Who Makes A Vise Between China & Kurt?

Pinresto

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Hi,
I bought my vise from lms when I bought my mill. It's a 3" Kurt style Chinese vise. It wasn't their most expensive nor their cheapest. I think it was $140ish. I'm not happy with it. The right side of the jaws touch and the left side are still 1/16" apart. I made some adjustments and its a bit better but it's still not right. I can't afford $300 for a used Kurt at the moment. Well I probably could but I have other things higher on the list of priorities. Plus I'd like to buy a new vise when I upgrade. Is there any other quality 3" vises at a lower price point? Something around $200 new would be ideal. Any recommendations on a quality 3" kurt style vise under $250?
 
When you close the vise tight, do the jaws clamp with no space? If so, then is the moveable jaw just sloppy/loose from side to side? You can put set screws in the moveable jaw where the jaw tracks on each side and adjust the setscrews to tighten up the translation/travel of the jaw…Good Luck, Dave.
 
The 4" China vise that came as part of a package with my PM25 mill from Quality Machine was within .001 parallel jaws, does not rise on clamping, and may have cost about $80. I had to mill the bottom flat, but I sort of expected that. It took .007 to clean it up, hollow in the middle from normal shrinkage. I put the ways (upside down) on parallels and skinned it off.
 
Hmmmm 1/16" is not good at all! You need to contact LMS and let them know your not happy and see what they will do about it.

You can get a kurt clone fron enco, for example mod #425-7240 for $100.27 / $80.21 after a 20% off+ free shipping that will give you extra $$$$ to spend on tooling, and enco will replace it if you find a problem with it without a hassle. that's been my experience. :eagerness:
Tomh
































s
 
Per the OP's title...Who Makes A Vise Between China & Kurt?..... Glacern is the only one I know of oft hand. The castings come from offshore but they are machined and assembled in southern Ca. My 5" was $399 and is a very nice piece. I also have a used Kurt 6" D60 vise that is nice but does have that old vise patina. Glacern makes a 4" version but not a 3" so you might have to look for used.
 
I have two of the 6" Shars and frequently use them in tandem on long parts. Been very happy with their quality. Have thought about having them ground to be matched (in bed height) but haven't gotten around to it. And they only vary by a couple thou.


Stan,
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
G'Day,
Taiwanese made Vertex vices are pretty good quality for the price, not the best , but certainly better than most entry level Chinese stuff.
Regards,
Martin
 
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