Clamping FFG Blades

[Bill Kirkley]

I don’t have an ffg blade but read about how they can be difficult to clamp. I started thinking about it and remembered the covers we used for term papers years ago. I thought the plastic spine used to hold the papers might do the trick.

I ground a piece of 1/8 X 3/4 mild steel flat bar to what I think is a ffc grind. I went to Staples and got what they call Report Covers. I cut one of the spines to an inch long. You can find more by Googleing “PVC Slide Binder”

It did a good job clamping the blade. I was able to loosen the vise and adjust the rotation of the blade. The blade could not be twisted up or down or side to side. The down side is it adds thickness which will increase the minimum clamping angle. I think you could sand the plastic narrower and it would decrease the over all clamping width.

Attachments:

• ffg7.JPG
• ffg4.PNG

[tcmeyer]

Bill: There have been a number of compressible medium that have been used with varying success. The weak side question is if the blade will always been clamped vertically – uniform compression on both sides.

Your solution looks pretty good to me, but I think you’d have to check the side of the blade with your AngleCube to confirm verticalty. To explain my caveat, consider the fact that you could twist the blade out of vertical and still clamp it securely in that position. Just because it’s clamped securely doesn’t mean it’s centered properly.

The new self-centering vise we are all looking forward to does exactly that – nails it at dead vertical.

I use the method that places the left side of the blade at zero degrees (flat against the left jaw) and kicks out the bottom of the right jaw to clamp the right face of the blade. I then subtract the cant angle from the left rod and add it to the right rod angle.

[wickededge]

I just spoke with a company today that makes a very high friction nano-material that can be applied to wide range of substrates. They are going to do some prototyping for us to see if they can come up with a great solution for lining the insides of our jaws, especially for FFG blades. The great thing about their technology is that we can specify the durometer/compressibility of the substrate while they high friction material occupies only a very small thickness on top and it does not leave any residue like adhesives do. I can’t wait to test the prototypes!

-Clay

[Bill Kirkley]

tcmyer, your solution seems pretty straight forward. It looks like that is the way to go. The plastic I used holds the blade firmly but as you pointed out it is aligned by eyeballing and so may be slightly out of alignment and angle adjustment would be necessary anyway.

Clay, that material sounds neat. It sounds like much less clamping force would be needed to securely hold the blade and using a steel vise would be unnecessary.

[Daniel maloon]

This sounds great. I’ve tried a few materials to make soft jaws out of to attach to the vise and all have sucked. Ha, high friction nano material. ..duh

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