Swapped my standard vise jaws for soft jaws, 2 hours of setup saved

I run a small job shop over in Wichita and always used the same steel jaws on our Haas. Last month I had a run of 40 aluminum parts that kept shifting, so I finally cut a set of soft jaws from 6061. Took about 45 minutes to machine them, but I finished that whole batch in one setup without a single re-clamp. My scrap rate went from 6 parts down to zero on that job. It felt like a no-brainer after seeing the time difference, so I'm wondering if anyone else still fights with hard jaws when soft ones are this easy. What do you do for quick-change setups? That inspection callout on the print is exactly what got me to try it.

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susansingh3d ago

Yeah that "6 parts down to zero" line is what got me. I used to think soft jaws were just for fussy tolerance work but honestly the real win is not having to re-clamp. Once you cut them once you can just pop them back on next time and that first setup basically pays for itself forever. The only reason I ever fought it was being too stubborn to stop and make them in the first place. Now I keep a few blanks pre-drilled on the shelf so it's like a 10 minute job when I need a new set.

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