So, I scrounged up some "junk" and built a vise stand out of it. I got pretty lucky find all the right parts and I didn't have to weld anything.
Here's the junk assembled.
I only have this small drill press, so I rigged it all up and drilled my pilot hole in the cap up to 3/8. After that I had to put it in the vise next door and use a hand drill to drill up to 29/64 to tap a 1/2 13 thread.
Here's a shot of tapping the hole. This was my first experience drilling and tapping threads into anything. Needless to say, I was excited and leery at the same time.
Here's a shot of the threads and bolt to be used. It's not perfect...
...but it worked!
Next was drilling the plate to mount the vise too. Once again, my press is only a 3/8 chuck so I drilled up to 3/8 and then had to hand drill the 1/2 hole in the center and the outside holes to fit a 7/16 bolt.
Plate mounted to stand.
For the time being this stand will be holding up a cheapo Craftsman vise I picked up years back and never mounted to anything. It's a swivel base, but the whole thing ***** to one side when you tighten the swivel, and considering the size of my plate the swivel option would be less than ideal anyway. All that considered, I removed the existing bolt and replaced it with a new one to make it stationary.
All put together.
Once my shop is finished and I actually start using it, I'll probably mount this whole setup to the floor and put a better vise on it. The stand itself is a little too tall, but I'm dealing with it for the time being since I was fortunate enough to find some 2" pipe that was threaded on both ends and close enough to working height. For now I'll keep it here at the house for light duty.
Adrien
Here's the junk assembled.
I only have this small drill press, so I rigged it all up and drilled my pilot hole in the cap up to 3/8. After that I had to put it in the vise next door and use a hand drill to drill up to 29/64 to tap a 1/2 13 thread.
Here's a shot of tapping the hole. This was my first experience drilling and tapping threads into anything. Needless to say, I was excited and leery at the same time.
Here's a shot of the threads and bolt to be used. It's not perfect...
...but it worked!
Next was drilling the plate to mount the vise too. Once again, my press is only a 3/8 chuck so I drilled up to 3/8 and then had to hand drill the 1/2 hole in the center and the outside holes to fit a 7/16 bolt.
Plate mounted to stand.
For the time being this stand will be holding up a cheapo Craftsman vise I picked up years back and never mounted to anything. It's a swivel base, but the whole thing ***** to one side when you tighten the swivel, and considering the size of my plate the swivel option would be less than ideal anyway. All that considered, I removed the existing bolt and replaced it with a new one to make it stationary.
All put together.
Once my shop is finished and I actually start using it, I'll probably mount this whole setup to the floor and put a better vise on it. The stand itself is a little too tall, but I'm dealing with it for the time being since I was fortunate enough to find some 2" pipe that was threaded on both ends and close enough to working height. For now I'll keep it here at the house for light duty.
Adrien
