Need Help Evaluating Chinese Kurt-Style Milling Vises

Ebay is not the only source, you might want to look at Enco............ I've got the $84.95 6" model shown here:

Decent vice, reasonable price, and if you catch the right sale shipping is between cheap and FREE. I'd buy one again..................

Tom

DeepDiver wrote:

Hi Tom, thanks for the feedback.

We were discussing this Enco vise elsewhere in this thread. One of the points of concern was that the Enco catalog marks that particular 6" vise as a truck-freight shipment only, which means it would not qualify for the free UPS shipping. I haven't called Enco yet to confirm.

When did you buy yours and did you get free shipping on it then?

- Michael

Figures... If you happen to live near a Wholesale Tool store you might want to check with them. They have 2 or 3 vises similar to the ones you're looking at and you won't have to pay shipping if you buy from their store. Here's a map:

I live near their Charlotte, NC store and buy quite a bit of small stuff from them. Can't afford the big stuff. :-)

Best Regards, Keith Marshall snipped-for-privacy@progressivelogic.com

"I'm not grown up enough to be so old!"

I think I have one of the 2nd type. I got mine from Enco quite some years ago. It is quite accurate, ie the vice's ways are parallel to the bottom. There is a slight bow in the fixed hard jaw that I see every time I align it with the X ways. (It is bowed out about .001" in the middle.) Otherwise, it has been an excellent tool, and quite durable. I have used it hard, had a few crashes and workpiece pull-outs, and it seems just as good as the day I got it.

The swivel base is a joke, though, and I'd just skip it, unless you really need it. With CNC, it is practically worthless. But, it might come in handy on a manual machine when odd angles need to be cut. The problem is it totally kills the rigidity, though. I'd say the vise seems 5 times more rigid without the swivel base. I haven't used it in years, like since I went to CNC.

Note the 5" vise seems to be made in India, and is totally different, and said to be inferior.

Jon

Why wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

Seems too good to be true. I like the half the price of a Kurt part. $85.00 might be half the price of a clapped out used one maybe. Hell a crappy Palmgren vise is probably twice that amount.

I said that shipping was "between cheap and free". Yes, it was truck shipped, but as I remember it the shipping was VERY reasonable, for some reason $18 sticks in my mind?? Not sure, it was about 5 years ago.

Certainly worth a phone call to check the shipping..........

Truck shipping note of interest......... I have a friend that just retired as a RoadWay freight local driver, he said that if not for Harbor Freight and Enco there woudl have been many days that his load would have been very small.

Tom

DeepDiver wrote: