VISE JAWS

MACHOIRES D'ETAU

English Abstract

A vise jaw accessory system for attaching vise accessories,
such as parallel plates. The system includes a removable jaw
having a ledge along its longitudinal direction and an offset
surface incorporating a number of magnets, and parallel plates or
set-up gages attracted by the magnets and abutting the ledge of
the jaw. The parallel plates or setting gages are movable along
the longitudinal direction of the jaw and can be set at any
location using an external workstop.

Claims

I claim:
1. A vise jaw comprising:
a generally rectangular member having a longitudinal extend,
a height and a width, a mounting face being defined by said
longitudinal extend and said height, a second face on the opposed
side of said rectangular member from said mounting face, said
second face having a step throughout said longitudinal extend,
said step providing a ledge and an offset surface, said offset
surface reducing said width of said rectangular member of a
portion of second face; and
a plurality of mounting holes extending in said width
direction of said rectangular member, said holes provided for
mounting on a vise assembly, said holes located in the said
offset surface of said rectangular member.
2. A vise jaw as claimed in claim 1, comprising a plurality
of magnets, said magnets fitted into said offset surface of said
rectangular member.
3. A vise jaw as claimed in claim 1 or 2, comprising a
removable plate, said plate abutting said ledge, said plate
attracted by said magnets,
4. A vise jaw as claimed in claim 3 wherein said plate has
thickness, said thickness being the same as size of said ledge.
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Description

CA 02275020 1999-06-07
vzsE JAws
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to removable vise jaw assembly
and, more particularly, to jaws accurately accepting parallels or
other setting gages by magnets.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Workpiece holding frequently involves clamping at an elevated
position relative to the vise bed. The purpose is to make sides
of the workpiece accessible for machining as well as to provide
clearance on the bottom of the workpiece for through machining.
Traditional solution is provided by parallels placed against the
vise jaws. The parallels work satisfactorily in manual prototype
machining, however, in production machining they proved to be
unreliable and difficult to maintain since they are not attached
to the jaws. One solution to the problem is provided by US Pat.
No. 5,078,372 to Fitzpatrick where a step is introduced into a
replaceable jaw. The problem with this solution is that the whole
jaw has to be replaced when a different step is required which is
expensive as well as time consuming. Additional disadvantage is
that difficult "L" or "T" shaped workieces can not be properly
clamped since they would overhang the jaws. Another solution to
the problem is provided by US Pat. No. 5,037,075 to Durfee or,
similarly, by Officina Meccanica Lombarda srl (Italy), which
locks the parallel to the jaw using a spring loaded ball plunger.
This solution still lacks the versatility since the parallels are
not movable along the jaw and therefore can not be used to clamp
"L" or "T" shaped workpieces. Further solution to the problem is
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CA 02275020 1999-06-07
provided by US Pat. No. 5,711,515 to Nishimura where parallels
are clamped against the jaws using magnets fastened to the
parallels. This arrangement allows clamping the difficult
workpieces but only at the end of the jaw. Usefulness of this
arrangement is further limited by the requirement to equip every
custom parallel or standard angle blocks with the magnets.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention overcomes the foregoing and other drawbacks
by providing the jaw on the face opposite to mounting face with a
maximum step defined by the ledge and the offset surface. The
offset surface of the jaw is provided with embedded magnets to
attract the parallels or setting gages against it and the ledge
is provided to accurately abut the parallel plates or setting
gages at any location along the longitudinal direction of the
jaw. This arrangement is very versatile since the jaw step
bridges the vise bed ditch completely and since the parallels or
other gages are accurately movable along the length of the jaw. A
narrow workpiece can be thus clamped in the middle of the jaw
without use of parallels. Also, more than one parallel can be set
on the same jaw. The parallels can even have different height.
Therefore difficult workpieces such as "L" or "T" shaped can be
set anywhere in the jaw with full contact area. Furthermore,
standard angle block gages can be set anywhere in the jaws using
an external workstop for setting the gages. The step can also be
completely filled with an appropriate parallel plate thus
converting a step jaw into a full jaw. Another advantage is that
changing the set-up arrangement is quick since no fasteners are
needed.
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CA 02275020 1999-06-07
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
The invention will now be described further, by way of
example only, with reference to the accompanying drawings, in
which:
Fig. 1 is a perspective view of the vise jaw according to
the invention;
Fig. 2 is a cross-sectional view along lines A-A of the vise
jaw illustrated in Fig. 1 shown with an attached parallel plate;
Fig. 3 is a side view of a vise assembly utilizing vise jaws
with attached parallel plates while clamping a workpiece;
Fig. 4 is a front elevational view of a vise jaw clamping an
"L" shape workpiece.
DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED
EMBODIMENTS
According to FIG.1 a generally rectangular vise jaw 1 has a
mounting face 2 and a face 3 opposite to mounting face designed
to accept various setting accessories. Face 3 has a step along
the length of the jaw defined by ledge 4 and by offset surface 5.
Mounting holes 6 are located in the area of offset surface 5 and
extend through the width of vise jaw 1. Typical mounting holes
are counterbored, provided to accept socket head cap screws. Also
in the area of offset surface 5 are located permanent magnets 7
preferably imbedded slightly below the surface 5. As shown in
FIG. 2 the magnet 7 is accommodated in a larger pocket filled
with nonferrous material 8 such as aluminum to separate the
magnets from the surrounding ferrous material. This arrangement
provides undiminished attractive force of the magnet 7 required
to hold parallel plate 9 against surface 5 as shown in Figure 2.
At an installation the parallel plate 9 is attached against
surface 5 while also abutted against ledge 4.
A typical installation of jaws is illustrated in FIG 3. The
vise 10 comprises a fixed member 11 provided at one end of a base

CA 02275020 1999-06-07
12 and a movable member 13 provided in opposite relation to the
fixed member 11 to be able to move back and forth on the upper
surface of the base 14. Vise jaws 1 of the present invention are
bolted respectively to the front surfaces of the fixed member 11
and the movable member 13. When clamping workpiece 15 parallel
plates 9 are used to create sufficient clearance between the
bottom surface 16 of workpiece 15 and the surface of the base 14
to expose the upper portion of the workpiece for machining.
Set-up of a difficult piece such as "L" shaped is shown in
Figure 4. Horizontal leg 18 of "L" workpiece 17 is supported and
accurately aligned by parallel plate 9 which can be positioned
along the length of the jaw 1 while attracted by the magnets
embedded in the jaw and while abbuted to the ledge 4. This allows
the vertical leg 19 as well as horizontal the leg 18 of the
workpiece 17 to be clamped thus providing secure clamping
arrangement. Since ledge 4 of vise jaw 1 spans over ditch 20 of
vise base 12 any workpiece can be set-up also in the middle of
the jaw above ditch 20. Such central location of a workpiece~
provides the most secure clamping since clamping forces are
uniformly distributed over the contact area between the workpiece
and surface 5 of the vise jaw 1.
The above description is an example of simple embodiment
only. Further variation of the same invention can be achieved by
substituting permanent magnets with electromagnets.
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Representative Drawing