Mike / Irving thanks very much for replying guys, its all good advice.

I emailed Arc to see what they said and they were kind enough to give me a call to try and explain their solution involving the stepped angle blocks from the kit. To be honest I didn't understand what they were saying. I would happily recommend Arc to someone. They seem like good people who don't mind giving advice over the phone and their stuff is very well priced, but I got the feeling that although there maybe some way of using the kit, I'm not sure if its a particularly good one. They did suggest that I could mill my own clamps at one point - chicken and egg type situation, a little frustrating - can't make something like that until I have a vice that clamps down!

Irving... I was dubious about the paper thing. I'll try it without the paper and only go down that route if I find the vice slipping. And yes, I am a proud owner of a very heavy set of parallels and a dial indicator :). I bought the machine and then slowly purchased the extras as my bank balance recovered... part of the reason I've yet to cut anything!

Bit of a tangent when you mentioned parallels, but its seems to me that metric based equipment is in the minority?! Arc was one of the few places I could find selling metric parallels and the only place I could find selling the metric equivelent to 1-2-3 blocks. Most of the world with the exception of the states is on metric right?! So silly.

Thanks again,
David.