center point of the drilling. Left and right seems to work, but it's moved down from center. Thoughts? Options? Recovery? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kevmc Posted February 20, 2012 Report Share Posted February 20, 2012 I had a similar problem but I didnt realize it might be because of the milling of the vice. I chalked it up to problems with my drilling accuracy. Lucklily before I decided to drill the holes for the bolts that hold the vice screw in, I used the vice as a gauge for drilling the holes for the bolts as there is almost no room for error. You might also note that I have had a lot of practice on end blocks if you read my post in the cock up thread. I dont know for sure but from what I see you could probably widen the one hole for the lower bolt so that it fits in better. I think the through hole for the acme screw is merely an access hole so its not critcal that the acme screw be completely centered in that hole, only that you have enough clearance. Hope that helps Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AMarshall Posted February 20, 2012 Report Share Posted February 20, 2012 It sounds like you can install the tail vise, and the main screw is binding in the hole. Is this correct? Can you provide pictures of the endcap? I'm certainly not an expert in the BenchCrafted hardware, but it seems to me that the first priority is getting the main screw located correctly and spinning freely. I'm assuming that the flange mounting holes - the two 5/16" diameter holes - are just slightly off. I'd use the actual flange and long main screw to get everything in the correct place, then re-drill the flange holes. It shouldn't matter if they end up slightly elongated or slotted. Another option would be to rotate the flange 90 degrees so that the left hole is at the bottom. It would be very tight to get the right nut on in the corner though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AMarshall Posted February 20, 2012 Report Share Posted February 20, 2012 I think the through hole for the acme screw is merely an access hole so its not critcal that the acme screw be completely centered in that hole, only that you have enough clearance. It's true that the large hole in the endcap is just for clearance. But you should try to get the main screw in the specified location so that the vise won't bind up. Think of the main screw, the side rails, and the nut block as one assembly. If one part is in the wrong spot than the other parts will have to be adjusted also. So it doesn't matter that the large clearance hole is centered on the screw. But it sure matters a lot that the screw is in the correct location relative to the top of the bench. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bjorn rettig Posted February 20, 2012 Author Report Share Posted February 20, 2012 It sounds like you can install the tail vise, and the main screw is binding in the hole. Is this correct? Can you provide pictures of the endcap? Here are two pictures. In the second one I centered the screw using masking tape as a spacer and then added the milled piece. As you can see the drilled holes are quite out of alignment. What I will do after further consideration is to fill the existing holes with a dowel and epoxy, then use the milled piece as a template, rotate slightly and then redrill. That you solve that problem. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vic Posted February 20, 2012 Report Share Posted February 20, 2012 I would contact Benchcrafted. My parts were spot on to the template. (null) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thewoodwhisperer Posted February 20, 2012 Report Share Posted February 20, 2012 You definitely received solid advice here. But that is a little worrisome as it concerns the relationship between the template and the milled parts. Absolutely, you should contact Benchcrafted to get their input on this. Like Vic's, mine were spot on. Given the price and general quality of this hardware, you should expect a nice fit and a perfect match with the template. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AdamAronson Posted February 21, 2012 Report Share Posted February 21, 2012 Just started investigating here... will report back in a moment but I did notice that the version of the instructions for the tail vise listed on the Guild site are different than the file accessible from the downloads page at Benchcrafted: http://benchcrafted....lates_Feb12.pdf Ok, just double checked your photo and it looks as though you're using the Feb12 instructions. I checked my flange against the same and the two 5/16" flange mounting holes are spot on. Is this true for you as well? Adam Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bjorn rettig Posted February 21, 2012 Author Report Share Posted February 21, 2012 Exchanged email with Jameel. The template on his site was of by 1/64" - can't verify, to me it looks a bit bigger when I place the flange on top of the plan. After disassembling everything I found that my biggest problem is that the center hole for the large vise screw was off which was added to the template being slightly off. That was absolutely my mistake and I will fix it. My problem was that the 1 3/4" forstner bit was dull and I lost the center point. I believed that I had recovered, but I guess I should have stopped earlier yesterday rather then pushing on after dinner. This morning when I tried to figure out what went wrong I first tried to line up the flange with the plan and found the above mentioned discrepency, which caused me to post the above question. I should have investigated further before alarming everybody. I believe if my center hole would have been correctly positioned I would have never realized the slight mistake in the layout. Thank you all for the input. I will let you know as soon as I recover - probably just starting over and doing a new end cap. I wasn't quite happy with the fit of the tenon anyway. --bjorn Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thewoodwhisperer Posted February 21, 2012 Report Share Posted February 21, 2012 Guild site is now updated with the latest version of the Tail Vise Instructions. Below is Jameel's response to Bjorn, posted here with permission. "Sorry you've been having trouble. I went ahead and checked our current template against the flange (what you refer to as the "milled part".) There is indeed a discrepancy of 0.016" between the flange and the template regarding the distance between the two 5/16" bolt holes. 0.016" is only 1/64". I have corrected the instruction/templates and will be uploading them to our downloads page shortly (I'm attaching them here for your convenience.) However, this discrepancy is not nearly enough to cause an issue with installation. The clearance hole for the large screw is 1/4" larger than the screw, so you'd have to be off by at least 1/8" for the screw to rub. You probably made an error when you located the holes from the template. You should tape the template firmly in place, then use a sharp awl to prick through the template accurately to locate the holes. It also sounds like you don't have the greatest confidence in your drill press. Perhaps you didn't clamp the end cap down when you drilled? Or perhaps you used a drill bit without a center spur (a typical twist drill), or the bit walked as you were drilling? There are a lot of factors to consider when drilling accurately placed holes. I don't know your skill level, so please don't be offended. Also, in the pictures in your forum post your end cap looks a tad beat up, and the corners rather rounded over. It's difficult to do accurate layout with such material, since many of your datum or reference surfaces are gone. Keep all your arisses crisp absolutely as long as you can when building your bench, especially when trying to fit metal hardware to wood. You should indeed plug the holes and redrill. Epoxy is not necessary, yellow glue is fine. You will need to be extra diligent when redrilling since your bit will want to follow the grain of the plug. You should use a sharp bit, drill slow and firmly clamp the end cap in place on your drill press table. If you have a forstner bit, use it. Take it slow, and back out the bit frequently to clear the chips. You don't want elongated holes because these two holes keep the screw in correct position relative to the guide rails. Yes, you could cinch the lock nuts down really tight to keep the vise in position, but that's a crude workaround, and you would be guessing at the correct position. Feel free to share my comments on the forum if you like. And drop me a line when you get your end cap corrected. We want your vise to work perfectly." Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shamuss Posted February 23, 2012 Report Share Posted February 23, 2012 I just noticed a discrepancy between the template in the vise plans I downloaded from the guild site (the version from weeks ago) and Marc's video. For the vise screw hole the plans call for a 1 3/4" counterbore and a 1 1/2" through hole. The vid shows 1 5/8" and 1 3/8". Likely not a big deal (I should say hopefully since I've already drilled these holes to the specs in the benchcrafted plan), but which is correct? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thewoodwhisperer Posted February 23, 2012 Report Share Posted February 23, 2012 When Aaron and I first started working on the SketchUp model (well, Aaron did the work....I just did the talking), we only had the old tail vise instructions to work off of. To say they were confusing would be an understatement. Sorry Benchcrafted. You know i love ya! At the time, there were no specified hole diameters on the end cap template for the through hole or the counterbore. So we simply made our best estimations from the hardware itself. The screw is 1 1/4" in diameter so we went with 1 3/8". This is a clearance hole only so as long as you have some clearance, you are good to go. Didn't really think we needed more than 1 3/8" although going larger doesn't really hurt anything. The counterbore is for the washer and based off of my measurements, 1 5/8" provides a nice fit with a small amount of clearance. 1 3/4" simply gives you more clearance. Personally, I like our numbers better since the 1 5/8" counterbore actually helps you locate the hardware during installation. Ultimately though, I suppose they went with the larger numbers because they are "safer", giving you more room for error. But if you're following the instructions closely, there's really no reason you can't have a little tighter tolerance in these numbers. But rest assured, either set of numbers will work. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thewoodwhisperer Posted February 23, 2012 Report Share Posted February 23, 2012 To put it bluntly, unless you make a mistake, our measurements are perfectly fine. I guess it can't hurt to simply go with their numbers and have some room for error. But if you are using the template and your measurements are correct, there should be very little error anyway. So I recommend going with our numbers but there is no harm at all in going with Benchcrafted's numbers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bjorn rettig Posted February 27, 2012 Author Report Share Posted February 27, 2012 Plugged the 5/16" holes, redrilled today - left hole was less than 1/16" two low (the right hole was actually dead on where it should have been). This threw off the entire geometry. Also created a plug for the 1 3/8" hole, glued it in, and then redrilled with 1 1/2" - now that works perfectly, too. Endcap done Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thewoodwhisperer Posted February 27, 2012 Report Share Posted February 27, 2012 sweet!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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