Vises - Soft Jaws
As a gunsmith, much of what I have to hold in my vises often cannot be damaged/marred while I'm working on them. The vise I use most is my import Wilton #69999 5 1/4" Multi-Purpose vise. This is Wilton's budget priced light duty++ vise that's aimed at people who need a "general" vise for a little bit of everything. What makes it so valuable to me is the 360 rotation and 90 degree left/right rotation. This means I can position my work most anywhere I want it. And if I need to do "real" vise work like you auto mechanic guys do, I have a very nice 4.5" Record for when I need brute strength.
So soft jaws are my bread and butter. I have 3 different jaws that I make when I get a new vise.
1 - Lead
2 - Aluminum
3 - Delrin
The biggest challenge is the lead faces because you have to make a mold and cast your own; you can't just go out and buy lead vise faces (that I'm aware of). Making your mold is straight forward shop fabrication, and when you're done, you're good for life...you'll never have to replace that mold it can be passed on to your grandchildren's grandchildren!
Here's a rough sketch of the mold.
Here's the mold with some jaws that have been in use for about 5 years.
More of the lead jaws in use
Aluminum
Now I don't have a photo of my aluminum vise jaws, but I just take some aluminum (mine are 6061-T6, but you can use softer), and make dimensional copies of the steel jaws the vise came with. I don't checker the front of my vise jaws because I want that soft, sticky, aluminum to grab with as much surface area as I can get.
Delrin
Get some Delrin (or similar polymer) and make dimensional copies of the steel jaws the vise came with. Now I do have one dimension a little thicker than the factory steel jaws. I like the face of the jaws to be thicker which allows for some compression of the Delrin while allowing lots of room to recess the screw heads for the screws that hold the jaws in place.
Here my Delrin jaws hold the nicely blued slide of a Browning Hi Power (not a cheap pistol...you don't want to re-finish that slide if you can help it!!)
Magnets
On some of my aluminum or Delrin jaws, I have added Neodymium Rare Earth magnets. Sometimes I'll add these to the face, and sometimes I'll add them from the back, recessing them so they're very close to the holding surface of the jaws. Depending on what you're doing, having something magnetically held against the vise jaw can be incredibly helpful.
Example - On my mill vise, my aluminum jaws are smooth faced, but have Neodymium magnets just .01 from the face (installed from the back side). So when I'm using thin parallel bars, the magnets will hold the parallels upright against the vise jaw. In a production environment this keeps the parallels from falling or moving when I'm changing material. In a one off situation where I have used parallels to help establish "level", once milling starts, the magnets will prevent the parallel from working its way out of the mill vise under the vibration of milling.
Accessorize!!! All manner of accessories, just Google up bench vise accessories and see where it takes you. Find what will work for the type of work you do with your vise and have fun!
https://www.mscdirect.com/browse/tn...2108188#navid=12108188&page=0&_=1490683523102
++"Light Duty" Wilton stresses their import vises are "Light Duty" vises and I believe that is because they don't want them competing against their US made vises. I have seen the same vise with another brand attached to it, and with that brand it was listed at 60kpsi...that's a pretty tough vise. And personal experience, I have given this vise some grief on a couple of occasions. All in all, I think it's a very good vise when you consider what I paid for it (I picked mine up used for $65.00; they're typically $159 new). Now honestly
