Vise System

The invention relates to vises, and particularly to vises which can securely hold a work piece in a wide range of positions and angles in relation to a flat horizontal work surface such as the platen of a drill press.

It is frequently desirable in mechanical work to hold a work piece securely in a variety of positions, particularly to permit the accurate drilling of holes using a drill press. It is often necessary to drill holes perpendicular to a particular plane surface of an irregularly-shaped work piece, or into the end of an elongated work piece, or into a surface at angles other than 90 degrees. To accomplish these operations accurately requires a vise capable of being fastened securely with reference to the drill press platen in a wide range of positions, and which is also pivotable about a horizontal axis. A number of pivotable clamping devices are known, including those disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,633,764; 3,051,473; 3,675,916; and 4,002,328. Of these Pat. No. 2,633,764, issued to Ruser, Apr. 7, 1953, has the most in common with the present invention. The Ruser patent discloses a vise with a pivoting connection at opposite ends to a support. The support is held by a pair of elongated arms to a clamping bar which has a sliding engagement with the arms and can be tightened to secure the support against a drill press platen, and thereby secure the vise in a variety of positions on the surface of the platen. The support can also be moved beyond the edge of the platen, permitting the vise to be rotated to a 90 degree angle from its position on the platen to allow drilling into the ends of elongated work pieces. The Ruser patent, although it does clamp a work piece in a variety of positions on the platen, does not disclose a devise capable of establishing the high degree of stability required to resist the forces inherent in a drilling operation which is intended to produce dimensionlly accurate holes, particularly in the off-platen mode of operation. In addition, Ruser does not address the problem of positioning an irregularly-shaped work piece in order to drill a hole perpendicular to any flat surface, or of drilling accurate holes at angles other than 90 degrees. There is clearly an unmet need for an inexpensive, high precision vise which can be rapidly deployed to hold a work piece in a wide range of orientations in relation to a flat work surface.

It is an object of the invention to provide a vise system which is capable of rapid deployment to securely position a work piece in a wide variety of positions over a flat horizontal work surface.

It is another object of the invention to provide a vise system capable of extending beyond the edge of a flat horizontal work surface to accommodate work pieces in orientations which would otherwise cause interference between the work piece and the work surface.

It is yet another object of the invention to provide a vise system which is capable of securely holding a work piece at a wide range of angles with reference to a drill press spindle while fastened to the platen of the drill press.

It is also an object of the invention to provide a vise system which is capable of accurately locating a flat surface of an irregularly-shaped work piece to permit the drilling of holes by a drill press at precise angles in or with respect to that flat surface.

It is an additional object of the invention to provide a vise system which is capable of accurately and securely positioning a work piece in a wide range of angular relationships with respect to a flat horizontal work surface.

It is a further object of the invention to provide a vise system which has accurate self-indexing surfaces so that a work piece may be rapidly, accurately, and securely positioned to angles of 0, 90, 180, and 270 degrees with respect to a flat horizontal work surface.

It is still another object of the invention to provide a vise system which is rapidly removable from and attachable to a wide variety of flat horizontal work surfaces without necessitating the removal of a work piece from the vise.

An additional object of the invention is to provide a vise system which is configured so as to be usable as a drill fence, whereby a series of holes can be drilled in a work piece at an exactly constant distance from any straight edge of the work piece.

The invention, a vise system, is a clamping device for holding work pieces in a wide range of secured positions and angles with respect to a flat horizontal work surface. The vise system has two sections: a bracket section having a pivoting and sliding adjustment with reference to a bracket bolt threaded into the work surface, which bracket section can be securely fastened to the work surface in a desired position by tightening the bracket bolt; and a vise section which can hold a work piece clamped between a fixed jaw and a movable jaw. The movable jaw slides on slide surfaces of two way members. The slide surfaces also serve to accurately locate any flat surface of a work piece.

The bracket section has a flat end surface which mates with a mating surface on the vise section. The flat end surface and mating surface are both machined to be perpendicular to the work surface. The sections of the vise system are connected together by means of a connecting bolt so as to permit rotation, which connecting bolt projects through a vertical slot in the bracket end piece and threads into a hole in the fixed jaw of the vise section, and which securely holds the sections together in any angular relationship when tightened.

The vise section has four machined surfaces to produce self-indexing angles of 0, 90, 180, and 270 degrees between the plane of the slide surfaces and the work surface when the vise section is made to rest on each of the four machined surfaces, respectively.

FIG. 1 is an isometric view of the vise system attached to the platen of a drill press, showing two alternative modes of operation.

FIG. 2 is an isometric view of the vise system attached to the platen of a drill press showing another mode of operation.

FIG. 3 is a partially disassembled section view of the vise system taken along the section line 3--3 of FIG. 1.

FIG. 4 is a top view of the vise system with the vise in the orientation shown in the solid-line view of FIG. 1, the work piece having been removed and the jaws somewhat closed.

FIG. 5 is a section view taken along the section line 5--5 of FIG. 3.

FIG. 6 is an isometric view of the vise system attached to the platen of a drill press showing an additional mode of operation.

FIG. 7 is an isometric view of the vise system attached to the platen of a drill press showing yet another mode of operation.

Referring now to the drawings, FIGS. 1, 2, 6, and 7 all show the vise system 9 attached to the platen 11 of a drill press, of which only the drill press quill 12 and the support column 35 are shown. The vise system 9 is attached to the platen 11 at the L-shaped bracket section 13. To accomplish this, the bracket bolt 16, connected to its washer 33, is partially threaded into a hole in the platen 11. The circular opening 14 in the base of the bracket section 13, which is of slightly larger diameter than the washer 33, is lowered over the bracket bolt 16 and its washer 33, and the vise system 9 is pushed along the platen 11 toward the bracket bolt 16 so as to engage the shaft of the bracket bolt 16 in the elongated slot 15. When the bracket bolt 16 is then tightened, the bracket section 13, and thereby the entire vise system 9, is securely and immovably clamped onto the platen 11.

The bracket section 13 is connected to the vise section 10 by the connecting bolt 30 (See FIG. 3 or 4), which threads into a hole 32 in the fixed jaw 18 of the vise section 10, and projects through a vertical slot 31 in the end piece 17 of the bracket section 13. By loosening the connecting bolt 30, the vise section 10 can be rotated through 360 degrees with relation to the bracket section 13. By raising the vise section 10 so that the head of the connecting bolt 30 is at the top of the vertical slot 31, this rotation can even be accomplished while the bracket section 13 is clamped to the platen 11.

In the vise section 10, a movable jaw 20 slides upon two way members 22A and 22B. The slide surfaces 27A and 27B upon which the movable jaw 20 slides are machined precisely flat and coplanar with respect to each other, and parallel to the bottom surfaces 36A and 36B of the way members 22A and 22B. The movable jaw 20 is moved toward or away from the fixed jaw 18 by turning the handle 25. Connected to the handle 25 is a threaded shaft 23 which has a rotating connection with the movable jaw 20 on the surface furthest from the fixed jaw 18, and which threads through a hole in the end plate 24 of the vise section 10. The movable jaw 20 extends down between the way members 22A and 22B, and is retained below by a retaining plate 26 by means of retaining screws 29. The retaining plate 26 slides along precisely machined retaining plate slide surfaces 28A and 28B, which are precisely flat and coplanar with respect to each other and parallel to the jaw slide surfaces 27A and 27B. An elongated tongue 21 projects between the way members 22A and 22B to maintain the parallelism of the movable jaw 20 to the fixed jaw 18 under load. Stability of the movable jaw 20 on the way members 22A and 22B is further maintained by dimensioning the movable jaw 20 so that its bottom surface does not reach to the retaining plate slide surfaces 28A and 28B. The space thereby created between the retaining plate 26 and the movable jaw 20 enables an adjustable downward loading to be established by tightening the retaining screws 29, which forces the movable jaw onto the slide surfaces 27A and 27B (See FIG. 5).

FIGS. 1, 2, 6, and 7 illustrate five of the basic modes of operation of the vise system 9. The solid-lined drawing of FIG. 1 shows a basic on-board right-side up orientation. In this mode, the vise system 9 is placed on the platen 11 with the bracket bolt 16 loosely engaging the elongated slot 15. The connecting bolt 30 is loosened, and the vise section 10 allowed to rest on the platen 11 with the bottom surfaces 36A and 36B of the way members 22A and 22B in contact with the platen 11. The connecting bolt 30 is then tightened and the work piece 19A clamped between the movable jaw 20 and the fixed jaw 18, and the work piece 19A positioned as desired under the drill press quill 12. The vise system 9 is then securely attached to the platen 11 in the desired orientation by tightening the bracket bolt 16 while the vise system 9 is stationary on the platen 11. The right-side up orientation, as any other orientation, can also be used in an off-board mode, similar to that illustrated in the phantomed-line drawing of FIG. 1 or in FIG. 2.

The phantomed-line drawing of FIG. 1 shows a 90 degree, off-board mode of operation, particularly useful for drilling into the end of a dowel or other elongated work piece. To obtain this configuration, the vise system 9 is set flat on the platen 11. The connecting bolt 30 is loosened and the vise section 10 is rotated so that it rests on one of its side surfaces which are machined to be perpendicular to the slide surfaces 27A and 27B. The connecting bolt 30 is then tightened, the platen 11 rotated out from under the drill press quill 12 and secured in place, and the vise system 9, its bracket section 13 loosely engaging the shaft of the bracket bolt 16 in the elongated slot 15, is turned so that the vise section 10 projects beyond the edge of the platen 11 beneath the drill press quill 12. The work piece 19B is then clamped between the movable jaw 20 and the fixed jaw 18, and the bracket bolt 16 tightened with the work piece 19B positioned so that the hole will be drilled at the desired location.

The upside-down off-board mode of FIG. 2 can be used to drill perpendicular holes into a flat surface of an irregularly-shaped work piece. The top surface of the vise section 10 is machined parallel to the bottom surfaces 36A and 36B of the way members 22A and 22B. Since the jaw slide surfaces 27A and 27B are also parallel to the bottom surfaces 36A and 36B, the flat section of the work piece 19C which is located against the slide surfaces 27A and 27B is also parallel to the top of the vise section 10. To ensure that the top surface of the vise section 10, and thereby the flat surface to be drilled on the work piece 19C, is parallel to the platen 11 (and thereby perpendicular to the axis of the drill press quill 12), the connecting bolt 30 is loosened while the vise system 9 is lying flat on the platen 11, the vise section 10 is inverted so that the bottom surfaces 36A and 36B are facing up, and the connecting bolt 30 then tightened. When the vise system 9 is then oriented off-board as described above, and the work piece 19C clamped as shown, a perpendicular hole can be drilled into the surface of the work piece 19C which contacts the slide surfaces 27A and 27B. This mode, as any other, can also be used on-board, provided the work piece 19C does not interfere with the platen 11.

The angle mode of FIG. 7 permits drilling at any angle into any non-clamped surface of a work piece 19E. In the illustrated mode of FIG. 7, the top surface of the work piece 19E is being drilled.

The desired angle is obtained by loosening the connecting bolt 30 while the bracket section 13 is securely clamped to the platen 11, and lifting the vise section 10 so that the connecting bolt 30 is at the top of the vertical slot 31 in the bracket end plate 17. In this position, when the vise section 10 is rotated relative to the bracket section 13, angle settings can be read off of a protractor 34 scribed into the mating surface of the vise section 10. When the desired angle is obtained, the connecting bolt 30 is tightened and the hole can be drilled.

FIG. 6 illustrates the drill fence mode of operation of the vise system 9. The vise system 9 is so constructed that when it is in the right-side up mode, the right and left side surfaces of the bracket section 13 form continuous planes with the right and left side surfaces, respectively, of the vise section 10. If one of the side surfaces thus formed is abutted against a straight edge of a work piece 19D laid on the platen 11, a series of holes can be drilled in the work piece 19D at a constant distance from the abutted straight edge by sliding the work piece 19D along the securely clamped vise system 9.

All of the modes shown in the drawings involve the platen 11 of a drill press. However, by the simple expedient of threading a bracket bolt 16 in a hole in any flat horizontal surface, such as a work bench, the vise system 9 can be used in a variety of ways, and moved, still clamping the work piece if desired, from one flat horizontal surface to another and clamped thereto.

The embodiment of the vise system shown and described is the preferred embodiment. However, other embodiments are possible which would accomplish the objects of the invention within the contemplation of the inventors. No limitations should be implied from the drawings or descriptions herein, and the scope of the invention should not be otherwise limited except as required by the scope of the appended claims.