I used a set of parallels to level the piece, tapped it down, and then clamped it well. It wasn't going anywhere. I wrenched on it pretty good to make sure. I wouldn't have gotten the tall jaws, but that's what were on there. They used tall jaws for something they made at the shop where it came from, and they didn't have any shorter ones. I will probably just cut this set in half and make another set.
We plan to make a control panel to mount to the knee that has start / stop, fwd / reverse, and a speed potentiometer right there within arms reach. All we have to do for that is run a piece of wire like ethernet cable or something (no real voltage - it just shorts a few pins) to a handful of switches back to the rs-485 terminals on the vfd, and then swap one setting. Then we can do it all from right there. For temporary to get it fired up, we can hit the button to swap fwd / reverse if we need it
Don't shitcan those tall jaws. If you have parts that you have to set on an angle using a Sine Bar, the tall jaws come in very handy. I have a drawing for jaws for a Kurt vise, but I don't have a drawing for a Bridgeport Vise or I'd post it up here. With that being a Bridgeport vise, the dimensions will be in Standard dimensions and not metric. More than likely it will be in 1/16" increments. A Kurt vise is 15/16" from the bottom up and 3 7/8" from center to center in the horizontal dimension.
If you go to a place like Reid Supply, they usually have the best prices, order you a piece of either Air hardening (A2) or a piece of Oil Hardening (O-1) tool steel. The oil hardening for a piece of 18" length is $54, and a piece of Air Hardening is $117.
Oil hardening in the state that you purchase is already tough but machinable. It can be hardened with a Rosebud and a vat of oil to quench it in, but it would have to be ground after hardening it. For a set of vise jaws, it will work great without hardening it, IF you are careful that you make sure that there are no chips stuck to anything when you clamp something up. If you have chips or burrs, you will have indentations that you will have to stone down. If I had a surface grinder, I'd make you up a set for the cost of material, but sadly, I don't have a grinder.
When you order your material, order a piece of 3/4" thick x 2" wide, and it will be 18" long. Cut your jaw length a little longer than what your vise is wide. This will allow you to use a clamp on the end if need be. If you have 1/2"-13 cap screws holding the jaws on, you'll want to drill your bolt holes at 1/2" for your through hole, then counterbore a little more that a 3/4" diameter pocket at .550 deep.
Measure up your bolt locations and let me know what they are and I may cut loose with a set of jaws I have for a very reasonable price. The ones I have, has a "vee" groove running horizontal through the jaws to hold round or square stock, plus a "vee" groove running vertical to hold round or square stock. I can't use them on the Chinese vise I have and I'm not going to redrill my vise, nor am I going to buy another vise as this one is fine. It's just that my vise has a ******* hole spread vs. what my jaws are.
Also, if you plan on doing a considerable amount of machining, you need to pick up some 3/4" thick aluminum. The aluminum works great for making temporary jaws for specific parts you may have.
When it comes to putting switches on the mill, just make sure that you mount them where they will not be in the road. A Bridgeport with power feed, if you have to turn the spindle off, the table keeps moving. So you don't want a switch in the way where you may accidently bump it and shut something off. What I had to do with my machine at work was add a switch extension for the on and off switch and it drops the on & off down below the quill feed lever. I also made a longer brake extension so I could reach it due to my arm limitation.
