Soft Carbide

The link below is to a nice looking small machine vice which purports to have a hardened body but 'soft' carbide jaws.

I've not heard of this material before but wonder how soft it is

Ian P

**LINK**

Hi Ian,

I think the description has made things slightly confusing, because although the material is carbide,

I think they are describing the fact that the jaws have a plain flat face rather than the diamond pattern grippy ones that you often see on bench vices. I have heard the term "aviation" style jaws when they are flat faced for non marking.

Michael W

Ian P:

Interesting; why not put your question to the seller via his website?

Carbides come in a wide range of different grades, basically depending on relative proportions of carbide and binder, usually cobalt. Lower percentage of binder makes for a hard but more brittle carbide. High percentage of binder makes for softer but tougher carbide.

So presumably jaw faces are a large piece of carbide with high proportion of binder giving a, hopefully, better balance between toughness and face hardness than the usual tool steel. Possibly a bit gripper too.

Apparently you can now get stone brushes (whatever they may be) with soft carbide bristles!

Clive.

Apparently it is an error in the description. They have told me the jaws are soft so you can 'modify them to suit your own purposes'

Ian P

Cooksons have an offer today, worth checking out if anyone is thinking of ordering.

I have no connection to them just a satisfied customer.

**LINK**

Edited By V8Eng on 13/12/2017 14:00:51

'Offer excludes Gold Bars' thought I could make a killing there...

I'd always thought that flat, hardened jaws were 'toolroom' jaws, 'cause that's where I got my Record vice from when they closed the tooling department of the teleprinter factory where I was a tool designer. I don't think I'd want diamond pattern jaws now.

Hi Mick,

I think you'd also be right, I think the name has a local connection for me, as I live just down the road from what was the old british aerospace engineering plant, now MBDA.

I only use the diamond jaws on my bench vise for hacking up blocks of whatever, but having said that I quite often use two bent pieces of ally plate in between for delicate stuff, maybe I should look at machining some flat jaws.

Michael W

I thought that is what 1" x 1" Ally Angle is made for!

Edited By V8Eng on 13/12/2017 19:05:10