# Kurt knock off lifting.



## LEEQ (Jul 19, 2014)

I got an enco kurt knock off. As I tighten it it lifts the work off of the moving jaw side parallel. I'm not sure how these work, so I'm not real sure what the problem is. Can anyone share some pics and a how it works? Once I understand the good one, I should be better able to diagnose and repair the cheapy. As it stands, the old Bridgeport vise is no worse than the new one.


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## Ray C (Jul 19, 2014)

In the moving jaw at the backside area, there should be a hole with a set screw in the center.  Just tighten that set screw until you feel contact.  After that, just tweak the tension on that screw until it minimize the lifting yet doesn't impede the rear jaw from moving.



Ray


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## LEEQ (Jul 19, 2014)

That hasn't fixed it just yet. What does this adjust? I have a odd little widget between the pieces that I believe the set screw would bear on. Is there only supposed to be the one loose piece captured by the angled face of the piece that travels when you crank?


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## Ray C (Jul 19, 2014)

LEEQ said:


> That hasn't fixed it just yet. What does this adjust? I have a odd little widget between the pieces that I believe the set screw would bear on. Is there only supposed to be the one loose piece captured by the angled face of the piece that travels when you crank?



It depends...  The Kurts and good knock-offs have a semi-circle ball in there.  The screw presses against the flat side of the ball and the round part of the ball fits into a socket located in the angled piece.  On the less expensive units, the screw just presses in angular fashion, against the angled piece.  Either way, the screw just preloads the rear jaw and effectively puts downward force on the rear jaw and simultaneously puts upward force on the part that rides on the underside of the bed.

You might want to check if the main pressure screw (acme screw or big threaded shaft) is bent.  That can cause all kinds of weirdness. 

How much roughly is it lifting up? 

Ray


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## John Hasler (Jul 19, 2014)

LEEQ said:


> That hasn't fixed it just yet. What does this adjust? I have a odd little widget between the pieces that I believe the set screw would bear on. Is there only supposed to be the one loose piece captured by the angled face of the piece that travels when you crank?



http://www.kurtworkholding.com/downloads/pdf/D675 VISE_MANUAL English.pdf


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## LEEQ (Jul 19, 2014)

I will measure lift, and check the screw out for straight. Thanks for your help guys. I am also going to see if thrust bearings are present or something I can add.


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## hvontres (Jul 19, 2014)

Thanks for the info. I just adjusted my vise and it works much nicer now. Just applied a little way oil after the adjustment and she's all nice and smooth a gain. I checked for lift by clamping a 1-2-3 block and sweeping it and I got less that .0005 movement. I think that is close enough for garage work


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## george wilson (Jul 20, 2014)

Reading Docsmachine's blurb,I can see that if he had put his time into making real money,instead of fiddling with that crappiest of vises,he could have bought a REAL vise with the money.

He did a nice job of making it accurate,but he still has a vise made of window weight grade cast iron,full of blow holes and who knows what else the Chinese tossed in(like old ball bearings,anyone?) Such HAVE been found in Chinese steel,breaking expensive tooling,and causing much trouble in commercial shops unlucky to have purchased Chinese steel. That vise casting will never have the strength and integrity of a decent Kurt. I got mine slightly used for $275.00,and have loved it. I did have to (luckily) find a JAPANESE swivel base for it,that is THICK ENOUGH to resist lifting from the table under milling pressure). My former ones were Enco's bought back in the 70's,and probably made in Taiwan at that time.(They would lift,too!) They worked o.k.. But,I'd HATE to have to rely on the new stuff coming out of mainland China.

Whenever you look at vises,look at the BASES to make sure they are thick enough to resist lifting under MODERATE milling pressure. Most are just TOO THIN. Look at a picture of a Kurt base carefully,and compare them to the vise you are considering. That is at least,a judgement you CAN start to make just by looking at pictures.

There are,at least,a few brands that cost MORE than chinese low grade junk,but LESS than a real Kurt. I advise buying one of those if you don't want to pay for a Kurt. They might still be Asian,but are a better grade. You get what you pay for. The Chinese can do good work,IF you pay them to do so. So can the Indians. No one can afford to do good work for starvation wages.


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## LEEQ (Jul 20, 2014)

Well, I do see a Kurt in my future, just don't know how far off. Spending so much hobby time (that I have little of) fixing new Chinese crap is getting old. I like my Indian made rotary table/ dividing set. I like my Tormach and Bostar (Chinese) qctp's .  Those tools took the least work and work well now.The other stuff is pretty buggy. My little Grizzly lathe purchased new included.  As for what I have in the mean time, I dug into it a bit today and found it does have the half ball and it is   stuck into the proper place with grease and tensioned. I don't know about lift or not as I put it to work clamping a slice of cold rolled for facing. It wound up parallel, but not square to the sides. I used a piece off copper wire between it and the moving jaw which allowed me to seat it down tight to the parallels. Without this, the unsquare sides tipped the whole piece as it was clamped. I can understand that. I'll probably use work arounds until I get stumped and have to get deeper into it. I wouldn't recommend buying one. I don't know about accuracy of grinding, but I do know it has weird pointed threads, not Acme. It seems to lack thrust bearings, and came to me with the half ball loose inside instead of sitting where it goes. The casting is thin and full of holes.  It has been lifting on me too. Overall pretty crappy. I got what I paid for. I hate to buy used unseen, new Chinese was crap, unless someone can point me to a high quality knock off, I think my options are new high end stuff. The Glacern stuff seems on par price wise with Kurt. Guess I'll make that call when I can afford one.


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## hvontres (Jul 20, 2014)

I would like to thank LEEQ and John Hasler for starting this therad. I decided to finaly pull the vise on my mill appart this weekend. When I got it from work, the guys told me this was an import, but after I cleared off the grime is looks like it is actually a Kurt D60  It feelt kinda nice to get all of that old crud out of there. Before I was getting this rust colored goo on the ways but now I just have nice clean way oil. 

LEEQ, as far as the threads on your vise go, It looks like mine are also sharp and not ACME. My vise does have the needle bearings in front which probably helps quite a bit when tighening the vise down. As for the rear jaw not being suare, maybe you could make an aluminum soft jaw and take a cut off of the face after you mount it on the vise. If you make two, you could also mill a step in for holding thnner parts without having to mess wit paralles. And since you did the cuts with your machine, they should be fairly accurate as well.  I think I will try to make a set for myself at some point, just so I don't have to mess with parallels all the time 

Good luck, and thanks again for inspiring me to do some overdue maintainace 

----- added content -------

When you are ready to look for a Kurt vise, you might want to check out the Scratch-and-Dent section on the Kurt website. It looks like you can get a pretty good discount if you are willing to live with some pinhole porosity in the vise. They also have some more interesting items, like 400mm toombstones with a corner banged up... wonder how that happend


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## LEEQ (Jul 21, 2014)

hvontres said:


> I would like to thank LEEQ and John Hasler for starting this therad. I decided to finaly pull the vise on my mill appart this weekend. When I got it from work, the guys told me this was an import, but after I cleared off the grime is looks like it is actually a Kurt D60  It feelt kinda nice to get all of that old crud out of there. Before I was getting this rust colored goo on the ways but now I just have nice clean way oil.
> 
> LEEQ, as far as the threads on your vise go, It looks like mine are also sharp and not ACME. My vise does have the needle bearings in front which probably helps quite a bit when tighening the vise down. As for the rear jaw not being suare, maybe you could make an aluminum soft jaw and take a cut off of the face after you mount it on the vise. If you make two, you could also mill a step in for holding thnner parts without having to mess wit paralles. And since you did the cuts with your machine, they should be fairly accurate as well.  I think I will try to make a set for myself at some point, just so I don't have to mess with parallels all the time
> 
> ...



Congrats on the hidden Kurt find! How cool. I checked out the scratch and dent, have my eye on a 688. 6" vise opens 8.8". Can't afford one just yet though.


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## Marco Bernardini (Jul 21, 2014)

hvontres said:


> When you are ready to look for a Kurt vise, you might want to check out the Scratch-and-Dent section on the Kurt website. It looks like you can get a pretty good discount if you are willing to live with some pinhole porosity in the vise. They also have some more interesting items, like 400mm toombstones with a corner banged up... wonder how that happend



Hehehe!
The guy who dropped it on his feet now is selected for the Kurt Swim Team: fins give him a great advantage :biggrin:
The photo (huge!) is here: http://www.kurtworkholding.com/images/2014/TB4C40606SD.JPG and price is here: http://www.kurtworkholding.com/cast-iron-face-base-p-3238-l-en.html
It is funny they used a felt-tip to add the arrow directly over the tombstone, rather than adding it over the image with PhotoShop…


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## george wilson (Jul 21, 2014)

I am surprised that Kurt would even sell a product that was not perfect. It still has their name on it doesn't it? I can understand a dented corner,but POROSITY,you saw??? That would be MUCH different,indeed.


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## Marco Bernardini (Jul 21, 2014)

george wilson said:


> I am surprised that Kurt would even sell a product that was not perfect. It still has their name on it doesn't it? I can understand a dented corner,but POROSITY,you saw??? That would be MUCH different,indeed.



But it's just "pinhole" porosity :biggrin:
See http://www.kurtworkholding.com/manual-vise-opening-p-2884-l-en.html


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## drs23 (Jul 21, 2014)

LEEQ said:


> Well, I do see a Kurt in my future, just don't know how far off. Spending so much hobby time (that I have little of) fixing new Chinese crap is getting old. I like my Indian made rotary table/ dividing set. I like my Tormach and Bostar (Chinese) qctp's .  Those tools took the least work and work well now.The other stuff is pretty buggy. My little Grizzly lathe purchased new included.  As for what I have in the mean time, I dug into it a bit today and found it does have the half ball and it is   stuck into the proper place with grease and tensioned. I don't know about lift or not as I put it to work clamping a slice of cold rolled for facing. It wound up parallel, but not square to the sides. I used a piece off copper wire between it and the moving jaw which allowed me to seat it down tight to the parallels. Without this, the unsquare sides tipped the whole piece as it was clamped. I can understand that. I'll probably use work arounds until I get stumped and have to get deeper into it. I wouldn't recommend buying one. I don't know about accuracy of grinding, but I do know it has weird pointed threads, not Acme. It seems to lack thrust bearings, and came to me with the half ball loose inside instead of sitting where it goes. The casting is thin and full of holes.  It has been lifting on me too. Overall pretty crappy. I got what I paid for. I hate to buy used unseen, new Chinese was crap, unless someone can point me to a high quality knock off, I think my options are new high end stuff. *The Glacern stuff seems on par price wise with Kurt. Guess I'll make that call when I can afford one.*



I would agree that that would be a good call. I lucked into Glacern's 4th of July Blowout Sale and was able to get their 6" CNC Machinist's vice for 1/2 price @ $572 to the door and they included the keys to auto parallel it with the bed.(Normally $49.99) They work great. I've moved it several times and indicated it and it's been spot on each time. I know there are different schools of thought on these but I'm growing to like them. A day or so after I'd already ordered the Glacern Enco had the 6" Kurt on sale for 1/2 price w/free shipping. They came within a couple of dollars of each other. The keys would have been extra for the Kurt. I'm very pleased to have a Top-0-The-Line vice. Makes me wonder how folks can put up with the crappy China stuff then I remember why I did. I couldn't afford the good stuff. I just happened to have a really, really good week at the shop that week and pulled the trigger before I talked myself out of it.

I would have known nothing about it if Marco B. hadn't posted about them in thread that was going on at the time. 

Thanks Marco!


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## Marco Bernardini (Jul 21, 2014)

drs23 said:


> Makes me wonder how folks can put up with the crappy China stuff then I remember why I did. I couldn't afford the good stuff. I just happened to have a really, really good week at the shop that week and pulled the trigger before I talked myself out of it.
> 
> I would have known nothing about it if Marco B. hadn't posted about them in thread that was going on at the time.
> 
> Thanks Marco!



You're welcome!
About the price of the good stuff, I've seen somewhere a fancy diagram explaining how to calculate the shelf price of a product, but now I'm unable to find it.
Anyway this diagram explained the workshop cost is made for the 50% by materials and for the 50% by wages (e.g. $100 = $50 for the iron and $50 for the blacksmith).
The wholesale guy double this price: $200.
The distributor double the wholesale price: $400.
The shop double the distributor price: $800.
And the diagram stops here, with everybody happy to become rich.
But if the blacksmith wages are reduced below those of a Chinese rice picker, according to that diagram the incidence of this on the shelf price is minimal:
- workshop cost: $55 ($50 for the iron and $5 for the starving blacksmith)
- wholesale: $110
- distributor: $220
- shop: $440
At this point the shop price is dropped of just about 45%, while the blacksmith wages are dropped about 90% and he could no more afford to buy good things, having to resort to Chinese stuff (and food stamps).
If you find these calculations "unrealistic", I can told you some years ago my friend growing sweet basil (I wrote about him into another post) was paid 0.25 euro for each huge bunch of basil 6" wide, while the same bunch was sold in Genoa, at the Euroflora fair, for 10 euro.
Here is why, if possible, I try to buy directly from producers (even apples!) or following the shortest chain available.


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## John Hasler (Jul 21, 2014)

> Marco writes: About the price of the good stuff, I've seen somewhere a fancy diagram  explaining how to calculate the shelf price of a product, but now I'm  unable to find it.



The old marketing rule of thumb for consumer products was that retail price needed to be nine times material cost but that was never really very useful.  Kurt doesn't need to account for the high cost of a good retail location, spoilage, or the risk that their product will be out of fashion by the time it reaches the market.  On the other hand, they are selling a relatively low-volume product that requires expensive capital to make.


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## Marco Bernardini (Jul 21, 2014)

John Hasler said:


> The old marketing rule of thumb for consumer products was that retail price needed to be nine times material cost but that was never really very useful.  Kurt doesn't need to account for the high cost of a good retail location, spoilage, or the risk that their product will be out of fashion by the time it reaches the market.  On the other hand, they are selling a relatively low-volume product that requires expensive capital to make.



Exactly!
But also Kurt, as any other maker of high quality products, needs very skilled workers, guys who don't bore through a drill press table just because they are tired/bored or because they don't have any experience.
To have skilled workers means to invest heavily in training: a boy who just left the school can't know all the subtleties of a workshop, even if he can drive a CNC machine but, as everybody here knows, a CNC machine can't do everything (maybe it could… but for an astronomic cost).
Until the Kurt shareholders (but also those of Glacern, Orange and a few others brands) will not be attained by the "make money fast" fever, delocalizing jobs to just apparently save money, they can have a lot of profit from the existing resources (good machines and skilled workers), even if this will be a long-term investment.


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