Holding fragile parts in a vice can damage them because of the hardened steel faces. For this reason I decided to make some aluminium covers to act as sacrificial parts. These parts would be held on via magnets to ensure they don’t move.

To aid holding onto round parts I milled out a “V” on one surface, this gives three points of contact, enough to hold onto a part.

First task was to square up the aluminium faces. I decided to use the fly cutter for this, purely for the amazing surface finish it gives.

Due to the thick contact face of the jaws, if the surface becomes damaged a shallow pass with a fly cutter should provide a smooth surface again.