Chick Vises

[extanker59]

I didn't want to hijack a merry Christmas thread to ask this so here's a new thread.
Donkey hotey got his Chick vises recently. What do you think of them? I used them 10 or so years ago and liked them but the machine they were bought for had to be sent back because it wouldn't hold position (demo model from dealer). So the vises were returned to the dealer too. I know it was the machine that was off but I always wondered about the repeatability of the jaws. Again, I liked them, just wondered.

[dertsap]

Originally Posted by extanker59 What do you think of them? .

they are a great ,the jaws dont lift like other popular brands

[1ctoolfool]

they are a very nice product and an innovative company, but I have found just a regular vise with aluminum jaws to be just as good.

chick type products are great when you have high density workholding needs running a lot of the same types of parts.

I have a prototype shop, everthing is different each job to the next and I'm always having to rearrange the chick vises to get them to work. I have two QL4's I got off of ebay. But they are very modular and easy to configure.

The new CNC vise "one lock" is the one I want. It is very cool, I wonder how much? anyone know retail on these vises?
joev

[Donkey Hotey]

Ahh...you could have posted this in the other thread but this title works better. Surprisingly, there aren't many posts about Chick vises around here.

Just to clarify: I didn't buy new Chick vises. I bought 4 more of their M-series, 4" vises. They are like the current Series 5 vises, except they use pins to retain the moving jaws. I prefer them because I can easily make custom jaws (from stock) rather than buying from Chick.

It isn't the cost, but rather the types of jaws I can create. With the pinned jaws I could make extra tall jaws or other features that might not look like conventional jaws. I recently bid a job that included an extra tall center jaw that backed up a 3" tall extrusion (standing up) and mitee-bite clamps to hold the upstanding leg. I can't do that with Chick's off-the-shelf offerings.

1ctoolfool summed it up nicely: they are great for high-density workholding. The center, fixed jaw, indexes better than the Kurt-style.

I have zero experience using them for extended production though I have used one vise for a hundred parts or so (and it was really nice to use). I have a friend who has used them in production. Because the bodies (on most models) are aluminum, they aren't surface ground. He warned me that the ones he used, varied in Z by up to 0.001"-0.002". I can't verify yet. Even if they do vary, each vise uses a cover plate that also acts as a shim. I suppose if the Z-heights really were a problem, custom cover plates could be ground or milled for each vise to absorb that difference.

He also warned me that with 6 vises on the table, the machine was going to slow way down; it's simply a lot of weight on the table and every small direction change is going to be harder on the servos. Being aluminum, the Chicks will be better than cast iron, dual station Kurts.

I don't think there is a perfect solution. My current workholding inventory:

• One Kurt D675 that I use for on-off parts.
• Three Kurt 3600V Versalock vises for longer parts, odd setups and two & three op parts (these are in rough condition which is why I still use the 675 for most things).
• Seven, 4" Chick, dual-station vises and four, 6" Chick dual-stations for high density production.

[kojack]

How much are the 4 inch chick vises and do you have any pictures of them?

[Donkey Hotey]

I don't have any pictures of the vises. I should highlight again: I'm using older models. I've been grabbing them up over the last couple of years from eBay. Anything I share about them is going to be for discontinued tooling. The current equivalent is the "System 5" series.

This site has pictures of the older stuff:
http://www.1mta.com/category.php?id=142

This is the 4" model:
http://www.1mta.com/product_list.php?id=138

[extanker59]

Yes, it's coming back to me now (the picture helped). We had the "M" system. I was concerned at the time about the pin and fit of the center jaw not being enough to hold tolerance. They were on a tombstone in a horizontal mill. I first suspected the Chick vises when I couldn't hold tolerance but found it to be the mill itself. So, while I was able to find the culprit, I was never sure if the vises were completely innocent.

Do you find any movement in the center jaws?

[Donkey Hotey]

Originally Posted by extanker59 Do you find any movement in the center jaws?

It's interesting that you bring that up. For these to perform correctly, all of the indexing has to be done from the center jaw. That puts a lot of load on a jaw that basically has aluminum locating pins (the pins are essentially bosses machined into the jaws). Unlike a Kurt, it's not a solid part of the vise base. While I don't have any experience with them moving, I'd bet that they aren't great for really rough machining loads.

I suppose that jaws could be made to use reamed holes and driven, ground pins instead of the aluminum bosses.

Were you guys having problems in just one direction (inline with the vise base) or did you suspect that they were shifting in all directions, blowing all of the XY dimensions?

[extanker59]

As I recall, it was Z axis that was moving up to .01 (I think). When I found that, we called in the dealer. They confirmed it and the owner of my company had them take it back. I'd have loved to have been in the room when that came up.

[MikeOD]

I just setup a turnkey for a customer using 4" chick vises on a chick sub plate...it's a high production turnkey, so repeatable workholding was a necessity...we were able to fit 4 of them on the sub plate right next to each other inside a minimills travel...very very slick setup...very repeatable, and we were able to setup the jaws to be sorta foolproof in that the parts that are similar but not identical can only really be loaded in the correct locations.

If you don't do a lot of production, but rather you do a lot of small volume stuff...I'd rather see Kurt or similar vices in the machine...more flexibility. If it were my own machine, I'd probably start out with Kurt's and if I got a high volume order, or a recurring order...I'd add some Chick workholding to my setup. They work great, and they're very repeatable...

[dertsap]

i used to make loads of blanks for the chicks , when a repeat job came up it was simply a matter of pulling the pin an plopping on the machined blank that were designated for the job or a new blank , we used to be able to hug some pretty odd designs because any shape could be cut into the blank as long as we didnt cut as deep as the pin , all he77 would break loose if someone did
people shy away from them because they are aluminum but they are tough and when they are fit with hard jaws ive never had any issues with them , theres a good reason they cost more than other vises , its the quality , and the free hat you can send away for after purchasing , people tend to question a hat that say " Chick work holding solutions " ,

[extanker59]

New hat!? Hey! I didn't get a hat! Rats.