Anybody have a Glacern 6" Vise

Stonebriar

Stonebriar

Rick
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I was wondering if anyone here has a Glacern Vise any their opinion of them. I am looking a the Kurt and the Glacern 6" vises. Of course you can save money by buying the Glacern but I want to get it right. The cheap China made vise that came with my PM935 is far from precise. Comments please.
 
I recently purchased a 6 inch second direct from Kurt. Love the vice. Had to look really hard to figure out why it was a second. There were pin holes in the casting on the bolt down lug. All the specifications that mattered are great. Any other company would have filled the surface blem and not worried about it. Look on the company's web site for availability. It saved me quite a bit of money for a well made vise.
 
Technically the Glacern vise is also made in Taiwan, pretty much the same as the Shar's version. They are good vises, but at that price point I would look at the Kurt DX6, which Shar's also sells. Kurt also sells scratch and dent ones on occasion with free shipping.
www.shars.com

Kurt DX6 CrossOver 6" Vise with 9" Opening

www.shars.com www.shars.com

Corrected as to manufactured origin. Still made in same factory as the Shar's according to some postings and someone I spoke too at BarZ. There may be some finishing differences and tolerances. A few friends of mine have the DX6 and it is very nice, probably can't go wrong with any of these.

Shars and Glacern vises the same??

I looked for a better place to put this with no luck so here it lands simply because I know there are IH owners with Glacern vises. Has anyone noticed
www.cnczone.com
 
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I have a recently purchased Glacern. Excellent equipment.
 
I have two 6" Glacern vises on a Tormach 1100. No issues so far in my experiences with them (which is limited). The previous owner of the mill loved them. I swept them with a DTI and see maybe 0.0002" across the surfaces. Mine were supposedly match-ground so the surface below the jaws (where parallels/work rests) and the top surface are flat to each other within 0.0002".

I have 2 Kurt 6" vises also and from my experiences with both would call them equals.

Bruce
 
I've got a 5" Glacern & I've been happy with it. If you are itching to get a Kurt, get the Kurt, that itch may never go away.

Don't know if things have changed but the castings for the GMT vises are made in Taiwan & they claim to do the final machining at their location in California. If you order 2 vises they will send you a matched pair (bed heights).

I'd buy one again if I had to. Best to wait till they have their vise & free shipping sales if you want the GMT but they only come around like 2-3 times a year. There should be one coming up for Halloween, (that's when I got mine & they have been consistently doing sales during Halloween since I got mine). Other considerations if you want to save some money are the Homge vises that Matt sells, also made in Taiwan. Also Magnum vises that are made in the USA. Tormach's vises are/were made by Magnum (again not sure if things have changed). Parlec vises are/were nice but since Enco is gone can't get them for great prices anymore but might be able to find a used one. I think the new ones are made overseas now and are sold under the Te-Co brand now.

The partners of Glacern split up & the other partner created the Orange Vise Co. If I was rich I would buy an Orange vise. Those things are bad a$$!!!

Edit: Oh looks like they have a sale going on right now. Doesn't look like the vises are on sale but there's 5% off $300 & free shipping for any vise purchase.
 
Probably doesn't help the OP, but here is my mill vise story for the sake of other readers looking to purchase.

I have two of the Tormach 4" 'CNC vises'. First one is near perfect, the second was ordered about 6 months later with the fixed jaw out of square by .005 and with significantly more drag on the screw. The bed heights are within .0005, amazingly. #2 works fine after I trued it up, but would not buy another based on that anecdote.

Really wishing I put that money toward the SMW fixture plate/modular vise combo if I had to do it over. My PM-25 column is not all that rigid, so getting down 1.5" closer to the table would really help mitigate the chatter I get when blasting through aluminum.
 
FWIW, and maybe not the best two data points, but the two places I found, one selling Kurt, and the other Glacern, was that the price was too close to be the deciding factor, so I went with the Kurt.
 
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