Fractal vice

[Roger]

I've never heard of these before, but I love the concept. Here's an antique one on eBay, and here's a new one.

The eBay one shows how they're held together. One day I'd like to make one of these. I think you could make some separate jaws that work on this principle.


It would be fun to 3D print one too, that might be useful as a set of soft jaws.

[JonL]

It's a fantastic design isn't it? I wonder how many levels of recursion you could go to?

[Roger]

Jul 4, 2021 21:04:51 GMT JonL said:

It's a fantastic design isn't it? I wonder how many levels of recursion you could go to?

I guess it just depends on how finely you want it to follow the contours of the part you're holding. It's very clever.

[runner42]

Very clever. The design was established long before CAD or 3D CAD existed (the US patent shows 1913) so Paulin Karl Kunze who came up with the idea put a lot of thought into what was required to achieve the end result. You can see from the main casting that the shape is complex and the accuracy required machining the parts is high. I have tried to find out the cost of one, but they are rare.

Brian