Surface Grinder/surface plate

Hello all,

I just picked up an old kurt 8" vise for $90 and I was looking to bring it back into spec. Right now parts of the vise ways look like is was used as an anvil. My plan was to fill those deeper holes in with some metal epoxy. Then grind off the surface to get it flat along with the bottom surface and jaws.

I know maker space doesnt have a surface grinder but do we have a surface plate so I can check the flatness? And does anyone know a good place to get the parts resurfaced?

Thanks,
John

hello. We do have a surface grinder but it is not in operation yet.
The surface plate is located beside the cold saw and behind the rollers. We have a height gauge
which will also be useful for checking flatness in the tool box.

We do have a surface grinder and a granite surface plate. The surface grinder is just not in service yet

In regards to the surfaces:

  • Flatness is one parameter
  • Orthogonality and parallelism to the mill table are critical

I believe the 3 surfaces on our Kurt at the end of the vise are square within .0002". Parallelism on the inside bottom of the vise is critical as when parts are located against it they are parallel to the table.

We have a small metal surface plate you could set the vise on, using a height gauge and .0001" test dial indicator you could probably get a good estimate of how much wear there is and what the parallelism is as well as flatness/contour.

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Hmm I might have to pick your brain on how to approach this. I am new to maching and just watched a couple of videos people did on repairing these. I understand how I can make the vise parallel to the mill and but I dont clearly understand how to make it perfectly perpendicular to the mill. I am also assuming most of the wear on the vise comes from the sliding parallel edges

What time do we anticipate the surface grinder to be operational?

Ooohh @TBJK, I like John’s enthusiasm. Could we get it running tomorrow by 2? :wink:

John, I’m very eager to get it running as well. I did a bit of a cleaning on it the other night. See here. https://talk.dallasmakerspace.org/t/surface-grinder-status/60629/10

Lol, by time I was think more in terms of months. I dont know much about these machines but I know they are expensive and a pain the ass to repair.