new vice mount on truck

[fdcmiami]

i had had a vice mounted on the passenger side of the truck i use for field work; ended up taking it off because i did not like going to the other side of the vehicle to do something. i wanted something on the drivers side that would not obscure the plate and would pull out far enough so that i could work and keep most of the grinding grit and slag off of the truck. most field units end up looking the same, sad, but you do what you can to delay that day.

the SS threaded rod is 1 3/8ths diameter, i had threads turned on it for another job. the plate is 1/2 inch mild steel that was left over from a repair i did recently. not much welding, i just stiched the top and bottom plates with some 6011 and welded the pin to the bottom plate with some 7018; that allows me to tighten up on the nut if need be. need a little paint touchup.

i have it pinned with a SS eyebolt. one point for when it's not in use the second at app 45 degrees.

i had another pin, aluminum and hardware so i built one on the back of the trailer. the pin on the trailer runs through three holes. it is very solid and i figure i will be able to mount any number of things to it. one plate has 9/16 ths holes the other has been drilled and tapped for four 1/2 13 SS bolts with the head of the bolt on the underside. this keeps the surface flat on the top so i can pivot (something?) busy work for sure.

on the aluminum mount, where the pins passes through on the bottom i will weld a SS washer to retain the pin when i tighten the nut above. probably do that today if i have time.

fabricated some bottle mounts for a small argon/co2, you can see one end of the bottle in one pic.


pics are out of order, sorry

[DaveO]

Smart idea- gives you a lot of flexibility while working on the truck, AND you can swap it over to the trailer when you need it.

Just out of curiosity- is this your design, or had you seen this elsewhere? I suspect people will want to copy it.

[fdcmiami]

Smart idea- gives you a lot of flexibility while working on the truck, AND you can swap it over to the trailer when you need it.

Just out of curiosity- is this your design, or had you seen this elsewhere? I suspect people will want to copy it.

dave, it is what i came up with rummaging through the parts bin but the design is too basic to have not been done by someone else. that round bar is 316 SS and i paid a lot of money to have 8 of them turned but only ended up using five. the 7/16ths ss acorn nuts on the vice are from a bridge job (railings and decorative metals, installation only) in florida that i had the labor contract on about 8 or 9 years ago. the speedway blvd bridge, in daytona beach. i still have about five hundred of them left and the at the current rate of usage they should be going to the heirs of my heirs. lol the flatbar was from a recent repair. because of that odd combination of materials it is not likely you will see another exactly like it but there will be others similar.

copy away,

[agent4573]

Even with super think material, with a moment arm that long, it seems like it will bend if you put something in the vice and start cranking on it. Did you think about adding any sort of vertical brace on the top of your mounting arm? I know you couldn't put anything under it because it wouldn't pivot back onto your bumper, but you should have room to put a 1 inch piece of something vertical most of the length on the top. It would really stiffen it up and let you do almost anything without fear of bending the mounting arm.

[fdcmiami]

Even with super think material, with a moment arm that long, it seems like it will bend if you put something in the vice and start cranking on it. Did you think about adding any sort of vertical brace on the top of your mounting arm? I know you couldn't put anything under it because it wouldn't pivot back onto your bumper, but you should have room to put a 1 inch piece of something vertical most of the length on the top. It would really stiffen it up and let you do almost anything without fear of bending the mounting arm.

i hear you but i don't think it will be necessary; that piece appears longer than it is; 23.5 inches. i can see where you might think that however if you picked up a piece of half inch thick by six inch wide by 24 inches long piece of steel flat bar you might have a different perspective. you did give me an idea when i went back and looked at it. i have a low profile machinists vice that is sitting on a shelf. i am going to put a matching bolt patttern in the flatbar so that i can put the milwaukee mag drill up there (74 lbs) and use it to drill when there's nothing else nearby to attach to.

[DVA]

i hear you but i don't think it will be necessary; that piece appears longer than it is; 23.5 inches. i can see where you might think that however if you picked up a piece of half inch thick by six inch wide by 24 inches long piece of steel flat bar you might have a different perspective. you did give me an idea when i went back and looked at it. i have a low profile machinists vice that is sitting on a shelf. i am going to put a matching bolt patttern in the flatbar so that i can put the milwaukee mag drill up there (74 lbs) and use it to drill when there's nothing else nearby to attach to.

With a 200 lb load on a 6x0.5 inch plate set up shown above would be about 0.35 inches. If two - two inch strips by one half of an inch were welded on the top of the beam, a 200 lb load would deflect the plate about 0.015 inch. This would be linear until the material reaches the yield point.

If the plate is A36 steel, the plate will start to plastically deform (bend) with a load of 428.5 lbs, providing a deflection of about 0.73 inches.

With stiffeners and assuming A36 steel, the plate would plastically deform at a load of 1850 lbs with a deflect about 0.15 inches. This would be a much more robust design, but if the load will not exceed 425 lbs the design looks to be sufficient for most vices, just not a good back up if hitting something with a sledge hammer.

[agent4573]

just not a good back up if hitting something with a sledge hammer.

Whats the point of having a vice if you aren't going to chuck stuff up and hit it with a hammer? 400 pounds seems like a lot, but if you ever chuck up a 3 foot piece of pipe, it wouldn't take much pulling to hit the 400 pounds of bending to get it to deform. If you're just going to use it to hold stuff while you drill or weld it'll be more than plenty, but if you're gonna be pulling and pushing on it, it'll be close.

[DVA]

Whats the point of having a vice if you aren't going to chuck stuff up and hit it with a hammer? 400 pounds seems like a lot, but if you ever chuck up a 3 foot piece of pipe, it wouldn't take much pulling to hit the 400 pounds of bending to get it to deform. If you're just going to use it to hold stuff while you drill or weld it'll be more than plenty, but if you're gonna be pulling and pushing on it, it'll be close.

All depends what type of work you are doing but I would agree that 400 lbs is not a very robust design. Most vices are mounted over a so you can beat the @$#% out of things without bending the table or hitting against a dampener.

[Rambozo]

Considering the thickness of your average step bumper, I think this mount will exceed what the bumper can take and be fine. I'm sure this isn't something where you are going to beat the $#@% out of something, not when it's mounted to a truck that rides on springs and tires. And if you really need to put a lot of force on a vise, you can always make up a mount to go in the trailer hitch receiver. On my trucks I have always had one in the front and the back. I've made a lot of different things to go in them, from motorcycle carriers, generator boxes, winches, post hole drill, etc. But since this truck will pull a trailer some of the time, I think the swing out vise will do fine for light to medium duty use.

[Jason]

Could always stiffen the bumper where this mounts to if ever exceeding the 400lbs

[fdcmiami]

Considering the thickness of your average step bumper, I think this mount will exceed what the bumper can take and be fine. I'm sure this isn't something where you are going to beat the $#@% out of something, not when it's mounted to a truck that rides on springs and tires. And if you really need to put a lot of force on a vise, you can always make up a mount to go in the trailer hitch receiver. On my trucks I have always had one in the front and the back. I've made a lot of different things to go in them, from motorcycle carriers, generator boxes, winches, post hole drill, etc. But since this truck will pull a trailer some of the time, I think the swing out vise will do fine for light to medium duty use.

exactly. the bumper is 14 ga tread plate. i had at one time put a vice on the passenger side mounted on a single plate through bolted to the bumper. that did not provide enough strength (it flexed the bumper), accessibility was a pain because of the location, doubly so when i had to step over the trailer to get to it.

i built a mount exactly as you described, they are pretty common, out of 1/4 wall sqare tubing. it projected out about two feet and then i put a ninety on it to get it up to a height that worked well for me. i put a base plate on the vice mount that had a piece of pipe welded to it and this slid inside the tube, allowing me the ability to rotate the vice. this was a good setup except that now i had to carry that part, slide it in and out of the receiver; if i had a trailer behind me i would have to disconnect, drive forward, pull the hitch out, slide the device into the receiver, get the vice and put it in place; then go through the process again in reverse when it was time to go.

let's put this in perspective, 10 square feet of 1" thick steel. ( 3.16 x 3.16) would have an approximate weight of 400 pounds. i would not be putting something like that in my little wilton vice.

DVA thanks for providing those numbers, they proved to me that the vice mount will be plenty, and i mean plenty strong.

[agent4573]

I didn't really even think about the thickness of the bumper. I guess that would be the first thing to start bending.

[greygizmo]

Was the weight if the vise taken into account when coming up with the 425lb figure?

The bumper aside, simply stitch-weldng a 1x1 tube to the top I the plate would greatly improve the stiffness if the design. It doesn't just give you a higher yield strength, it gives you a higher stiffness throughout the plastic region. That means it will move less on you, and take more force to move it.

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