Here we have an in depth rundown of the Ball Clamp and the Workstation in full technicolour! This is a long one, so let’s dive right in!
Adjustable Locking
Twist, adjust, relocate. An easy twist collar allows the ball joint to be locked down hard, giving you a rigid point to work from. Designed to be easy to access and be a natural extension of your hand, like that stainless steel finger you always wanted.
With a fine adjuster, you can partly tighten the gimbal to let you precisely move the vice into the perfect position while working on a delicate part.
Solid Ball
A mightily solid one-piece stainless steel ball forms the backbone of this mount. Designed to not budge, and provide a rigid stand that won’t flex and will minimise vibration while you’re working.
Big Mouth
Designed to fit most worktops and tables, the C-Clamp opens out to 41mm (1.65”) letting you attach it to a wide variety of desks without leaving a trace it was there. It's the coveted ninja of the vice world.
Screw To Anything
Dismantle the clamp and use the connection points to screw it to a desk. Perfect if you’re looking to place your vice in a permanent home and build your perfect setup.
An Engineered Flat Pack
Like a miniature desktop Ikea build, it's designed to come apart for customisation and can be flat packed so that it can tuck away when not needed, giving you back your much needed space.
Reinforced
A design constructed of flat plate aerospace grade aluminium and reinforced with hardened stainless steel pins means that there is minimal flex when clamping to a table, giving a rock solid clamped position whilst still being slim to your desk.
Ready for when you need to hacksaw through that 2” steel bar in the dead of night.
Double The Fractal, Double The Fun
Compatible with the Adaptor Plate so you can turn the Ball Mount into a double-vice wielding, omnidirectional fractal clamping machine!
Drop The Ball
Not into all this gimble gaff? Just need a fixed vice position? Well, we have you. Remove the ball and attach the vice direct to the C bracket and create your perfect fixed workspace.
41 Degrees Of Kevin Bacon
Tilt over at 41 degrees, rotate in 360 degrees and twist on an axis to give you full access to whatever you’re clamping, without having to release the grip, letting you get into that difficult spot.
Improvements During The Campaign
While working on the campaign and using the ball clamp extensively, we noticed the locking mechanism wasn’t quite right. It worked OK, but it could over tighten itself while working on things and require a huge amount of energy to free it off. This became a bit tiresome while doing a job where you would want to continually re-adjust.
From here, we changed the clamp from a point screw to more of a vice-like twist that applies pressure on a much larger area of the ball. This has made the clamp much nicer to use and is now giving a much more solid position when tightened.
Initial 3D printed prototypes work great, and we're just in the process of getting this produced in metal now.
The Desktop Workstation
We designed this as a micro desktop workshop, for anyone who wants to use the vice but either doesn’t have a permanent point to attach it too, or wants to move around a desk space.
It brings with it a solid base weight to anchor the vice onto. Made from a hard anodised solid billet of aerospace grade aluminium, this could be the most robust workstation in existence and would look at home on the desk of a chief engineer on a star destroyer.
Super Sticky Feet
Silicone rubber feet give a firm nonslip grounding for the workstation, protecting your work surface and at the same time holding the whole thing down so you can cut, file, or do whatever you need to, knowing it won’t slip away from you. Always a handy feature I like to think!
The Name's Cutting, Matt Cutting
A premium cutting mat with a smooth cutting surface that will both protect your work surface and your precious knife blades. This can be tucked under the metal surface plate when not in use.
Stainless Steel Surface Plate
Ok, technically not a calibrated surface plate, but the next best thing for the home desktop. 5mm of solid steel that you can use as a flat building surface, soldering area, or if you need to just hit something with a hammer. This surface will be the backbone of any bench, like a tiny anvil for tiny creations.
Much like the cutting mat it can be used in situ or taken out and used to the side to improve your workflow.
Rule The World
A stainless-steel rule that sits flush into the baseplate and lines up next to the cutting mat for a speedy measure, or pop it up and remove it to get a quick cut. Laser marked in both metric and imperial, the rule is a neat addition to any cutting mat.
Attaching Your Vice
There are two points to attach the vice; one direct to the baseplate and one to attach the vice via the ball joint, so you can set the vice up however works best for you.
Sweet Grooves
No desk is complete without some sweet grooves. Positioned for quick access to what you’re using (and some might say conveniently sized for a MetMo Multi Drive 😜), and also a perfect space for any number of tools like brushes, files or markers.
Tiny Parts Tray
Sometimes you just need to stop that metal ball or tiny screw from rolling away into the abyss of the grey floor. We were sure to include a little zone to store these tiny critters before they can disappear into your carpet.
That sums up these two add ons for now, and I'll be doing a full deep dive into the other add ons in the coming weeks, so sit tight for those!
The Feedback Loop
We were working in the background and taking on board all the comments and messages. And the big request - more jaw options!
We had a few things in the works, but at the time developed two options. These were a full set of nylon laser sintered jaws for anything particularly soft, and a set of silicone rubber fronted steel jaws for a bit more mechanical strength but with a soft edge and an extra sticky grip.
Both are good options if you’re working with plastics or painted parts that aren't too big as these jaws are really for those delicate tasks; not best suited to being used in a pillar drill!
Nylon Jaws
Solid nylon, these are still a hard plastic so will deform slightly but won't scratch metals or painted surfaces and can still provide a hard clamping force.
Silicone Fronted Jaws
This stainless steel backed and silicone fronted set of jaws offer a bit more grip while working on a fine polished surface. Perfect for jewellery making for instance, or a soft painted surface, as the grippy silicone will deform further around the part being held. These are designed for when a hard clamping force is not as necessary with delicate jobs.
Both designs can be easily swapped out from the originals or mixed and matched to create a totally customised or specialised clamping action.
