Winn Manufacturing’s custom vise jaws help machine shops improve efficiency. 

Custom vise jaws for the Winn Speed Lock 6” vise support faster changes and stronger workholding. We are different from the Kurt Workholding’s DoveLock system. Winn Manufacturing’s vise bolts the jaws directly to the mounting blocks. The Winn Speed Lock 6” vise doesn’t have a master plate. This particular set of vise jaws are 3” tall, which puts more torque and pressure on the jaws’ mounting system for secure workholding.  

As the following operations demonstrate, the Winn Speed Lock 6” vise is more versatile. Winn Manufacturing completed these projects at its Granville, New York (USA) facility and invites you to contact us for more information. We’re not sure if a similar set of custom jaws can be built using a quick-change jaw system with master jaw, but maybe users of Kurt’s DoveLock system will let us know.  

Custom Vise Jaws for Cradling Steel Shafts

The photos above show the steel shaft that we machined using our CNC equipment. The raw material is 3” diameter 1141 cold rolled steel. During the first operation, the material was securely held into a Winn Speed Lock 6” vise with a set of custom jaws. These jaws are made from 1” x 3” x 10” long CRS with two slots that were machined with a 3/4 ball endmill. 

Next, two pieces of 3/4 CRS were bolted into the slots. By creating four points of contact, we could cradle the material. This design was easier to machine than milling a large V into the jaws. The main design element involved holding the 3” stock securely and give us a consistent location of the workpiece. As you can see, our custom vise jaws for cradling steel shafts produced some impressive results. 

The two vises that we used were mounted onto a Makino A55 horizontal CNC with a twin pallet changer. First, the ends of the shafts were machined. Then the 2.500 +/- .001 Hex and a 3/4” diameter hole were drilled and reamed on the other end. (This isn’t shown in the photos above.) Because the material was held so securely, we could aggressively machine the part while still meeting the required tolerances.

Custom Soft Jaws for CNC Lathes

As the photo below shows, the second project involved some machining with our 10” Methods CNC lathe. First, we chucked onto the 2.500 hex with a set of soft jaws with milled flats and a live center in the 3/4” diameter hole in the end. The tolerances weren’t that close. The larger-diameter is held within .003” and the long smaller-diameter has a .002” tolerance.

Note: This operation runs extremely well. The only issue we’ve had was with mist coming off the coolant, but we solved that by installing a Mistaway Mist Collector earlier this year.

Lathe operation completed & waiting to have 12 MM keyway milled in the 1.574 diameter.

The last operation was a simple 12MM keyway on the long small-diameter. We mounted a different set of custom jaws onto one of our Winn Speed Lock 6” vises.  The keyway was milled on one of our CNC vertical milling machines. The parts were packaged at the machine using a paper cap on the threads and a plastic mesh over the whole shaft.

To learn more about how custom vise jaws support faster changes and stronger workholding, contact us.