After yesterday’s debacle I decided to have another go at making a vice clamping plate for my ring roller. It turned out OK this time.

I started out with a square bit of steel, 5mm (ish) thick and one of yesterday’s offcuts of angle iron. I think angle iron just gets smaller and smaller until it isn’t useful any more. Never throw any away…

I marked out, (in finest pink paint pen) centre punched and drilled the attachment holes for the roller, then gave them a bit of a countersink. The bolts for the original base are countersunk, so I need the surface area of the hole and the bolt to line up a bit. Doesn’t need to be perfect though.

Then I welded the bit of angle iron in an appropriate arrangement. The angle iron can be clamped in the leg vice and the three points of clamping mean it will be stable and less likely to rack out of the vice as I metric Doug pulls on it.

This is supermarket flux core welding. There is enough blobby weld to ensure the two pieces of metal are not going to move relative to each other.

So I did the other side too.

I’m less happy with this side, but I think it has become one object where it once was two. I gave it a good clank with a hammer and nothing fell off. That’s the inspection criteria for supermarket flux core welding isn’t it ?

The eagle eyed among you will have noticed that I’d got quite a bit of weld rather too close to my hole. I needed to clear out some spatter from the hole and grind down some of the weld at the edge of the hole.

This now bolts easily onto the ring roller and can be securely clamped in the vice.

As a bonus, the handle can rotate without hitting the super sturdy table that the vice is mounted on.

So… What did I learn from this. Well, it was good to get back out and make a working version of this. It was good to just dive in and do it, for instance I didn’t bother adjusting the welder – it’s last job had been welding 1mm mild steel sheet. I didn’t bother cleaning surfaces, just got on with it. This wasn’t about making a pretty thing, just a functional one. It’s done, finished and will outlast the ring roller which is attached to it. Job done.