enco 5" milling vise

On a separate note I found a Kurt clone at CDCO for 150.00 delivered to my door. It should arrive Thursday according to the tracking I got this evening, so I will be glad to look it over and let you know how good or bad that one is, and it is a 5 inch swivel base just like you described originally.

Bob
 
It seems like 5" vises are popular amongst hobbyists only & not in production shops. 4" are more popular than 5" it seems too. I have a 5" for my RF-45 clone & it's boderline too big for it IMO. I have ran out of Y travel when milling a plate using the outside jaw configuration. I think the 5" is perfect for my mill. In my case 6" would just be overkill & I'm much more happier not having to carry the weight of a 6" vise. I wouldn't mind an extra inch of width but I definitely don't want/need more length. A 6" would have too much overhang for my liking. But I'm just a home shop hobbyist too.

As much as I would love to have a Kurt, they don't make the 5" anymore & if i were ever to move up to a 6" I think i would get the premium vise from GMT instead. Otherwise I'll probably be sticking with my 5" vise for a very long time.
 
I mean the swivel bases flex. I leave my vises ion their swivel bases. I don't know if the bases on the vises themselves will flex. The vise being less tall w/o the swivel base would makje them stronger against flexing.

When I bought my Kurt,it had no swivel base. I got lucky and found that MSC had a pallett full of good,thick Japanese made swivel bases. I got one. It is twice as thick as the Enco swivel bases,and is much sturdier. I haven't seen it flex. I only had to modify the dia. of the swivel pin to fit it to the Kurt. And,I piunched a witness mark on the vise body to line up with the degree markings on the base. Can't recall offhand how I did that,but all worked out quite well.
 
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Re: enco 5" milling vise

perhaps one of my bport swivels will fit without mods. It should give me something to compare to anyway.

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calstar said:
Yep, ordered it today with a few other things. I think it was about as good of a price as can be found, $200 and free delivery to my door. I talked to a tech who only could come up with the same limited specs as on the site, nice guy but not any info I was looking for other than it has an acme screw. He did say he could get specs in around 3 days from the manuf, I'll take him up on that. Leap of faith but not too worried, don't feel I can lose on the deal, I'll let youl know.

Brian
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Mine is supposed to be here Wed, how abt yours?
 
Rbeckett said:
On a separate note I found a Kurt clone at CDCO for 150.00 delivered to my door. It should arrive Thursday according to the tracking I got this evening, so I will be glad to look it over and let you know how good or bad that one is, and it is a 5 inch swivel base just like you described originally.

Bob
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where did you find it ? I looked in the catalog and could only find a 4 and 6 inch. . . . .
 
I got it off Ebay here is the link:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/300593621662?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1439.l2649

The vice was 108 and the freight was 44 bucks. It is due to arrive on Thursday according to UPS, so I will measure it and take a close look and scrutinize it closely then. I hunted for quite a while and kept going back and forth on the 5 or 6 or even larger, but the 6 and 8's were all at least a hundred bucks more in most cases. Hope this helps you find what your looking for quickly.

Bob
 
I have that model and like it. It shipped UPS. If I recall the 6" was too heavy for UPS. I use mine a lot without the swivel base to gain some clearance and save weight on the table.
 
The Vise arrived yesterday afternoon via UPS. This shipment was delayed one business day due to the truck arriving too late to be unloaded onto other trucks. The box and Styrofoam were both well thought out and would provide more than adequate protection for the contents of the outer box. The paint job on this vise is flawless and appears to have been among those that went through the manufacturers QC and the excess grease was wiped away before shipment. The swivel and the jaw are both smooth and turn freely. The unit weight in the box was around 60 Lbs and the final weight was somewhere around the 50 pound mark as well. The flame hardened ways did a good bit smoothing the opening and closing of the device. The over all parallelism appears to be with in the advertised spec of .002. The supplied locking handle has a swivel to allow operation of the jaws even when the handle cannot go a full 360 Degrees, The vise also included 2 hold down bolts to secure it to the table too. The supplied key and screw are provided to insure that a true repeatable zero position is set when mounting the vise onto the table, So far I am quite satisfied with the quality of this vise and the delivery. The seller was listed as CDCO on Ebay, but the receipt I received was from Shars and the vise also has a Shars sticker on one side. Both jaws are replaceable and use fairly large hardened allen head bolts that are countersunk to avoid damaging the work surfaces.

Bob
 
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