Overly complicated vise stop

[petertha]

The overly complicated part comes with the clamping mechanism. Its funny how you take a POS hardware store C-clamp for granted. I wanted a shoe that would clamp tightly, accurately & in-line as much as possible with the stop area. That means the foot has to be able to free rotate about the threaded screw. If its fixed to the screw the whole assembly skates sideways as the shoe makes contacts & torques against the surface. There is a reason why clamp feet are designed this way. Many commercial clamp shoes have a ball in socket which nice, but not easy to replicate. Some are just an open cup with a peened over end on the screw.

I machined what looks like a big thumbscrew with 1/4-28 TPI threads from 12L14. The end is tapped 4-40 for a flathead 4-40 screw which retains the brass shoe and a nylon spacer washer. It gets blue Loctite so it retains the right clearance fit. The shoe is countersink so the bolt head sits slightly inside.