Milling Machine Vice

Rotagrip in B'ham do a decent cheap vice 75 x 75. At least mine was.

Gentlemen,

Thank you for your words of wisdom. Mervyn, I've sent you a personal email.

Regards

Tom

Tom,

Vertex brand in the UK is meant to be of decent quality.

Tony

I have a Vertex VA-4 on my Warco VMC. Very happy with it and much better than the cheap no name clone that was bundled with the mill. I have never used the swivel base though takes up too much space.

Just in addition to all the good advice offered on this post. What has not been mentioned here is that it is possible to encounter 'lift' on the moving jaw, not from the jaw moving on the vice, but too much clearance between the surfaces of the dovetails on the vice body. By taking up this clearance using the gib strip, the lift can sometimes be eliminated. If the problem is definitely the jaws shifting on the vice, then the workpiece can be forced onto the parallels by tapping down the jaws after tightening. Roy M

Edited By Roy M on 03/01/2017 21:01:52

I have owned several milling machine vises. The first was a genuine Kurt. The rest were Asian copies. I have never had an issue with the movable jaw lifting. If the part is not square it will pull off one of the parallels when the vise is tightened. I do use a ball with a flat on it for clamping irregular work. The method of the work down is important. As others recommend, I always use some form of dead blow hammer. Lead is my first choice. I sometimes use copper. I tap gently while tightening the vise. It works almost all the time. Don't over tighten or you will deform the vise.

If Shars sells in the UK, I suggest checking out their products. My latest purchase was a 6" vise similar to Kurt. I is designated as a CNC vise. The sides are square to the base so it can be used on its side. The dimension are slightly different than Kurt, but Kurt jaws will fit.

Stefan Gotteswinter uses a toolmaker's grinding vise on the mill. It is calles a "screwless" vise. Actually the screw pulls the jaw downwad at about 45 deg. It had no jaw lift.