Milling Vice for VMC

I'm in the process of buying a VMC mill from Warco and I'm trying to decide between the various types and sizes of milling vice. I see J&L have the Titelock 6" vice at £85+ but how does this compare with the Vertex K-series vices ? Chronos also have a 4" tilting/swivelling vice at around the £170 mark that comes with a 4"x5" milling table, bit small but might be useful ?

Does anyone have any experiences of these vices and care to express a preference ? Also is there really much advantage in a 6" vice over the

4" size ? Application is model IC engines, but this might obviously change in future.

Any other recommendations or advice would be gratefully received as well.

The table on the VMC is not all that wide. I've got a Vertex 4" on mine and it overahangs the table at the front enough for the handle to foul the y-axis handwheel. Not a major problem but I suspect it would be a lot worse with the bigger 6" vice.

I bought my VMC a year ago and have been very pleased with it. The Vertex vice seems accurate and has given me no problem.

Thanks for the response, sounds as if the size is something to watch out for.

I guess you haven't used a tilting vice like the Chronos one ? Has anyone here any opinions regarding the utility of this feature ? The VMC has a tilting head but it'll be a bit of a faff re-setting it every time I wondered if a titling vice would be better and just mount it direct to the table after use ?

Thanks,

David

I've got a cheap (Axminster) tilting vice which is good enough for the odd drilling operation but not much good for milling.

Getting the head of the VMC aligned exactly vertical is a challenge. It's easy enough to get close but getting the tiny movements needed to put it exacly vertical, then locking without more movement is a pain. If you envisage doing a lot of angle work I'd certainly go for a tilting vice.

If it's any help, the professional engineers in the labs where I work seem to have simple, straight, non-rotating, non-tilting vices on all their mills and put a tilting one on only for special jobs.

90% of work is flat clamp and butcher work. Aim for the heaviest, sturdiest low profile vice you can get. If it's a swivel take it off it's base and bolt flat to the bed, put the swivel away for the odd time it's needed. Rigidity, low profile and mass is your friend, use add on to vices like swivel or tilting table only when needed.

-- Regards,

John Stevenson Nottingham, England.

Visit the new Model Engineering adverts page at:-

It depends what size of part you are machining. I use a 4" machine vice for a lot of stuff, if it is too big for that I bolt it to the bed (a clamping set is a good investment -saves hours looking around for packing pieces). For smaller parts I often use a toolmakers vice bolted to the bed -these can be bought quite cheaply from J&L and similar places, ideal for the size of part model engineers need to hold.

Regards

Kevin