By Don Foreman

I had need for a circuit board vise to build the circuit board for the engine control gig.

OK, I was really looking for an excuse to put off building it. I've built many circuit boards without one. I like building circuits less and less as time goes on. I gotta do it pretty soon, but what a good excuse to play in the machineshop first!

I'll spare you the detailed writeup and description, just share the pix. The basic idea is to have a stable base (6 lb of 1/2" steel plate, a drop found at the steelmonger's for 3 bux), be able to set and lock a comfortable "nodding angle", and be able to quickly and surely flip the board 180 for work on front and back of the board. A board gets flipped many times during a build. There's a pin détente concealed under the knurled locking collar to make flipping a 180 quick and sure.

The parts that fingers touch frequently -- the knurled locking collar and the "cotter" with the little locking lever to securely lock any desired "nodding angle" -- are plated with electroless nickel that will shrug off fingerprint acids. The rest of it is zinc plated. Electroless nickel is more trouble than zinc because the solution needs to be heated, while zinc is actually easier than painting. Further, my nickel vessel is a 1-liter beaker (have a 4-liter but it takes forever to reach temp) while the zinc is a 2-gallon bucket that works just fine at whatever temperature it happens to be at. Larger parts get zinc.

I didn't plate the brass thumbscrews because I thought the color looked neat against the other white metals. So I just shined them up with Flitz and sprayed them with Nyalic. I used brass for those so as not to bugger up the crossbar when they're tightened. The crossbar has a flat milled on
it that the screws seat against so the gripper arms will be parallel.

I've been asked to post this at the "drop box" for the metalworking newsgroup, so maybe I will. Might stimulate some interest in plating of such projects. There are several welded and brazed joints and one hot-bent part ( the nodding axel) in this contraption. Plating is a very quick way of drastically improving the appearance by making things all the same color. Rust prevention of zinc is far better than paint for such a device.

Initial or "entry" cost of plating is a deterrent to some because a can of spray paint is cheap. But once set up, the recurring cost of plating is very low, and the results are worthy of the effort spent on a shop-made metal object.