I Bought Six Vises Brand New Full Price

I've also been thinking about making a ground straight 1x3 or 1x4 bar for aligning two vises together. Not sure exactly how to manage heat since my grinder doesn't run coolant, but I do have a couple cheap import mist sprayers around... somewhere.

Dag-Nag-It, Jim! I was perfectly happy with the setups I have until you reminded me I haven't used my surface grinder in a long time.

Dag-Nag-It, Jim! I was perfectly happy with the setups I have until you reminded me I haven't used my surface grinder in a long time. Bob La Londe

--------------------------- I use mine all the time. The base is the backrest for the stool for tending the wood stove and the table is a shelf for papers etc to be sorted.

FRACK JIM!!! HSD IS CONTAGIOUS! There is a perfectly good horizontal surface on the top of the mag chuck that is now as we speak... er type being infected by your rhetoric.

I don't run heat or AC in the main shop, but not I have this urge to place a foot stool right in front of the surface grinder.

I received shipping notices on the 6 new vises this morning. 6 separate shipping notices. They only weigh 32 lbs each, so there is no reason they couldn't have condensed that into 3 under 75 pound packages and saved some shipping, or maybe 2 "heavy" packages. Since they are willing to eat six shipping charges it tells me they are just happy to get rid of a product that wasn't moving for them. It also tells me that once they are gone they probably won't be coming back. $121 +tax with free shipping (atleast for six of them anyway) is insanely cheap. Even if they turn out to be average quality Chinese screwless vises that's still cheap.

Just so you know, I have been looking for something this size for a while, and they seem to generally no longer be available, except from Suburban Tool, and while quality from Suburban is exceptional their price is the opposite. Everything from Suburban Tool is expensive.

This size (5 inch nominal wide) used to be about as common as other sizes. I think a 5 inch screwless/grinder vise cheap enough you don't mind modifying it might be about the best compromise for small machines. I know a mill vise can have the jaws swapped around, but they are much heavier and take up a lot more space for their nominal work envelope.

I also have some one inch and two inch vises in this style to make moving a small part from one machine to another easier and maintain orientation. I call them insert vises, although I don't know if that is their correct name or not. They are just small and pretty darn square.

If these check out okay, I just might order a dozen more. (If they aren't gone, by then.)***

There are either of two options about a deal that seams to good to be true.

1. It probably is.
2. It will be gone before you get a second chance.

PEST management. LOL.

To be fair we used to have a wild dog problem back then too. It was hard to manage because domestic pets would occasionally run with the wild packs. The worst of the "wild" dogs were solo hunters, and often those turned out to be wild pets. I once spent two days (not like full time tracking him. LOL) hunting down an owner to ask permission to kill his dog because it was breaking in and killing chickens. I could have just sat on the coop and waited with out permission, but it was easier, faster, and safer to just track down the dog and shoot it in open country.

I just looked at the tracking. They got them labeled and shipped the same day. Probably so I wouldn't have time to change my mind. LOL.

How are you going to machine it, the link says they're hardened steel and HRC 58-62, while not impossible to machine it makes it interesting. I accidentally touched the top of one of the jaws on my Gerardi vice which is similar hardness and it just polished it slightly although IIRC that was an HSS cutter.

I've had no insurmountable issue cutting similar vises with TiAln coated carbide or even AlTiN coated carbide with steel cutting geometry. I suppose theoretically it could be through hardened, but I think its unlikely. Even if it was quenched and tempered instead of case hardened I think the hard layer will be relatively thin just due to the mass. If I have to dress down a grinding wheel to break the surface I will, but I don't thing I'll have to.

FYI: Two of my current vises I stepped the cut back jaws with 1/4 inch AlTiN coated cutters at crazy high RPM on my high speed spindle machines. Machined in place. I don't recall off hand, but the lowest I typically run those spindles is 8K, and they don't start developing real power until about 12K. Cutting in place turned out to be a waste of time. I wound up taking them off the machine, and slitting them for a relief cut in the step on the knee mill in the back.

Anyway, they were hardish, but it was not like hard milling, and if theses new ones turn out to be hard milling I'll just follow some of the recipes worked up ages ago by NYC CNC for the Tormach. Its not like I have to do it everyday. I do it once (well maybe six times) and never do it again... or atleast not for several years.

I've struggled more with "softer" 4140HT (28-32HRC). The machinists groups on Facebook sneer at my struggles, but I've found the stuff very tough and experienced very short tool life. I spent weeks replacing cutters and recutting parts when I made some 4140HT embossing and compacting press dies with the stuff for tea cakes (cakes of tea, not cakes to be eaten with tea).

OK, thanks for the reply, I expect you'll report back on how you get on with them after they arrive, maybe even post some pics of the results.

Tea cakes like

Here in the UK EN24T is a common alloy steel equivalent to 4340 and supplied hardened and tempered to T condition which seems to be the same as the 4140HT. Never really had an issue with it but I don't machine lots of it and certainly slow the SFM down compared to easier to machine steels.

You are encouraging me to share my shame? Ha. We shall see how it goes. Like many not absolutely necessary upgrades it will likely not get done right away. I just wanted to snatch up the vises while they were available.

Yes, something like the picture Tea brick, on Display... Simpler design though.

FRACK JIM!!! HSD IS CONTAGIOUS! There is a perfectly good horizontal surface on the top of the mag chuck that is now as we speak... er type being infected by your rhetoric.

I don't run heat or AC in the main shop, but not I have this urge to place a foot stool right in front of the surface grinder. Bob La Londe

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The stove is the only thing in the basement shop safe to be downstream of the grinder.

I don't run heat or AC in the main shop, ...

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The outdoor temperature here in the warmer southern edge of the state is +2F / -16C in the 'sun'. An unheated shop would be unpleasant at the least, as I know from car problems and Army winter field exercises. Ungloved fingers very rapidly go numb, thin work gloves aren't much better.

Now it's +3, I'll go out and move firewood.

I don't know the temperature outside right now, but a light jacket might be nice if inactive, or blasting up the river in an open boat at 60+mph. Such a light jacket would be quickly shed once activity was initiated.

I don't know the temperature outside right now, but a light jacket might be nice if inactive, or blasting up the river in an open boat at 60+mph. Such a light jacket would be quickly shed once activity was initiated. Bob La Londe

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You're lucky. Those due east of you are getting the snow/ice storm we will suffer tomorrow.

It was -15 degF when I got up at 4:00am. Had come up to -11 by the time I left for the store 6:15am. A balmy 13 deg just now at 2:00pm.

Yesterday I never saw it warmer that 4 degF when I got up at 4:30am. It was a few degrees below zero till noonish🥶

Thankfully no freezing rain in our forecast nor much snow...

It's 13° here , 6+ inches on the ground and still snowing . I played around a bit moving snow with the JD yard tractor , decided not to fire up the "big" tractor . Last I looked I'm the only one to sully the pristine covering of Cold White S*it out on the road .

You realize we will remember this taunting next August when you're sweltering in 114° heat ?

It was -15 degF when I got up at 4:00am. Had come up to -11 by the time I left for the store 6:15am. A balmy 13 deg just now at 2:00pm.

Yesterday I never saw it warmer that 4 degF when I got up at 4:30am. It was a few degrees below zero till noonish🥶

Thankfully no freezing rain in our forecast nor much snow...