Bench Vise

abrace

abrace

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All,

I am building a new work bench for my shop. I need a recommendation for a good (not great) bench vise. I would like decent quality without breaking the bank. Any suggestions?
 
I have many vises, perhaps too many vises, but the best one I own is a Charles Parker 4" vise made sometime in the mid-1930's. Weighs about 70# and it grabs solidly with 1/8" turn of the handle once the jaws touch the part. I own two Wilton machinist vises, an Emmert 4a, a Prentiss vise, a big Reed vise and several others with names I can't recall. None of them are as good as that Parker vise. Check ebay - they come up for not bad prices. If you want a new vise for cheap, look at the Record line of vises; there are better ones but not for the price.
 
Hi abrace don't know if this will help but I bought a vice from Lowe's not to long ago brand name is Record and I'm very happy with it ,keep in mind I'm just a Hobbyist and don't need anything real heavy duty but it has held up good and best of all it cost me about 40.00 or 45.00 dollars
 
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Look for larger American made vises at least 30-40 years old on your local Craigslist. If the vise hasn't been abused (and you'll be able to tell when you see it in person) you can't really go wrong for your purpose. There really wasn't much of a market for cheap, poorly made larger vises (since most were being used by mechanics or farmers, not hobbyists) until at least the 70's, so there weren't that many made as far as I can tell. I have a Wilton, a large Craftsman I bought new about 30 years ago, two 40-some year old Craftsmans (one U.S. and one Japanese), a 100+ year old Parker with a swivel jaw, a Duracraft (Taiwanese) bullet vise clone and a very old looking Reed. I use all of them except the Reed, which I recently bought at an estate sale and am cleaning up to give to my daughter. Except for the Wilton and the Craftsman I bought new, none of them has cost more than $40.

I would stay away from the Chinese vises at the big box stores. The ones I've tried haven't worked very well and I've heard a number of accounts of their cracking under stress.

Bill
 
It will also depend a bit on what you want to grip in the vise and how much pounding and wrenching you expect it to withstand. I have a 4" engineers vise (English made Record) for smaller stuff, a 6" engineers vise (Chicom made Record, but still pretty good), an 8" engineers vise (Australian made Dawn) and a 6" manufactured vise (not by me). The manufactured vise is at my welding bench and gets abused regularly. The other 3 get used as needed depending on the job but all are standing up well. I dont hammer on them, (too much....) but they are all bolted down securely because I do swing some big torque loads on them at times.
It really comes down to use. 4" is a neat handy size but can lack a bit of grunt. 6" is good and solid but takes up bench space 8" is overkill for a hobbyist, generally. I wish I had an offset at times.
Make sure when you mount it that the grip face of the fixed jaw is proud of the front edge of your work bench in the vertical plane.

Cheers Phil
 
wlburton said:
Look for larger American made vises at least 30-40 years old on your local Craigslist
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Since you are quite near Nashua, I agree. There are many good vises listed in NH. Also you should look at Worcester and Boston listings. I just did a quick search and found a bunch of good vises for very reasonable money.
 
12bolts said:
It will also depend a bit on what you want to grip in the vise and how much pounding and wrenching you expect it to withstand.
Click to expand...

A fair point. This will be in my 'welding area' but will be a general purpose vise. I am sure some pounding will be involved. I plan on mounting it to the top of a workbench/table I am building. The tabletop will be 3/16" steel, but I may build up the area the vise mounts to a little thicker.
 
mikey said:
I have many vises, perhaps too many vises, but the best one I own is a Charles Parker 4" vise made sometime in the mid-1930's. Weighs about 70# and it grabs solidly with 1/8" turn of the handle once the jaws touch the part. I own two Wilton machinist vises, an Emmert 4a, a Prentiss vise, a big Reed vise and several others with names I can't recall. None of them are as good as that Parker vise. Check ebay - they come up for not bad prices. If you want a new vise for cheap, look at the Record line of vises; there are better ones but not for the price.
Click to expand...

The Charles Parker vises look like they are well made. Most of the CP vises on Ebay are missing the base/swivel and look pretty beat up, but I'll keep looking for a good one.
Which CP vise do you have, is it a #205? Does it have a model number? Are there more than one 4" vise model and did you buy it with the swivel base? Can you find replacement jaws?
Were you able to remove your jaws and tear it down? Thanks Mike.
 
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I have two of the Craftsman Japanese made vises from the 1960-1970's, which you can get cheap. They are made of ductile iron, good stuff, and are well fitted. I beat the crap out of my 3.5" Craftsman for 40+ years and it still looks and works like new. I picked up a 5" one that has really been beat up, but nothing cracked and cleaned it up and milled the anvil smooth and painted it. Looks great now. I still need to make the workbench to put it on, so no testing yet...
 
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