cross slide vise - what is the difference

On Fri, 12 May 2006 07:04:46 GMT, with neither quill nor qualm, Arcady quickly quoth:

"Prismatic" means that the jaws will grasp round or irregularly shaped objects better.

has a fairly good pic of that jaw style.

-- We either make ourselves happy or miserable. The amount of work is the same. -Carlos Castaneda, mystic and author (1925-1998) -------

- Happy Website Development

My guess is that the second is the same as the first with the addition of an extra vise jaw which most likely looks a lot like this one:

I have "been there done that" with cross-slide vises. Quite some time ago I bought a 4" cross-slide vise from Grizzly (also picked up the above-pictured jaw) and also picked up a vise adapter which I used to mount the CS vise on my Jet 17" drill press. I did a lot of good work with that setup. Later I was visiting the (now closed) J&L store in Kent, Washington and saw an inexpensive

5" CS vise. Feeling flush, I bought it. Sadly, I soon realized that the inexpensive version of this vise are quite devoid of useful properties, and had to let that one go.

My suggestion is to buy this item from either me (I kept it when I sold my Jet DP) or to buy it new from Grizzly, and to pass entirely and for all time on the HF version, which is at least as cheap as the J&L one I mentioned above. Low quality on these vises leads to surfaces out of parallel or out of perpendicularity, lead screws which bind or fail to hold, gib screw holes which are excessively drilled before tapping, screw handles which are excessively out of balance and which move easily with any vibration, and general poor fit and finish.

In use, I suggest you replace the gib screws with thumbscrews, as you will be clamping them down all the time to lock the vise from moving.

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as my Usenet 'reply-to' address is bogus in every respect and you can not infer my actual email address from it.

Grant Erwin Kirkland, Washington

Grant,

Do you mean that Grizzly product 1064 (4" cs vise) is significantly better in quality then the related HF one? I see that the price is almost the same (except the no 'pick-up' option but then there is no tax) and if so would be inclined to by the Grizzly one. Problem is that it's possible absolutely the same Chinese product, isn't it?

Thanks