Thread: How to attach a vise to plate?

The photos are not exactly clear (or I'm going blind, take your pick), but surely nobody would make a vise out of aluminium?? And then, no way to bolt it to a bench? It could be made out of pot metal (just as bad IMO)

Crikey, and I though my homemade Dawn knockoff fabricated vise was dodgy

I'm not great on the camera and that's why I took 3 shots. Pretty sure it's aluminium as it feels light and was not magnetic.

It is a very light weight vise and could very well be cast ally, your idea of adding the pipe over the ally and securing it like that, may very well be the answer.

Why did you decide to try and braze these items ?

regards radish

I had brazed dissimilar metals before so I took a chance on aluminium and metal, I know better now. Have looked for pipe but can't find one the right diameter .

Probably had a vacuum or g-clamp mount originally.

If the alloy base is solid, you may be able to drill and tap some mounting holes from below but more likely it is hollow.

In that case I don't know - maybe you could weld a short bit of pipe or a pipe coupling onto the plate big enough to surround the base and then use some resin.or even concrete etc to fill it up and set the base. This would have the advantage of hiding your brazing efforts and it needn't be that strong as it doesn't look up to any big heavy work.

Bloke

If you can remove the bit of pipe that you tried welding to plate I would start over again. I would get a piece of pipe close to fit then weld three bits of flat steel plate bent around the pipe to the length of the black base, then either weld that to the base plate or weld a collar to the pipe and bolt that to the plate.

DD

Thanks for the replies. I couldn't find any suitable pipe so I turned some round bar to fit inside the hollow of the vise. I then drilled a hole through both the bar and the vise to pin it together. I then welded the bar to the plate.