Adam tunes and modifies his fractal vise to improve its already impressive gripping powers! If you've ever wondered how these marvels of clamping worked, today is the perfect day to find out as Adam has to fully disassemble this vise to smooth out the movements of its individual semi-circles. But Adam goes further in adding even more granular teeth to those half moons, making it possible for the vise to comfortably grab ahold of a glass soda bottle!
Adam unboxing this fractal vise: • Adam Savage in Awe of ...
Fractal vise: www.alibaba.com/product-detai...
Reversing an Accidental Bend (OK, Many): • Reversing an Accidenta...
Shot by Adam Savage and edited by Josh Self
Music by Jinglepunks
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#adamsavage #onedaybuilds #machining
Hey Adam, I've done a LOT of work with drilling and cutting glass. To prep it, you need to add a strip of packing tape over the area, the stickier the better, this helps to reduce cracks. Second tip is use an abrasive bit rather than a cutting bit Or a bit with a lot of shallow flutes, there was a brand that made a 7 flute, with 0.1mm flute depth, used to rip through bottles like nothing. Third tip is to fill the bottle with water, this increases the internal strength of the bottle, the water gives a little bit of a push back on the glass and stops heat fractures from occurring.
Also using water or something similar on the cutting surface to help cool and keep the silica dust down. Every time you blew on the dust I screamed quietly inside. Inhaling glass dust is incredibly bad for you. Silicosis is horrible.
@@therenaissancetinker2972 Yeah, either some putty to keep water inside the cutting area OR a spout constantly. Any time I'm grinding anything that's hard and creates micro abrasives I tend to only do either completely submerged or with a copious amount of water running over it. I was also freaking out about the blowing, vacuumed would be a step up but still not ideal.
glad i'm not the only glass guy in here that noticed that lol
@@hogandromgool2062 yeah my go to is underwater for this type of thing. I retrofitted my old dynacut saw with continuous water flow. Even they I wear a respirator when cutting. After 20 years of scientific glass and lathe work I’ve learned the hard way not to take chances with your lungs or eyes.
@@ryanschindler923 oh I was absolutely horrified. I expect better than that from Adam and this channel in general.
Tip for others: always use water when cutting glass. On the second slot you can see the bottle cracked. Glass is very prone to cracking from the acute temperature difference of the 'cold' portion to the heated portion that is being cut/worked (glass is an insulator so the temperature difference will build and then crack easily). Its also much safer to keep the silica dust to a minimum - that stuff is very bad for humans.
Damn you science with your thermophysics!
I was thinking this as he went in dry and cringing as I waited for a crack or explosion. It definitely chipped but went better than I anticipated.
Always use water, and use a grinding tool, not a cutting tool. Diamond-coated bits are really cheap. The thermal regulation of the water also helps keep the diamond grit from overheating and potentially melting out the medium it's embedded in, as well as washing away the dust created. The reason for the chipping is because, using a tool with edges, you're essentially doing micro-knapping of the glass, making tiny chips via percussion, rather than actually scraping away the material as you would with a grinding cutter, or cutting chips as you would in more flexible materials like metal.
@@themeandrousengineer I was squinting the whole time, wish I had safety glasses nearby just to enjoy watching better :)
Came here to say this, lots of coolant needed!
Hey Adam, I've (re-)scraped mill ways - i.e. sliding metal surfaces - down to micron precision / smooth sliding. The lapping (and hammering) you've done is okay only as a first step - to get them to stop binding / interfering. After that, further lapping actually will make the sticktion worse! That's because the lapping motion is creating scratches aligned with the in-use motion. You want any scratches in a sliding surface at an angle to the in-use motion. The 'proper' technique is to lightly blue up one surface (the better/larger surface), make an imprint on the other sliding surface and scrape the high spots at a ~45 deg angle. But scraping small _round_ surfaces with any precision is very difficult: 1) you'll have false imprinting from inserting the part and it slightly rocking 2) scraping tools are designed for flat scraping so they'll immediately mess up the geometry 3) Any scraping increases clearance and play (which can result in binding under load). What I'd recommend is lightly buffing the sliding surfaces (at an angle) with a rotary tool for fine control.
As far as lubrication goes, I would use a molybdenum disulfide (aka moly) grease with this to protect against galling or binding up when under pressure. Moly greases are great for just about anything, but they're actually specifically used for applications where two metal surfaces are sliding against each other under great pressures. Really slather it on every square inch and then worry about squeeze-out later. Also, as far as lapping it goes, I would do it again with something in the ballpark of 600-800 grit and then work your way up to the ~2000 grit range from there. Definitely be careful not to overdo it or expect it to be perfect in one pass, you don't want to end up with a noticeably sloppier fit. End with a polish that will result in a mirror sheen, something you might already have like flitz is good.
Used to work on aircraft, was looking for this answer.
Would love to see a video where you make a flat edge from scratch (without using edge). The phenomenon you described sounds genuinely fascinating.
Ya I was trying to think about it. Seems pretty easy to demonstrate. Is there a name for this process?
@@mikeg1433”whitworth 3 plate method”, that’s what I’ve seen it referred to as
Oxtoolco has a fantastic, detailed series on the making of precision lapping plates! Check it out: kzhead.info/sun/paymo7V9eKpnaac/bejne.htmlsi=PYq2R6XKHjxj1pLZ
How did the Egyptians and Aztecs flatten all those rock surfaces to mirror each other on several faces 😳🤯
It would be terribly boring. While I'm sure Adam would make it entertaining by geeking out about it, the fact is that you're just rubbing plates together over and over.
Part of the issue is that you lapped the jaws then milled them which distorted the shape. I would have milled the jaw tips THEN lapped them, but not with Diamond paste. You'll have to re-lap all the surfaces now to get them mated again. I wish I could afford one of those fractal vises. They are totally handy.
Yep, wrong order.
I immediately noticed that and I bet if he watched this back would realize the order issue. forest for the trees moment.
my thoughts, run the vise jaws together and machine the slots as “holes” in each set. That would make holding the jaws easy as well as mating the opposite jaws with the slots.
@@ryanlukens9280 Same problem though, very high chance of the metal warping from heat or even just the removal of material. very likely would need to be lapped again anyways.
are we sure he did? He was still lapping while machining the slots. But even then, it might not matter. He is removing a lot of (unneeded) stiffness so the final small jaws may just conform to the socket under pressure, depending on material of course.
Watching you mill that slot in a bottle was hands down the most anxiety inducing thing I've ever seen. It was like reverse ASMR haha
To cut the groove in the smallest segments, you could also clamp pairs of them together face to face, then use a drill to bore down the center. Once they're taken out of the clamp, you'd have a nice semi-circular groove running down the middle of each face.
As soon as you started milling the doodads, you were undoing your lapping by deforming the metal. Do the course shaping first, then the fine surface adjustments. Also, I think the quick lapping results (changing sound, smoother motion) you were getting was just the compound getting spread out evenly. You've got to do wayyyy more lapping to get the surfaces matching. Finally, after thorough cleaning (ultrasonic bath in isopropyl alcohol), don't ding them together in your impatience. A small dab of PTFE grease, work it into the groove, assemble, clamp!
I'd just leave the lapping compound in there for a month or so while I used it lol. Is it the correct way? No, but it's the easiest.
Yep, messed up all that initial work by milling it afterward. Also likely milled the slots way too deep and compromised the strength of the pieces. Each time it's used with any force now those smaller pieces are likely to deform. And using it on a mill will get all sorts of junk in the moving parts too.
Yes I have been lapping things for years and that was most definitely either larger bits of the compound being crushed OR just being spread out a bit. Could also just be random crud that's fallen in being cut down into a paste also. Could also be machine lines ribboning off into the compound as there are some still visible on them when he started. If something is lapped nicely it often stops making noise and falls about just by gravity alone. First time I lapped precision parts I thought something was wrong with the compound I swapped o midway through after a few hours because it stopped making noises so I continued until I thought it had had enough but unfortunately I should have realized the lack of sound was the surfaced no longer grinding and that was a finished product. The part ended up way out of spec, floppy and sad. Very disappointing. The other thing to consider is his parts were lapped, modified and warped then put back together without lapping. In my opinion that's reverse order of operations. I also don't think WD-40 is a good compound to use on something like this too, it works well for low clamping forces but it loses all it's viscosity under pressure, think grease as stated would make a huge difference.
Even sharpening knives requires way more time to get the edges aligned, and that's a lot less surface area with more pressure and more grit. Should have left the compound in and articulated all of the joints at once in all directions. Would take a long time.
@@hogandromgool2062i have no experience lapping but what you said makes sense. But I don't think it was WD-40, just WD-40 branded white lithium grease.
it's pretty standard practice to put a support block under the work piece while it is in the vise to prevent the mill cutter from pushing the work piece down in the vice like what happened to the bottle. This prevents Z-axis variance.
Maybe a third fractal vice jaw would make a good support (facing up from underneath). Maybe a custom one so it isn't as tall.
@@vodiak Over-engineering a solution. A simple piece of scrap wood will do, in most cases, you want something sacrifical just incase you blow through the work piece or make a mess with coolants.
Thanks for the confirmation. It felt like the obvious solution, but I’m always prepared for the “surprise! that’s a terrible idea, here’s why”
I'd suggest some machinist jacks. Good side project if he doesn't have any already. Lathe work and some milling tasks.
@@peterward2875 my exact thought, even a tapped hole in some round stock with a cap screw can do the job.
Thank you for talking about the origin of precision. I do hand tool woodworking sometimes and I have sometimes pondered how they achieved something like the flatness I desire on my tools, but I never really pondered it enough to draw a conclusion. As soon as you mentioned the three rocks, it started to make sense and I knew what you meant before you explained it.
Well worth googling and watching videos on, precision engineering.
@@jaysunbradygood point! Thanks for giving me an idea of what to put on tonight.
I love the rawness you can almost feel the vibes of the shops when it's not a heavily edited video
Those grooves you've made, perfect for a little insert of rubber. Would hold slippery objects like that bottle so much better!
Had a similar thought; hard surface to hard surface is inherently slippery, especially when smooth.
A large part of why this is modified shape is better is that when grabbing the object, the contact points of the vice are pushing on the edges of the rotatable part. This makes it rotate and align before grabbing. To work correctly I think the rubber would have to be on top of the fingers of those grabby lego hands he made!
You could also just glue on rubber grips, that would be, like, way simpler, lmao.
Being the cheep o i am, my first thought was for permanent sort of rubber, you could use some bed-liner, but for temp use as a soft vice, just some cuts of the right sized vacuum hose i think would be perfect.
Or a big rubber band around each side of the vice?
Tool Makers opinion: Definitely start with a way lower grit. You gotta do all the surface correction in the first lap. All following steps of lapping with finer compound should only be to remove the scratches of the pervious grit. Its impossible for me to know exactly what grit you should start with, but basically the worse the surfaces are the more course you gotta start. Contact dye like prussian blue are good for checking how much material need to come off. Also, go for a thicker grease over way lube. And dont breath the glass dust!
100% on the glass dust. Silicosis is currently incurable, but may be preventable.
@@yobgodababua1862 yup, when he blew the dust and you saw all the glinty surfaces catch the light I was thinking silicosis all the way.
@@yobgodababua1862 You reminded me of the kid in elementary school who could say 'pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis'. It was very impressive.
@@lasagnahog7695 Thank you, and I have never said that word, but I did bring up the permittivity of free space in casual conversation yesterday.
@@yobgodababua1862that's the type of conversation I like!
One of my favorite lubricants to at least try in uncertain applications is both hydraulic oil and high temp bearing grease. Sometimes the bearing grease can be a bit sticky but a mix of both really can be a surprisingly good lubricant.
Hey Adam, I enjoy watching your videos and how you explain things in a plain and simple manner. Thank you for that. I have a suggestion that may or may not be easily implemented. I've seen some other videos about old (late 1800s / early 1900s) fractal vises that use grease ports to provide constant lubricity to the different fractal components. I say "grease ports" but it may be more advantageous to use a thinner grease or even a thick oil. Just a thought. I design oil wells and components for the largest oil field services company in the world (SLB) and grease ports are used regularly to provide lubrication to areas that would otherwise not be able to get or keep the needed lubrication for the parts to move properly. I hope this suggestion helps. Again, many thanks for continuing to make these videos. 🙂
I want a compilation of every time Adam's camera holder has fallen over lol
That would be a long video
ive thought about this and then naming it "POV: youre far too drunk in adams shop"
You’re not wrong.
And sync it to Mr Blue Sky by ELO.
@@absolutEVEL Or "You're falling asleep, but Adam keeps waking you up."
you should cover the vice surface with tape to protect from "dust" once you have clamped the shape, helps keep the mated surfaces clean.
Hmmmm, maybe something like saran wrap would be even better, less 'messy'?
@@fewwiggleno adhesive would be good, but it would be unlikely for it to stick anyway because these types of things are kept with a light oil coating that will make it so few adhesives will actually hold well.
Generally, precision slotting would come with a intermediate step of loosening the vice and then reclamping for a finished cut. It lets the material stress relieve a bit from having such a large amount removed. It was cool to see you playing with a fractal vice. Those are interesting workholding devices. A slip fit assembly isn't really going to be improved by lapping compound, because it is effectively removing clearance and creating a vacuum. I always wondered if it was possible to create a workholding device with a series of movable pins or ball bearings. Creating a truly universal/repeatable vice would eliminate the conventional practice of simpy milling the shape into aluminum jaws, so it's a relevant topic. The trick is something that gives enough to hold the shape but retains the repeatable reference surface like a solid jaw.
"Toothpaste is a lapping compound for your internal face parts" just might have to be my new favorite quote of yours.😂
Luxury bones
Don't use it on your brain lol
Cheap toothpaste works pretty good as polishing compound. You have to use it with power, ideally an orbital buffer, but a drill works as well. It's more abrasive than you'd think tbh. Also the fancier toothpaste doesn't work as well, you want the cheap stuff.
Lapping creates more surface contact area. It makes it more important to have a lubricant that can handle the high pressure with a very thin film. I'm not sure what that would be but maybe something with Teflon like Tri-Flow. Also, cleaning in an ultrasonic cleaner might be better than using the parts cleaner.
I was going to suggest the same. Or some kind of PTFE lube.
Yeah, making the surface perfectly smooth is great, but still need a "bearing". In this case, lube.
Graphite powder.
Also, for mating surfaces, 1000 grit is pretty rough, 3000 grit or higher would be better. After 3000 grit, you quickly get to diminishing returns. The oil would need to be viscous as well. That way, it doesn't get pushed out of the joints over time. Is there a high viscosity, low friction, low shear force oil that is safe to use in a shop?
molybdenum disulphide
Adam, I just want to say you are such an amazing speaker. You are so engaging when you speak and so evidently love what you do its really inspiring. I hope you find that encouraging! Ever since a kid all I wanted to be was a mythbuster, now I'm in dental school but I still love making things and do a little mytbusting on the side haha. Thanks for the years of fun!
I know that in heavy constructions when they want to minimize friction they use plate liquid soap for it. Also, I would probably soften the edges on the inside of the channel instead of the outside. Letting the outside intact it is more far away from the center of rotation in the semi-circles and as such more force would be applied when closing the vice (as a lever) - alowing it to rotate easier.
Did you polish the undersides after stamping the letters? If not, that could be an additional source of friction as there will be small ridges around each letter.
Definitely would be. There's always vertical protrusion around a stamp mark .
This got 100+ likes 😂 🤦♂️
Excellent catch!
Do they actually touch anything though? I don't see a point of contact for them
@@MelodicTurtleMetal I am not certain, but I do remember Adam saying that the stamped letters face downwards when it is assembled.
You will need to re-lap the parts that bent. Also consider adding lubrication bearing groove on the sides you are lapping. On very small parts that need to move freely under compression you need to lower surface contact and use high viscosity grease between them. Just a thought from someone who works on a lot of small gun parts.
Your enthusiasm is wonderful to behold. “A slot in a bottle” - child like joy. Yes, you have two lungs but it’s easier if you have both. Pre-filtering the glass dust would be good to see.
I use to work for a guy that did lights and sound for big concerts. The motors they use are a high pressure because the load on the chain can squeeze the normal oil out so there is a special kind of oil can try
Man, those cuts of where the video is sped up but the audio continues at the same pace is top notch 😙👌
This isn't hard to do... like, at all. But hey, if you're impressed by simple things, so be it.
Yeah, but it's just a cool choice to make and worth appreciating
A classic Tested editing trick! I loved it the first time I heard it used, and it rewards every time.
@@VielofDarkness Do you also hate on people who enjoy sunsets and cold glasses of water?
@@thekingoffailure9967 I'm sorry, did I fray your sensitive safe-space boundaries? It's not Hate to identify simple tasks for what they are... simple.
What continues to bring me back are not only the stories told during the work but the absolute and pure joy Adam takes in doing the work. It's fascinating to watch and something I wish were far more common. Please continue to bring this sort of joy to all of us Adam. Thank you.
Valve lapping compound should give better results, as I understand the grit breaks down as you use it, resulting in a finer grit as the part smooths. As for the lubrication, any grease with molybdenum will perform well under pressure.
Adam, the finer lapping means you end up with the perfectly flat surfaces on gauge blocks, and any movements the individual half-circles make when you tighten the vise ends up wringing them together. You are almost better off making the pieces fit together more loosely and filling the voids with a light oil. Also the inside cuts you put in each of the smallest semicircles don't appear to be smoothed and that might cause you some scratches down the road. Those cut-outs will also reduce the amount of friction holding the work piece in place, as you can see with that glass bottle--it kept slipping whenever you applied force. You could add a thin rubber strip across each of the small circles (bridging over the cut-outs) and that might help. Or if you want a little more fun with fractals, mirror one side of your vise and put it on the underside to perfectly support your workpiece when you need to press down on it.
Be aware that diamond lapping compound will not break down like the other traditional lapping compounds and can wear the two surfaces potentially forever. Diamond compound should only be used with a dedicated tool that precisely mates the part to be lapped. The diamond particles will embed themselves, both in the tool and the work and not go away. You are better off using a compound such as carborundum or aluminum oxide on the tool, which should be softer than the work so that it stays embedded in the tool and not in the (harder) work.
Speaking of diamonds, a diamond tipped bit would probably work better for cutting glass.
@@writerpatrickAs someone who has “drilled” glass, a diamond coated bit or the Dremel double helix work equally well. The main thing to remember is that you grind glass not drill it. As Adam was slotting, my hope was that he was going slow enough for heat to dissipate and freaking out about not having any grinding lube on it. In my experience he was lucky to only have a relatively few flakes come off.
Even worse is the fact that his parts washer now contains diamond lapping compound and will contaminate everything he washes in it.
@@GrayRaceCatFOREVER
There's decent evidence that diamond abrasive actually doesn't last nearly as long as you would expect when used with steel, particularly low carbon steel. This is almost certainly not low carbon, but likely still would exhibit some of that excessive wearing tendency. It's been long hypothesized that the iron and carbon of the diamond are forming iron carbide. There's some research that suggests it may be due to other mechanisms. Either way, it's pretty well evidenced that iron does actually wear diamonds away, so that grit will not stick around forever.
You might also add a horizontal slot/groove in the face pieces in order to hold objects rounded in that direction.
I actually came here to say just that!
Good Thought!
Totally agree. The smooth metal aids in vertical slipping as we saw with the bottle. The only other thing that could of been done would be to of put something beneath the bottle so it had a termination in movement. Alternatively changing the caliper design of the two surfaces that move towards each other would solve this same problem. Currently it is two books or plates on either side that move towards each other. If it was changed to one long but narrow plate in the middle from one side and then a matched groove in a long book from the other side such that they move through each other smoothly. The vice would maintain a mating surface beneath the jaws at all distances while still allowing them to clamp even a thin object.
Of course, thinking further the complication from this would be the pivot point. Will probably need to maintain a groove in the middle for the pivot area of the vice and work outside of that for the two plates to mesh next to each other from either side essentially with a tongue and groove.
I was going to recommend cross hatches in the faces.
20:20 if you want your glass bottle not to move downwards put a block of wood under it that acts like a stop, just make sure your stop is a smaller width than the bottle. Yes polishing the surface with an abrasive works, as you call it lapping or honing for cylindrical devices. If you want ultra smooth action without having to grease or oil the fractal vise ever again you could sleeve the halfmoons with Teflon. My old man made this modification to his fractal vise back in the 90's & it worked really well especially for oil free environments also Teflon has very good heat resistance. I remember the good old days when I was a kid in my dad's machine shop solving problems by modifying tools to perform a specific task, fun times & learned a lot as a teen. So I see you caught the machinist bug Adam, when you have a new tool you start think of ways of making it better.😁😁keep up the great workshop content.
Adam, always do a 8 movement when sanding or stone sanding a part, you uniformly apply pressure and eliminate the risk of making a curve when sanding back and for.
24:22 Lapping followed by warping. It seems to me... that that undid all the precision gained by lapping.
Yes, it seems like after warping those parts then fixing them with a hammer he needed to lap them a second time.
After lapping the surfaces to created mated sets, the parts need to be roughened to give the grease some place to stay or it will be squeezed out. Also a lithium grease with molybdenum, I recommend Mobilgrease XHP 462 Moly, will ensure low friction between parts even at high clamping pressures.
I love Adam so much, this guy is not only a genius but he takes so much pleasure in just rubbing his tools together
"I'm just rubbing parts together" - Adam Savage, 2023
Never change, Mr. Savage. Thank you for making my childhood so amazing, and still in my adulthood. You and Jaime were and are some of my favorites to have ever walked the earth. And rip, Grant.
I use those rubber gripper things (meant for opening jars) all the time to aid in me holding onto, or to aid in clamping irregular objects. They really have a lot of uses I've found. The bottle at the end was sinking from the press... if you put a strip of rubber like I mentioned around it or on either sides it would be held tight and gripped, wouldn't sink. Cheers!
this is where insert for jaws instead of machined grooves would've been perfect. Make some from an old drive belt.
@@idontwantcorporateretaliat6301Hey, different inserts? Great idea.
As others have mentioned, a graphite or molybdenum disulphide dry lube would probably be the best. You can also mix it with a light oil to carry it, I used to use the "graphoil" on manual typewriters when they were a thing. It's messy as hell but works well.
Or buy a spray can of Molybond 122L…
As a locksmith and key cutter we recommend to puff graphite into locks that are sticky instead of wd40 or similar as itll clog/bind up over time with bits of grit and grime in the lube, where as graphite 'laps' the surfaces and make the lock much smoother
@@leepullon1147 Graphite accelerates corrosion on ferrous metals… A bit of caution is required regarding materials compatibility…
I would avoid graphite if it may be used around oils. graphite is great for a dry vise but when cutting oil is introduced it makes a paste that can bind once dried and restrict movement. I personally use a dry Teflon lube for my vices and screws on my cnc and mill. have to reapply every few weeks but never had a case where i needed to take apart and brush parts clean since i swapped over.
@allangibson8494 Normally you'd be correct but typically in the UK our locks are made from copper and zinc. Stainless and other materials are used for the cam and casing so wouldn't be much of a factor as the important materials are non ferrous
Adam, if you've never played with a Belgium bit setup, it's fun. The bits are hollow with a diamond abrasive, and you pump water through them while you drill. The bits thread into a housing that chucks into the drill, into which you pump the water. Not all that complicated. I've used them a lot for drilling glass jewelry, but I don't know how safe milling sideways would be!
As soon as Adam mentioned the friction between the jaw elements my first thought was to lap them. 😅 The bedding resulting from the lapping makes it smooooooth.
18:05 made me chuckle out loud. “Not perfect but good enough” from the man who just lapped 28 ways with 1k lapping compound. I would love for Adam to spend a whole video on the concept of “good enough”. I train my staff that “good enough” is when you’re tired of working on it and “they” are tired of waiting for it.
"Good enough"... when it's to the standard "they" are paying for, which isn't always the best standard "I" can work too.. I can make it better, but they're not going to pay anymore for it (in my line of work anyway).
Once you realize perfection is utterly impossible, the only task is to define "good enough"
I suspect that by taking the edges off each of the grippers you’ve reduced the length of the lever when they touch the item being held so it’s harder for them to adjust.
I was thinking the same. That reduced the surface area in contact with the object being held. Maybe a vice with yet another row of half moons?
Maybe add a rubber surface that would slightly deform to grab the item better.
Yep, Adam should have talked to Hand Tool Rescue, I feel like HTR realized that issue with the lever length in one of his videos about the vice.
Yup. That extra width provided a lot of leverage to help rotate the teeth into place. Taking the corner off reduces the leverage and also allows the tooth to actually rotate the wrong way to "grab" on the beveled edge face.
Agreed. Now that the edge is gone the teeth have to reach farther to make contact.
I'm using REMS spezial thread cutting oil for almost everything. This stuff is amazing for lubrication. It's so fine that as soon as you put it on anything, it flows into even the smallest gap.
You Adam are my Idol since I was 4 and me and my dad used to watch the og mythbusters series. Now I'm 17 and I want to thank you for giving me the curiosity to study engineering(it is my passion since then). P.s. sorry for my bad English, I'm Italian😂
Did you lap the jaws to the surface of the vice? You mentioned it wasn't as smooth after assembled and that seems like a possible reason. For something like that you might gt better results with a surface plate. Very interesting. I would also advise against cutting glass without water. The fine silica dust is very bad for your insides, eyes, everything. When you cut or shape glass in other crafts, its always under water to prevent that dust from going airborne.
yeah, i worried even before he began the milling whether there was at least a mask involved. and then i kept hearing the blowing away of dust. i'm not sure whether it was the compressor all through out, sounded rather like mouth blown. adam should consider designing something that reminded him of his psa every now and then...
Greetings Adam it is a pleasure and privilege to help one that was such a motivation. You have lapped all the fractal parts. Yet you overlooked the interface of the fractal head and the main vice body. I noticed it looked to possibly be rubbing on and snagging the lower body, yet when you pulled it out and checked it worked fine. To me that points to that last interface between those two parts. Much respect from a fellow maker Kitsuntuar.
No idea as to the exact grit but I use finely powdered aluminum oxide (I think the supplier is Fisher) when polishing ion optics, you can use whatever lubricant (or solvent masquerading as) you want.
You want the contact points to either not move as the clamp rotates or move freely. I think a set of bearings as the last layer in the fractal would work well.
Graphite powder on all contact surfaces should help take care of the remaining points of friction. Then cleaning debris from the parts in an ultrasonic bath after use on the mill will prevent uneven wear. I hope to some day watch you machine a variety of holding jaws to fit the 16 dovetail semi-circles of this vice! Possibly some with knurled faces to prevent the slipping you experienced with the glass bottle. Maybe a set with interchangeable faces via set screw so you can hold delicate items with rubber or silicone jaw faces.
Other modding tips (that may have already been mentioned by others in the comments): Add a rubber coating strip accross the center of the teeth, this will help with gripping objects that are very smooth (like the glass bottle, which kept getting pushed down as you were trying to drill through) Add a lever bar to that twist lock mechanism And a safety tip, have a hoover next to your drill bit when drilling glass, that glass dust you're spraying everywhere cannot be healthy, please stay safe 😭
^ This. A huge amount of surface area was removed from the teeth of the vice so it would be good to add back some additional forces
use an aluminum welding rod, you're welcome
These are the coolest vises ever made! I’ve been looking for a good deal on one forever.
The lube type you ask about is like high pressure grease like those special for ball screw splines. I don't think this device is getting to those pressures though. THK has their AFG grease that I use for high pressure ball and linear bearings and it works well. I think with this on a mill though, you'll want a lower viscosity lubricant to help leak out particulates from building up and causing galling in your tracks. The issue with a vise like this is you cannot seal your your rails and they will just simply require more frequent cleaning and lubrication.
If you make the surfaces too flat you're going to get "sticktion". You need there to be small valleys for lube, debris, and air to prevent the surfaces from clinging together like a gage block. Its why you don't perfectly scrape down machine ways. You just flatten the peaks and then flake it to hold way oil.
I have used “gription” before, “sticktion” is new! Thank you, lol!
@@beeumble6450Sticktion is a very common term in the mountain biking world. It's used to refer to "stickiness" in suspension components (forks, etc.). I doubt we made it up; it probably was used by various motorsports before we started to use it.
@@robadams1645 The word dates back to the 1940s. First used by aero engineers.
I'd personally try making the parts out of brass or bronze alternating with steel. You generally get less friction between dissimilar metals and those two are good bearing materials by themselves. That way it might be able slide without lubrication. Then again, that would be rebuilding most of the vice, so quite the effort and the material would be more expensive.
@@beeumble6450 I don't know where it came from. Every time I've heard it it was always in reference to machined surfaces sticking together. I think its really spelled "stiction". Stick-slip is also kind of the same thing.
I might be wrong, but I always thought that perfectly smooth surface's aren't as slippery. That's why you lap valves (perfect seal) and hone cilinders (small grooves retain oil and therefore less friction)
honing cylinders is mostly to create a surface where the oil will have space and sticks better ( you never wan't the oil film to break ). perfectly smooth can be rather different, depending on the applied forces, surface, material and smoothness. you can get stuff so smooth it cold welds together, not slippery any more then... when applying force, often you compromise because friction throgh irregularities is varying so much that you get jumpy behaviour, so you trade "not as slippery as it could get" for consistency in slipperiness
Even at 1000 grit the surface isn't going to be perfectly smooth and will still be loaded with micro surface scratches which you can see in the fact that they're not polished to a mirror shine. This should be plenty of oil-holding for such a low speed application.
They are "stickier" they suction together. That's where the grease comes in. The choice of WD-40 instead of grease actually makes this suction FAR worse. If you get two pieces of glass and put oil on them then rub them together they will stick together. Grease them next and you'll see they do "stick" but they aren't suctioned together like the oiled ones are. Take apart any mechanical equipment hat has honed surfaces, there will NEVER be oil, always grease because it has micro-particulate in it that artificially makes the surface irregular enough to slide freely. Graphite powder is one of the best lubricants because of how small it's particle size is, it's used for a lot of precision surfaces.
Makes sense--that's why mill and lathe ways are scraped rather than sanded.
Hey Adam. I particularly love the videos of you working on individual tools or parts of your shop, e.g., this video or the one where you made the drill bit cart and hammer stand. Was wondering if you could do a video talking about your shop infrastructure for power, water, gas, compressed air, dust collection, etc. Looking for some inspiration with setting up these systems in my own cave. Thanks, and great video as always!
For high pressure sliding surfaces I always use molybdenum disulfide grease. Doesn't smell that nice, but the 6 ton pill press has never been happier since we switched to it
I think the smallest fractals should have rounded tips instead of flat. The flat tips grab at irregular areas, but rounded ones will manage to compensate and turn until they cant, if that makes sense. Cutting the groove was a great start, but to have the least resistance, you'll need to round them at the tip. My thoughts on the compound is, I wouldn't continue to higher grits. 1000 is probably more than enough. I also think some of the noise you heard when you first started lapping was actually the compound particles grinding until they were mostly dust. My fear with running higher and higher grits is that you wont get a better fit. You'd actually likely get a sloppier fit because the original milled surfaces were cut to a certain tolerance and keyed so the parts fit together without falling apart. By lapping them, you'll make those keyways wider and make the fit sloppier. I would suggest using a higher viscosity oil between the parts to take up the slack you're creating.
Problem with smaller semi's having rounded edges, is you're decreasing contact area ALOT at that point. With perfectly rounded edges, they'd account for a total contact patch of less than 1 of those semi's as it is now. Imo what would work better is dipping the tips in silicone to get a thin film to give it more grip on the piece.
@@ianvisser7899 except, I dont think you technically want more "grip" in the classic sense. The vise isn't gripping the object like a normal flat faced vise would. You notice that, as you tighten the vise, it is conforming to the shape, instead of the shape conforming and adjusting to the vise. On a normal flat faced vise, the object you put in it will adjust to a point where it is evenly gripped at a couple points and will balance in the middle. The pressure will be different, where the vise touches the object and less on the places it doesn't. This causes stress on the object. On a fractal vise, the vise conforms to the shape of the object to reduce the amount of pressure in one given area. If you were to measure the pressure in any given area, it would be close to the same, regardless of where you are gripping. Silicone padding on the vise would alter that and make the vise grab in places that you wouldn't necessarily want. You want the vise to essentially roll into place, not grab the first spot it touches.
@@timothymallon Not quite, it would still rotate and conform to the shape, but with the little bit of compressible material, that happens to be very grippy, it would prevent scars on the piece from overtightening, it would allow for a tighter grip on the same locations, while also giving more vertical grip, which on a conventional vise would be gnarling of the faces to prevent the piece from slipping down as pressure is applied. As you can see with the fractal vise on the bottle, the moment pressure is applied, the smooth surfaces of the vise contact area and the bottle slip, thus not alot of vertical friction, that's the main purpose of silicone on the tips of the semi's, to give it a higher friction surface, with a low density, as to not scrape or scar the piece like gnarling would. If applied to the smallest semi's only on the forward and inner facing surfaces (i.e. not on the outer circumference, where it makes contact with the larger semi), it wouldnt impede the vise's action at all, while providing tangible benefits. For Adam's use of it on the bench drill jig, I'd actually venture to say it's a necessary addition, because there's simply no other way to preserve the action of the vise, while improving it's holding force on the object, without overtightening (in glass' case, will cause cracks, shatters and scars), or wrapping (eg. packing tape, which leaves residue and wont always be able to adhere to the surface).
Exactly. Captive (even no-longer free to rotate) ball bearings would be the ideal "grip" surfaces.
@@AdmiralQualityyou would end up with fewer points of contact. I think the pressure from a round ending would apply way too much force in a single location.
Yes, higher grit results in smoother action. Also for lubrication: high pressure grease should work, but I prefer a mixture of light oil, graphite and molybdenum disulfite. I buy mine in a spray bottle (packed and sold by Nigrin, I don't know if that's available anywhere else but in Germany) Look out for anything containing MolyD (MoS2, molybdenum disulfite), stuff's good!
I had the same thought, need some moly grease - pretty cool stuff from a molecular perspective - they form little 'sheets' of M with S on either side, so you end up with a bajillion little nano-scale springy 'plates' which prevent the surfaces from coming in contact.
graphite and oil are good lubricants on their own, but don't mix them together; over time they will seize up. Depending on how often you reapply oil you may not have experienced it yet; but it does happen.
@@ghffrsfygdhfjkjiysdz It is a very light oil, it might even evaporate over time. The joints seem dry after a few weeks. Also, I did not have to reapply on any that were not getting cleaned in between.
I think that for some fragile materials I would use a strip of suede or similar material along either side, to cushion the connection. Also, I suspect that the bend/un-bend that occurred flawed the lapping, so a second round would be advised. Ideal order of operation would be milling, THEN lapping. Yay hindsight! And seriously, cutting the 'teeth' in that last contacting surface... inspired. Doubled the adaptability with really pretty minimal effort.
We often do rubbings and we refer to them as "Frottage" worth looking up... it has more than one meaning. Also a personal fun fractal fact... In HS I did my sciencefair project about Benoit Mandelbrot and fractals... I was disqualified because it was before a computer category. Once again highly informative and entertaining.
I wonder if the fact that the vice is laid out horizontally has an effect. I feel like the weight of each piece (especially the larger ones) are essentially 'hanging off' the dovetails like a cantilever structure, which might affect the friction between the pieces differently than they did when you were lapping them (since you were either holding them vertically or having them laid out on a table, essentially negating gravity as a force causing friction)
you lapped the surfaces then changed how the surface touch each other of course its still rubbing, lap them again and dont deform them afterward this time
i loved watching Adam's brain figure out the best technique to rock the pieces back and forth. 3:48
For years, off and on, I would wonder how the first straight edge or flat surface was made, and i never thought I would know the answer. I can’t believe you just answered it. And I never thought the answer would be three rocks.
I love how he rotates the table the vice is on right at the begining but the vice itself stays in it's original orientation.
Adam is about to go down a fixturing rabbit hole.
When you polish the parts, you will have air pockets between the parts. When parts are very smooth and tight fited, they can stick together. You need some lubricant as well
I feel like I could recognise Adam in the street and, being strangers, he'd greet me like an old friend... He's definitely got that chill vibe
I think Adam is in love more so with the idea of the fractal vice rather than this particular item. It just so happens to be a physical embodiment of the idea in his possession. And while his tinkering tenacity has great stamina, I foresee him moving on from this object sooner or later.
You could try using graphite dust. It works well as lubricant and since its dust, it should help laping over time.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but graphite won't lap steel beyond a geological timescale due to the wide disparity in hardness.
@@ExtremeSquaredunless it's pencil lead, maybe.
@@crackedemerald4930 There's not that much difference between pencil lead and a graphite brush used in motors with direct contact with copper. The goal of a motor brush is roughly the exact opposite of lapping compound.
@@ExtremeSquaredactually there is. Pencil "lead" is a mixture of graphite and clay (silica) the ratio of which is where the different harnesses comes from.
I would probably go with a dry ceramic instead of graphite personally.
I can see why you wanted to mill the channels: When gripping a concave workpiece with flat faces, you have two contact points per face. However, with a convex workpiece, you would have only one contact point per face. With the channel, you would have two contact points per face either way. To make the channels, I suggest: While the vise is still fully assembled, clamp a thin straight strip of aluminum in the vise. Then center the mill or drill press on the aluminum strip and drill a hole along each small face. The softer aluminum should tend to keep the drill bit centered between the two faces.
Kemet Diamond Compound comes in various grades for precision engineering. Maybe a hydraulic pump oil for lubrication would work as they’re designed to lubricate in high pressure environments
It would be a cool mod to have a low profile set of fractal jaws as a vertical bed beneath the line of the horizontal jaws so you could have a support that also conforms to odd shapes to keep it registered before clamping down.
I think there's a possibility the lapping was partially upset by the clamping/milling of the small jaws. You'd want to reverse that order of operation ideally. I would try molybdenum disulfide. It has the characteristic of filling imperfection and performing well under pressure, in bearings and axles, for example.
Hearing the imperfections going away is so cool
Hey Adam, I am a huge fan and wish you to be safe and healthy! I know its not always the best for a camera, but a mask is always a great idea around glass dust! Love the vice!!
The problem is that even if you got a perfect surface, it will still want to bind. First of all they are the same material. So surface bonding is actually just getting worse. The only way to make it not bind at all is to have a extremely thick grease or chemical coating. Both them will not make the jaws turn easy but they will allow them to turn under pressure. To get fractal vice that would work perfectly you need to have roller bearings instead of dovetail slots.
I was wondering about that. The truer the surfaces the more surface area is going to be in contact with each other. That's not necessarily a good thing. Isn't that how gauge blocks stick together?
Lube is a must for similar metals in a dovetail joint, but with a high viscosity grease, the more coplanar the surfaces are, the more freely they'll move. Any sort of lobing or nonplanar area will pressure the grease to squeeze out of tight spots, or fill voids in loose spots; this takes a significant amount of mechanical pressure, even on thinner greases. A more viscous grease will allow for a thinner film that still adequately protects, which is really what you want for surfaces that are going to vised together. I'd go with molybdenum disulfide for this application.
Invert the fasteners from the original and make them a channeled slot an suck. Them into each other. No perfect matting surface and less room for debris to be a issue and easier to produce n manufacture
Or roller pins like needle bearings
I feel a new patent coming along lol
if you want lubricity under pressure, grease containing molybdenum or graphite could help.
Adding the slots effectively removes about 1/3 the gripping surface area. But they could also be useful. Inserts could be made to slot in to the groove with a stop on top to prevent slipping all the way through. The inserts could cover both 'teeth' (thus restoring full surface area) and be coated in a variety of materials suitable for gripping assistance, such as rubber or grit. But even then that would be tedious to make compared to just shoving a piece of rubber in the vice to grip stuff. haha
Have you considered going finer on the lapping, and then having the mating surfaces hard chromed? That should make them ultra slick. Also while machining things in this, you could use jack screws at both ends of the part to prevent it from pushing out of position like the bottle did. This is a very cool project. I'd love to see this further optimized for milling.
Hard chrome would make the pieces smooth, the problem is even a few microns in this application would tighten everything back up possibly to the point of not being able to fit back together.
@mstau78 right, you'd need to account for it by further polishing some of the mating surfaces before chroming. But if done right I think it'd be great.
As a kid one of the things I was most curious about was how we got the first perfectly flat surface. Thank you for explaining that for me!
Umm, some of us are visual learners. Adam, please obtain three rocks for your next video...
Basically you have half of a sliding bearing so any grease meant for that should work wonders. Maybe graphite based since the molecular structure of graphite is flat and handles pressure well.
I just lapped two sphericals today! It helps if you have fixtures to put in a lathe or mill that can Oscillate the parts.
Friction is proportional to pressure, so the problem will always exist in some capacity, especially because you're unable to rely on human scale bearings due to pressure inherently deforming metal. And even sanding to finer degrees doesn't do that much to the coefficient of friction. At the end of the day metal usually just gets flat at human scales. Lubricants would probably be your best bet because you effectively get to tune the coefficient of friction once you've lapped out human scale imperfections. Pressure will still increase friction though that's just what the equation says
I think I might forever henceforth refer to teeth as "internal face parts" - also that seems like a good name for a band
Hey Adam, I loved seeing the process of you improving this awesome piece of workshop equipment! For your question at the end, I don't think it's a problem of the quality or grit of your lapping solution. Your mishap while milling the small pieces really bent them out of shape. If you check a chart of what kind of tolerances different kind of machining processes can achieve then lapping is all the way at the top. By hammering them back into shape you're not getting the same precision. Simply do a round of re-lapping with the same solution and your vice will be perfect! I hope this helps and greetings from switzerland.
I know this sounds ridiculous but you were gonna be able to cut the grove perfectly if the tip of the bit, the fractal vice and the glass bottle are underwater. You have been an inspiration to me since MythBusters you are one of the most awesome human beings I have ever had the pleasure of knowing about thank you so much for doing what you do the way you do it.
the reason this works is beacuse the water puts pressure on the inside and outside off the glass, while also cooling it. though id imagine he dosnt want to throw his vice in water lol
wondering if adding small rubber pads, or 16 more smaller rubber half moons on the end of the metal ones would improve grip, but would also be a potential solution to the way the vice settles in place around an object, due to its ability to absorb and flex? ... made me wonder what you would do with this tech scaled up too, braking system, or climbing devices ... or could it be used to hold other fractal vices (strokes beard and evolves)
probably mentioned already but may be worth trying some kind of graphite power/grease in the ways. if the part are too smooth you'll get a sticking reaction to them much like gauge blocks
Graphite powder for lubrication so it won't be displaced by the pressure. Perhaps suspended in a thick oil. Perhaps, if you can get the final lapping grit to match the size of the graphite, you can get a graphite surface coating.
Love all the comments here. I am such and amateur but so curious. Everyone really knows their stuff! Always a pleasure to hang out in Adam's cave and watch him make stuff, break stuff, change stuff and fix stuff! Hey that could be a good merch shirt! Tested... Make it, break it, fix it, change it.
The products are made for sharpening and lubricating knives, but I would suggest Gunny Juice and Gunny Glide. Gunny Juice is a diamond suspension that comes in a multitude of grits and is typically used for stropping/polishing blades, but come as small as .1 micron. Gunny Glide was designed for knives that run on washers using graphene and boron nitride to provide a very thin, but protectant lubricating layer.
It looked to me like it got stuck once you changed the orientation. You did the lapping with them pointing up, but that isn't the actual surface they ride on when the gravity changes direction.
The compression force of the vice is far greater than the force of gravity pulling the piecesdown
@@jesuschris9543 but it still might be a very slightly different surface. If you image the part has some (microscopic) clearance on the to and bottom, lapping it upside down will polish the top-surface and the higher-corner; but then gravity causes the part to primarily rest on the bottom surface and slide against the bottom corner. I don’t know if he was varying the upward/downward pressure while lapping, and I don’t know if this is a significant effect, but the relative strength of gravity and pressure isn’t a factor- it’s not about forces, it’s about whether the upside-down lapping mated all the same surfaces that are used when it’s right-side up.
I get the feeling that the bigger issue is coming from his clamping force when cutting those slots. He should have done more lapping afterwards.
@@jesuschris9543 that's true but you can see in the video him moving it with his hands even binds much more once he changes orientation
The thing that I really appreciate about Adam's work here is that not only does he show us his successes, but also his mistakes -- and how he overcomes them.
Someone probably has already mentioned this, but rubbing two surfaces will result in a perfectly spherical surface. This is largely how reflecting telescopes were first (and still are) made - by grinding a glass blank into a spherical reflector, and then carefully parabolizing the surface once the bulk of the material is removed. You can also achieve perfectly flat surfaces - which are just spherical surfaces with infinite radius
You could add little strips of rubber into the groves you machined in the smallest doodads. They could act like little soft grippers. Also, i agree with the other comments suggesting more lapping, 1000 is a bit too fine, try 240 or 480 first to really get the surfaces together. Also agree on a type of grease with molybdenum in it.