Hard jaw covers

[rslaback]

I just machined and installed some replacement aluminum jaws for our 8" vise at work. This vise mostly holds the drive end of a molding machine screw so they need to be aluminum in order to not do damage and the V profile will help them hold the screw's cantilevered leverage.



However, every now and then this vise does get asked to do some actual vise work because it is the only vise we have that is situated under our exhaust hood. I know soft jaw covers exist but has anyone ever seen slip on or magnetic hard jaw covers? I know the best action would be to swap jaws to hard but I also know that our technicians are not going to do that. At least having something like a 1/4" steel cover for the aluminum would spread the loads a bit and hopefully keep the aluminum in better shape.

Has anyone ever seen anything like that? At this point I assume I will need to make them myself but I am open to unexpected surprises.

 

[neophyte]

I’ve never seen slip on hardened steel jaw covers made for regular vises.
Ridgid/Peddinghaus and the related German made vises had various jaws that attached to the vises using a clip system, with the vise jaws being steel, (or in at least one case plastic), and made for tasks like holding round pipe, or with v-grooves for holding object upright or at an angle.
I don’t know if the jaws could be adapted to a regular bench vise.
The jaws seem to only be sold in Europe.

The snap on jaws can be seen in this video.

 

[rslaback]

It became obvious that I was going to need to machine my own and these are finally done. They are made from 3/8 angle with a flycut texture to them. After machining they were case hardened for 10+ hours in Cherry Red compound so hopefully they can handle at least a moderate amount of abuse. In order to keep them secure I machined them out to slip down onto the new aluminum jaws and I welded ends on them so that they can't shift sideways.