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This was part of a lot of machinists tools I purchased on eBay. I believe it is a homemade bench block, possibly from a school shop class. Commercially made bench blocks are available. There are a variety of uses for this tool. Some feature V grooves for use on round parts.

It can be used as a guide with a hand drill to ensure a hole is drilled perpendicular to a part.

The block works well for starting a tap straight into a hole.

It can hold a roll pin so that it is easier to start into a part.

A simple bench block like this is easily made with a drill press and a scrap block of steel. A wooden one could be made for one-time use.

My wife got me a set of Craftsman roll pin punches for Christmas. They are made in the USA and are very good quality.

A roll pin punch, shown on the right, has a small stud on the end. This keeps the punch centered on the roll pin. A regular pin punch, shown on the left, can damage the end of the roll pin. It can also slip off the pin and damage the part.

I’ve had my hands on quite a few different cheap calipers over the years. The quality is nowhere near to those made by Starrett. Starrett calipers are very expensive when purchased new. A complete set can be assembled for a reasonable price, purchased used from eBay.

Outside and inside measurements are taken with outside and inside calipers.

For layout work, first mark the steel with layout fluid. This is available in a bottle or as an aerosol.

Dividers can be used to mark even divisions as well as arcs and circles. The points are used to scratch lines in the layout dye.

Hermaphrodite calipers can easily mark a line parallel to an edge. They are also used to find the center of round parts.

I purchased a new drill press vise from Grizzly Industrial…

T10440 Precision 2 Way Drill Press Vise

I expected to find the vise was made in Taiwan or China. When the product arrived, I noted that the box was marked ”made in India”. All of the tools I have purchased in the past that were made in India have been very poor quality. After cleaning off the cosmoline and carefully examining the vise, I found a very well made tool. The fit and finish was really nice. Using a precision square and my granite surface plate, I checked all the machined surfaces and found them to be very accurate.

Grizzly calls this a 2-way vise. It is machined on the bottom, the end, and one side. This allows the vise to be placed on the drill press table in three different ways.

The jaws are 4″ wide and can be opened 3 1/2″. The fixed jaw has one horizontal and three vertical V grooves for holding round stock.

It is difficult to hold thin stock in a regular drill press vise. The jaws are not usually flush with the base. Parallels or scrap material must be used to raise the part where it can be gripped by the jaws.

This vise has stepped jaws designed to hold thin stock. It was one of the main features I looked for when choosing a new vise. This is a nice vise for the money and I highly recommend it.

I’ve purchased an item or two from Grizzly Industrial in the past, but never took a close look at everything they had to offer. A few weeks ago, I received their thick 2012 catalog in the mail. I looked through the catalog and found they have a huge selection of tools for both wood and metal working. I also discovered that replacement parts are easily researched and ordered from their website. Grizzly parts, in many cases, are interchangeable with other brands of machines manufactured in Asia.

In a previous article, I wrote about replacing the switch on my Harbor Freight drill press…

I found a reasonably priced safety paddle switch available from Grizzly…

Grizzly Safety Paddle Switch

This switch fits the original Harbor Freight faceplate. It is also much easier to hit and quickly shut off the drill press if something goes wrong.