A while back, I purchased a small vise with adapter for the Tormach Microarc that I use on my 1100 Series 3. I finally had a job to use it on, and thus mounted it on the Microarc and used it to mill 316 stainless. It was awesome. It was only about $200 for the plate and the vise. I just made 4 parts with it, and which I did an inspection on and shipped to my customer. They were great. Now I can use bar stock on my 4th axis. A nice new capability.
Some key notes. I am not connected with the supplier of this. I just think he made a great product.
I got it from GTM Manufacturing. Here is the link. GTM Manufacturing
Although I used it with 316 stainless, the vise manufacture does not recommend it for steel (does not seem to say anything about stainless steel).
Here are a couple of photos of it at work. Yes there are a lot of chips on the bed. I was in the mode of making parts to meet my deadline. They are all gone now.
Yup, I’ve got the same vise. Bought mine from ebay, or maybe it was amazon, can’t remember since it’s available from both sources. Made the adapter plate myself. I believe I found the design drawings for the adapter through a link on cnczone.com. It was a joint project between two Tormach owners a while back.
Works great for me with aluminum, steel, and stainless. Just make sure to tighten to the full 40Nm if you want no chatter in tougher metals
@Michael_Dougherty thanks for the notes on this setup! I have heard tell of a few people using this setup and was glad to see your post about it. Now, I’m going to go check the couch cushions and hope to find $200.
If you have concerns about doing steel or getting a bit aggressive with other materials, try prepping the stock with dovetails. Lots of 5axis guys do this and it surely gets a good hold. use that torque wrench too. 40Nm is important.
The jaws that come with it have a serrated side that probably would work well with a dovetail but it’s not really necessary. Proper torque should be enough to have a good hold. Only time I’ve had chatter is when I didn’t tighten the vise enough, and when I was dumb enough to hang 8" of material off the thing without a tailstock to support it.
I have seen content creators use the dovetails but couldn’t remember if the jaws matched. Thanks for your reply, I’m getting ready to buy the Microarc, anything you recommend to go with it? I have the SMW fixture plate so I’m going to get the SMW subplate. BTW, what side did you mount yours on? 1100MX.
The smw plate and subplate is a good combo. Other than the first time around, it saves a lot of setup time. BeleCAM out of canada makes some really nice attachments for the microarc. Everything from an axial and trunion style mount for the XinDian vise, a full table setup with a far end support, and even an adapter to fit a (terribly expensive) zero point setup.
Mine’s on the right side facing X-. Mostly because I wanted to keep the wiring out of the machine as much as possible, but it also allows longer tools in the ATC without worring about collisions.
Scott, to follow up on your dovetail question. I have moved on to a larger CNC machine with a Koma dual axis rotary. I always use a dovetail. I know sometimes I could get away without it, but if you do them right, it just removes any concern on my part that the part will shift in the vise.
