# Small Vice



## GRP (Dec 16, 2020)

Hello All,
I have a small milling machine and no vice. 
I also don't have a lot of money to buy one.  I have been using angle plates, parallels, c-clamps and what not... It works, but I'd like to make my garage time more efficient.

My work gave me a gift card for the holidays and I was thinking of using it towards one of those small toolmakers vices you can buy at Shars.
Such as this one...




Most of what I make at home are small pieces, and anything bigger I suppose can be fixed to the table.

My question is if anyone has had any experiences with vices like this, good or bad.

I'm open to other suggestions as well, my budget is about $100-$120ish with shipping.

Thanks!
-Rick


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## DavidR8 (Dec 16, 2020)

Stefan Gotteswinter uses a similar vise on his mill. 
The only comment I have is the holes in the sides will make holding it down more challenging than a vise with a slot for clamps. 


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## Tio Loco (Dec 16, 2020)

@DavidR8 I haven't really found that to be the case, these work very well.









						Screwless Vise Clamps | Vise Accessories
					

Mount screwless vises onto your mill table. These height-adjustable clamps are designed for use with a 3" screwless vise and any screwless vise with holes 8mm or larger.




					littlemachineshop.com


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## macardoso (Dec 16, 2020)

I used one of these vises for years. They are actually extremely accurate. There are ledges milled on the ends to put clamps on. I often had it rotated the long way along the X axis.


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## macardoso (Dec 16, 2020)

Welcome to HM by the way!


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## Boswell (Dec 16, 2020)

I used a vice like this for several years before moving to a Kurt. It worked well as long as the parts were not too big.  Mine had a leadscrew and "Knob" to tighten so was easier to clamp than having to use the hex bolt.


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## DavidR8 (Dec 16, 2020)

Tio Loco said:


> @DavidR8 I haven't really found that to be the case, these work very well.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Thanks I didn’t know those existed. 


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## Jim F (Dec 16, 2020)

That is the kind of vise I will be getting for my mill.


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## projectnut (Dec 16, 2020)

This style vise is more traditionally used on a surface grinder.  They can be used on a mill, but there are some drawbacks.  As mentioned in another thread it takes more time to set them up due to the fact that there are no built in anchors on the sides, or keys on the bottom for rough alignment.  They are also limited as to the size of parts they can clamp.  

Another limiting factor is the amount of holding pressure that can be applied to the part.  The part holding mechanism consists of a socket head screw that extends through a rack on the bottom, anchored in a moveable dowel.  In most cases the dowel is hardened, but not always.  

Here's a link to a picture of the underside of a typical vise.  In this case the pin apparently wasn't hardened sufficiently.

Stuart Beam machining | Annoying import screwless vise; the … | Flickr 

To me a better choice would be one of this style.  This one is only an example of what's available.  There are many others of varying sizes.


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## macardoso (Dec 16, 2020)

Just a tip, Try to keep the pin with the screw thread almost directly under the moveable jaw. The mechanical advantage of the hex bolt is greatest when it is nearly vertical. This keeps the jaw from lifting and gives great clamping force.


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## francist (Dec 16, 2020)

I like that style and have used it quite a bit on my small horizontal milling machine. Works fine. As with anything, understand the limitations and it’ll probably work fine.

-frank


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## Shootymacshootface (Dec 16, 2020)

My son made a small vise similar to that in trade school. It comes in handy for holding small or awkward shaped parts, and then clamping that vise into the larger mill vise. This also allows changing x and y orientation easily.


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## dbb-the-bruce (Dec 16, 2020)

You can buy or make your own hold downs. I recently got one of these (has slots, I made hold downs)

Works fine for small stuff. Getting the movable jaw in the correct click before tightening can be a little fussy, but I think that is largely my lack of experience. Certainly no worse than having to wind a big vice by hand for a minute or more! (yeah some guys use a cordless drill).

And of course I nicked it on the very first use (surprise!) now it's christened.


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## mickri (Dec 16, 2020)

You need a decent vise that you can mount to the table, dial it in and forget get about it.  The small tool maker vise would require you to dial it in every time you use it.  What a PITA.  I bough one of  Shars 4" vices.  It fits on the table.  Not too big.  Not to small.  My mill is a RF30 clone.  The vise was on sale for under $100.  It came with a swivel base which I promptly removed.  I made a backing plate for the the swivel base that fits the chucks from the lathe.  Dialed it in and wrote down the coordinates so it is easy to move the table so that it is centered under the quill.  Both the vise and the swivel base live on the table.

One thing I found about my vise was the fixed jaw was off by .001 on the outside edges.  It was spot on between the jaw mounting screws.  Drove me nuts trying to dial it in until I figured it out.


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## macardoso (Dec 16, 2020)

My sherline vise was this style but rather than having a dowel that could be quickly repositioned, it had a larger pin that went all the way through the vise in those holes in the sides. It needed to be pushed out from the side to change sizes but it was very secure. Looks like you could probably make one of those for this vise. 0.002" smaller diameter than the holes with a tapped cross hole right in the middle.

Another tip is to get a replacement hex bolt and washer of the highest grade steel you can find on McMaster Carr. The bolt will get really chewed up from repeated use and the washers take a beating too.


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## Jim F (Dec 16, 2020)

mickri said:


> You need a decent vise that you can mount to the table, dial it in and forget get about it.  The small tool maker vise would require you to dial it in every time you use it.  What a PITA.  I bough one of  Shars 4" vices.  It fits on the table.  Not too big.  Not to small.  My mill is a RF30 clone.  The vise was on sale for under $100.  It came with a swivel base which I promptly removed.  I made a backing plate for the the swivel base that fits the chucks from the lathe.  Dialed it in and wrote down the coordinates so it is easy to move the table so that it is centered under the quill.  Both the vise and the swivel base live on the table.
> 
> One thing I found about my vise was the fixed jaw was off by .001 on the outside edges.  It was spot on between the jaw mounting screws.  Drove me nuts trying to dial it in until I figured it out.
> 
> View attachment 347543







__





						5" x 6" Precision Toolmakers Vise
					

<!-- <ul><li>Jaw Width: 5" </li><li>Jaw Openning: 6"</li><li>Jaw Depth: 2"</li><li>Lenght x Width: 11 x 5 </li></ul> -->




					www.shars.com
				



Not as small a vise as most think.


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## mickri (Dec 16, 2020)

He has a $100 budget.  This is what he needs.  On sale for $88.

4'' x 3.93'' Lock Down Precision Milling Machine Vise with Swivel Base - Vise - Workholding - Products (shars.com)


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## Jim F (Dec 16, 2020)

mickri said:


> He has a $100 budget.  This is what he needs.  On sale for $88.
> 
> 4'' x 3.93'' Lock Down Precision Milling Machine Vise with Swivel Base - Vise - Workholding - Products (shars.com)


If he has a small machine like mine, there will be more vise hanging off the front, than on the table.


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## projectnut (Dec 16, 2020)

mickri said:


> He has a $100 budget.  This is what he needs.  On sale for $88.
> 
> 4'' x 3.93'' Lock Down Precision Milling Machine Vise with Swivel Base - Vise - Workholding - Products (shars.com)



I have no idea as to the precision or accuracy of this vise, but If I was looking for one this size it would interest me.  The best part is that he doesn't live in California.  The vise  is safe to use in Canada since the nickel in it is only known to cause cancer in California.


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## graham-xrf (Dec 16, 2020)

@GRP I recently explored the whole subject, sought many opinions, in --> _*THIS THREAD*_ from post #37 on.
I ended up with exactly the type of vise in your picture, as being the most accurate, and having the valuable property of it being possible to mount on it's side as shown by @macardoso in his picture on post #40. I say "ended up". It has not arrived yet from Germany (I am in UK)!

The vise is bigger than many standard images show, because they are made from 2" to 6" (maybe more). For me, that means 50mm to 150mm. My 100mm (4") size opens to 125mm. One feature that attracted me was the jaw depth of 45mm (1.77"), which is more room for parallels under the work. Always check the dimensions specification for maximum opening, and jaw height. This screwless design type is the winner when it comes to repeatable high accuracy.

When it comes to holding the vise to the table, the "ledge" kind mentioned is like this..



The vise is so critical to all the machining that it is at least as important as the parts of the machine itself. The exercise of using a DTI to get it aligned is something so exacting that once in place, many folk are reluctant to move it without quite strong motivation.

Here I am going to quote @Jim F  with his ultra loudest edict..


> Let us stress this a bit!
> *FIRST MILL OWNER NEWBIES TAKE NOTE**!*
> * DO NOT SKIMP ON THE VISE!*



Edit: For us owners of smaller mills, and setting up the vise for the first time, it is well worth the awesome tips from Quinn Dunki "Blondihacks", especially the alignment tip she sourced from Mr Pete that can turn a 45 minute struggle with a DTI into a 2 minute dead accurate breeze.
The tip is from about 9:30, although the whole video is great!


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## homebrewed (Dec 16, 2020)

I have four vises and two of them are the screwless type.  The largest of these has 3" wide jaws and is the one I use 99% of the time.  The larger 4" Kurt-style is so long that it really hangs over the front of my little benchtop mill.  It also is taller so it reduces the Z-axis work envelope a bit more.

The screwless one's form factor is just about ideal for my needs, and, once I learned how to quickly tram it, no big deal to remove and re-install. One pass with the DTI, tap into alignment and it's good to go.

One of my first milling projects was to make hold downs for my vise.  I only had to make 3 to get two good ones   .  I keep the failure around as an object lesson:  if you pause work on a project, make SURE you really know what the next step needs to be.  Don't assume your memory is correct.


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## macardoso (Dec 16, 2020)

homebrewed said:


> I keep the failure around as an object lesson: if you pause work on a project, make SURE you really know what the next step needs to be. Don't assume your memory is correct.



Whenever I take a break from machining for a month or two and come back, my first two parts will be scrap, no matter how simple or how careful I am. So frustrating.


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## mikey (Dec 16, 2020)

Stefan G did an interesting experiment to see how much vices move under clamping conditions. While he did not test a Kurt vise the information is interesting to think about.






When I need better accuracy, I take the Kurt off and use a screwless vise. When I need the best precision I can get, I take the vise off and clamp to the table. Vises are fast and work well to hold things for cutting but when tolerances are really tight remember that vises move.


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## GRP (Dec 16, 2020)

Thanks for all the replies.  I think this is what I'll be using that holiday gift card on.  If my wife doesn't spend it first. 
Making my own clamps sounds like a great exercise as well.


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## hman (Dec 16, 2020)

I've owned a 3" screwless vise for just about as long as I've owned my mini-mill, and LOVE it.  It's almost the only thing I use for work holding (other than clamping directly to the table).  +1 on the LMS vise hold-downs.  I generally place one in the far table slot and the other in the near table slot.  That way, I can move the cross pin to any of the holes.  The flat side of the vise allows me to use a machinist's square against the front edge of the mill table and one side of the vise to square it up.  OK, not quite as precise as indicating the back jaw, but probably good within 0.001" - OK for over 90& of what I do.

My only "grump" with the vise was the fiddly socket head screw that tightens the cross bar nut.  The head of the screw is not a good way to hold things in alignment when relocating the bar.  Instead, I put a short length of 1/4-20 allthread in the nut, and use a hex nut at the jaw end.  See post #22 at:








						Mill Vise Opinions
					

Personally, I use a modified screwless vise. I tried going to a Kurt style vise, but went back to the screwless after a while because: 1. Deeper jaws 2. Precision ground and parallel 3. Can mount vise on it's side or even on end 4. Wider jaw opening 5. Better at fighting jaw lift 6. It's still...




					www.hobby-machinist.com


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## Illinoyance (Dec 17, 2020)

You really want a vise with grooves down the side instead of holes.  It makes angled setups much simper.  You can clamp anywhere along the groove.


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## sdelivery (Dec 18, 2020)

projectnut said:


> This style vise is more traditionally used on a surface grinder.  They can be used on a mill, but there are some drawbacks.  As mentioned in another thread it takes more time to set them up due to the fact that there are no built in anchors on the sides, or keys on the bottom for rough alignment.  They are also limited as to the size of parts they can clamp.
> 
> Another limiting factor is the amount of holding pressure that can be applied to the part.  The part holding mechanism consists of a socket head screw that extends through a rack on the bottom, anchored in a moveable dowel.  In most cases the dowel is hardened, but not always.
> 
> ...


Exactly. This is a grinding vice not a milling vice


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## Jim F (Dec 18, 2020)

They work with Benchtop mills, just fine.
Some people don't have production needs.


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## mikey (Dec 18, 2020)

sdelivery said:


> Exactly. This is a grinding vice not a milling vice



And yet they are used on Mills the world over.


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## Jim F (Dec 18, 2020)

mikey said:


> And yet they are used on Mills the world over.


A local shop has a 7" import, and they say it is the best vise in the shop.
Found that out when I asked about scrap to make one.


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## Jim F (Dec 18, 2020)

Just as a comparison.




__





						4'' x 3.93" Lock Down Precision Milling Machine Vise
					

Shars Tool




					www.shars.com
				








__





						4" x 4-7/8" Precision Toolmakers Vise
					

<!-- <ul><li>Jaw Width: 4" </li><li>Jaw Openning: 4-7/8"</li><li>Jaw Depth: 1-3/4"</li><li>Lenght x Width: 9-29/64 x 4 </li></ul> -->




					www.shars.com
				




If I put the first vise on my mill, I would have 7" hanging off the front.
Second vise, minimal overhang and more opening.
My mill table is just over 6" wide.


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## Superburban (Dec 18, 2020)

Jim F said:


> Second vise, minimal overhang and more opening.


Time to get a grown up mill.


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## Jim F (Dec 18, 2020)

Superburban said:


> Time to get a grown up mill.


I don't need a BP or clone,
what I have works for me.
Also do not have the access or power requirements.


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## Superburban (Dec 18, 2020)

Just joking. I went from a rung fu, to a Van Norman 22LU. For a bit, I thought I went too big, but it is surprising how delicate the big VN can be. 

One cannot be pickey when looking for machine around here.


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## Larry$ (Dec 19, 2020)

I've got the 3" version of the Shars tool maker's vice. It has the slots down the sides so is easy to clamp to the table. It is OK but the original workings inside were a PIA when you had to move to the next set of holes. I made all new insides and it works better now. I think I'd go for a more traditional mill vice if I had to use it all the time. The 4" one someone posted a link to might be OK. The specs are a long way from a Kurt but so is the price. The Kurt and many of its clones are made so you can put the vice jaws on the opposite sides and get a very large area to clamp to. You can turn the jaws over to get more area sticking above the body.  You can also turn them into custom fixturing vices by making different jaws that are machined to hold odd shaped parts. The rear jaw has a groove that takes a small stop. The blocks that hold the jaws have the jaw mounting holes threaded all the way through so you can attach stops or fixtures to stabilize tall work by attaching to the back side.  If you screw up and damage the jaws they are replaceable. Soft jaws are available or you can make your own to hold work that might be damaged with the hard steel jaws. 

Whatever you do don't try to use a drill press vice as a mill vice.  The screw pushes at about the center of the jaw, anything clamped above that point will cause the jaw to tilt and release the work. My used mill came with one. POS! There are Chinese made versions of the Kurt that are way cheaper. Some probably fine for hobby use.


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## Jim F (Dec 19, 2020)

Larry$ said:


> I've got the 3" version of the Shars tool maker's vice. It has the slots down the sides so is easy to clamp to the table. It is OK but the original workings inside were a PIA when you had to move to the next set of holes. I made all new insides and it works better now. I think I'd go for a more traditional mill vice if I had to use it all the time. The 4" one someone posted a link to might be OK. The specs are a long way from a Kurt but so is the price. The Kurt and many of its clones are made so you can put the vice jaws on the opposite sides and get a very large area to clamp to. You can turn the jaws over to get more area sticking above the body.  You can also turn them into custom fixturing vices by making different jaws that are machined to hold odd shaped parts. The rear jaw has a groove that takes a small stop. The blocks that hold the jaws have the jaw mounting holes threaded all the way through so you can attach stops or fixtures to stabilize tall work by attaching to the back side.  If you screw up and damage the jaws they are replaceable. Soft jaws are available or you can make your own to hold work that might be damaged with the hard steel jaws.
> 
> *Whatever you do don't try to use a drill press vice as a mill vice.  The screw pushes at about the center of the jaw, anything clamped above that point will cause the jaw to tilt and release the work. My used mill came with one. POS!* There are Chinese made versions of the Kurt that are way cheaper. Some probably fine for hobby use.


This my exact problem...........
I can make good parts, but it takes a lot to get it to hold properly.


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## GRP (Dec 20, 2020)

I ended up ordering this from LittleMachineShop, three inches wide.
I got the one with cosmetic blemishes for $27 off, lol, ended up being about $90 shipped.
Nice that they give you the option of choosing one with or without blemishes, and give you a deal on it. Hahaha.


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## Jim F (Jan 2, 2021)

Have you used the vise yet ?


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## GRP (Jan 7, 2021)

I have not, it's still sitting on my desk.  When I received it I was too excited and started to play around with it right away, not knowing that the grooves on the underside needed to be deburred... and the cross pin that seats in the grooves appears to be made from an unhardened steel.  So I buggered it all up.   I haven't been able to get out into the shop to make a new one and install the vice.  It is a pretty little thing though, and square as well as I can measure it.


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## Jim F (Jan 7, 2021)

I have one inbound.


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## Larry$ (Jan 7, 2021)

Very useful little vices. The one I have looks very much like the one you got. Here being used to hold the work at an angle to drill & tap a set screw hole. I made the cross pin longer so I could get hold of it easier. It has the Shars name on it. Also made the internal part so it would stay inplace to make it easier to locate the pin through it.


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## GRP (Jan 21, 2021)

Finally got around to setting up the vice.  Seems like it holds the work well enough, though I've only taken light cuts with it so far with my face mill.  Definitely need to make some toe clamps though.  The clamps I used get in the way of the parallels because the vice is rather short.


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