making vise clamps on the milling machine

Step 4 Cleaning up the foot

Next I did the "foot" of the clamp, the part that rests on the milling table. This operation cleaned up the hacksaw job & established the height of the clamp. This is probably the most important dimension, but even here there's room for some slop.

I clamped the "long leg" of the workpiece in the vise, being careful to clamp on the straight part of the angle iron, not up near the corner where the thickness changes. I positioned the clamp near the center of the vice to keep the clamping force balanced and avoid twisting the movable jaw.

The desired length of the foot (per the drawing) is 0.875 inch. I knew I cut the foot longer than that with the hacksaw, so there is some spare stock at the end of the foot to work with.

First I squared the bottom of the foot by skimming it with the cutter, just like I squared the long sides in step 3 (except along X in stead of along Y). I cut from the left of the workpiece to the right, to stay with conventional milling.

Once it was flat along the whole bottom of the foot I measured the foot height with calipers (I wiped the reference surfaces with a rag so the swarf wouldnt throw off the reading). This measurement told me how much material I had to remove. I took it off in 0.010 inch cuts until I got within about 0.020, then I measured again and took shallow cuts until I got within 0.005 inch, then I called it good.