Fractal Vise

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davidyat

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I've seen a Fractal Vise before. I would certainly love to have one. Aren't there times when you have that odd piece that takes a while to secure in a vice? Has anyone heard of plans to build one? The only ones I've seen are 3D printed plastic ones. I came across this fellow who makes engraving vices and is supposedly working on having metal ones for sale in the future. And after looking at his prices on other vices, his Fractal Vice is going to be rather expensive.
Grasshopper



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I am waiting to win the lottery. That’s the day I will own one. It’s a shame there are not more on the used market. But I think that is due to not many of them around cause of the cost even back in the old days. And the fact they was very difficult to keep from rusting up and keeping all the moving parts moving I think a lot of the older ones just got tossed in the scrap pile
 
One of the largest reasons for the very high price with these fractal vises would be how there required to be produced and still have the precision and adequate lifespan. Hardening, O.D & I.D. jig grinding and the time involved to do so to all those surfaces and to that level of precision is what drives the price up. I think there an extremely clever and innovative invention. But when used as a milling vise, I suspect there in reality more of a specialty production type piece of tooling than meant for the more one off type part holding that most of us would normally be doing. There also something first invented well before cnc was, so as ajoeiam mentioned, that very high price would sure buy a whole lot of soft jaws. In one way or another, industry seems to have few issues with current methods of part holding using tombstones, dedicated custom fixtures, multiple vices and those soft jaws. But possibly there's a niche market for them I haven't thought of. And with that many high precision moving surfaces, I also suspect they would be an ongoing maintenance item just to keep them clean enough internally and rust free to operate and have the repeatable part positioning as they should. Using a bit of logic, there probably not recommended to be used with any water based coolant at all and straight oil might have to be used instead. Which would be another negative for most high speed part production today. A very cool to have piece of tooling for sure, but the realities and trade offs in use may not match just how useful we may think having one might be.
 

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