Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Vises, But Were Afraid To Ask!
For starters, NO, GW , this is not a primer on VICES, for that you need to talk to some of the other, uh, less pure, members of this forum!
One of our members is thinking of purchasing a VISE , which is any of a variety of tools with two jaws that clamp or hold or apply pressure via the closing of the two jaws, or one of the two jaws, utilizing a screw, lever, cam, pneumatic or hydraulic piston, to move one or both of the jaws towards one another, or away from one another.
He’s looking for a type that will be useful for most common household chores or repairs, some gunsmithing, wood working, etc.
He’s a great guy, but rather innocent in that he made the mistake of asking the village idiot (me) about what type to purchase.
Sooo, you can blame him for what follows.
He shall, however, remain nameless so that Tophog, Lonerider, et al can not extract revenge upon him!
There are a large number of types of vises out there, almost as many as there are vices, although a few of my buddies here on the forum (you know who you are!) seem to be able to invent new forms of the latter faster than the manufacturing industry can come up with new versions of the former.
Good on ya guys, keep up the good/bad work!
The more common ones are wood workers vises, mechanics vises, machinist vises, sheet metal vises, pana vises, hand vises, blacksmiths vises, engineer’s vise, fitter’s vise, tinker’s vise, jewelers vise, engravers vises, angler’s vises, tool makers vises, sine vises, milling vises, drill press vise, utility vise, yoke vise, modular vise, tower vise, tombstone vise, cross vise, angle vise, diemaker’s vise, pin vise, off center vise, tradesmen vise and plumbing pipe vises (chain and yoke styles) just to name a few off the top of my pointy head.
Some of the above come as bench models, some as floor models, some with swivel bases, some with fixed bases, so there really is quite a variety to choose from.
All are useful, but some are highly specialized and not worth having if you are going to primarily work on guns, cars, and home projects.
For example, Cujo probably has a couple of angler’s vises, also known as fly tying vises, but they wouldn’t be of much use if he wanted to press a pin into the frame of a gun, or to hold the slide on a 1911 firmly to allow the hand filing of a dovetail for a new rear sight installation.
On the other hand, using a 8 inch machinist vise to tie fishing lures with would be a bit of overkill on the holding power end, and not real easy to position the work in to make the job easier.
And believe it or not, that big 8 inch vise might not work all that well for fly tying, as it would have so much clamping area in relation to the size of the part (a lure) being clamped, that you would have to put a spacer at the other end of the jaws in order to get it to apply the clamp pressure evenly. Otherwise the lure might squirt out of one end like a watermelon seed between your fingers.
For the home hobbyist, home gunsmith, and / or the occasional car mechanic, a 4 inch general purpose “utility” vise would probably suffice for most needs. Or a “mechanic’s” vise in the same size range.
However, when buying a vise for all around use in the home shop, I suggest buying the largest, heaviest, highest quality vise you can find and afford.
A large vise will do everything a small vise will do, maybe not quite as easily, but the reverse is not generally true.
A 6 or 8 inch vise would be my choice if I were going to spend my hard earned money just once, and it would probably have a swivel base on it.
Vise dimensions, by the way, are generally given in terms of the width of the jaws, followed by the distance the jaws will open/separate, such as a “6x8” vise, or a “4x5.25” vise.
Check out the Yost, Reed, and Wilton web site to see examples of the various types of vise they offer:
http://www.yostvises.com/?utm_source...utm_medium=cpc
http://www.reedmfgco.com/index.html?screen=vises
http://www.wiltontools.com/us/manufa...category=26985
Quality counts big time in a vise, some of the better brands out there are the ones named above, Reed, Wilton, and Yost, as well as Ridgid, Bison, Kurt, and Yuasa.
The majority of the above have been around 100 or more years, the Reed, Yost, and Wilton’s are still made in America.
A high quality vise is made from seasoned malleable cast iron with a tensile strength of around 80,000 PSI on the low end to 160,000 PSI on the high end, or from forged steel.
A quality vise will last a lifetime with a bit of care and if you don’t abuse it.
A cheap vise can fail and cause damage to the part being worked on, or injury to you, so spend a bit more and get a good vise, avoiding the ones made in India and China, and sold by Harbor Freight, etc.
Don’t overlook garage sales and bankruptcy auctions of machine shops, etc. as a source of good quality, used vises.
The basic parts of any screw vise consist of the body, the base, the anvil (if present) , the fixed jaw, the moveable jaw, the beam , the (leade) screw and the handle.
The body is the portion of the vise that the fixed jaw is a part of, and the body connects either directly to the bench through the integral base, or through a swivel plate base if the vise is so equipped.
If the vise has an anvil, it will be on the rear of the body, behind the fixed jaw, and centered over the beam and leade screw.
The moveable jaw is attached to the ends of the leade screw and the beam, and moves towards or away from the fixed jaw and base depending on the actuation of the leade screw,( or the cam, lever, or piston (pneumatic or hydraulic) if the vise is one of these types.)
The beam is the metal part that the moveable jaw rides on, and it slides in and out of the body of the vise.
Typically, beams will be made of steel, and on good quality vises they will be highly polished so that they move smoothly through the body, and don’t pickup or hold chips, filings, etc. which might impede their movement.
They may be round, square, rectangular or “I” shaped in cross section, depending on the type of vise and manufacturer. Each has its strengths and weaknesses.
The leade screw should be cut with an Acme Square thread, avoid those vises which have sharp “V” threads like those found on hardware store bolts and machine screws.
The V thread from is too easily damaged, and does not transmit torque nearly as well as the square Acme thread does. In frequent operation it will wear out in a much shorter time, leaving the vise useless.
The screw on a quality vise will using be covered as well, but not always and that isn’t a major detraction if it is not.
If it’s not covered, just brush the chips and sawdust and crap out of it with a cheap bristle paint brush from time to time, and give it a light coat of a lightweight oil to keep it from rusting.
The handles on the vise should be substantial in diameter, and you never want to hammer on them with a hammer to get the vise tighter. That will damage it the first time you do so, and it puts an uneven stress on the leade screw and the beam at the same time. This can lead to the screw and / or beam becoming warped (twisted) and the vise will then not close evenly , or it may not close or open completely.
If you must get it tighter than you can achieve with just the factory handle and your hands, put a short cheater bar of galvanized pipe over it, being sure to put the pipe all the way down over the handle until the pipe bottoms on the pivot point at the end of the leade screw.
The best way, however, is two cheater bars, one on each side of the equally extended handle, and lift up on one cheater while pulling down on the other (two people recommended here) so as to keep from stressing the screw and beam.
However, generally speaking, if you can’t get the vise tight enough with just your bare hands, to hold the work piece so that it doesn’t slip when you are working on it, you either need a larger vise or some other method of holding the work.
Vises come with a variety of jaw faces, and as well as a variety of beam shapes and leade screws.
The jaw faces should be removable and replaceable on any vise you select for gunsmithing and general home or shop use, so that you can put on other types of faces beyond the normal steel, serrated faces that come on most utility, tradesman, machinist, or mechanics vises.
This way you can buy or make faces from soft aluminum, copper, lead, wood, leather, High Density Poly Ethylene (HDPE) or even heavy card board.
And you can make custom faces with various horizontal , vertical or angular V grooves to hold round work easily.
When looking for a good vise, new or used, there are several things to check for.
The jaws should close smoothly, with little effort from full open to fully closed. With the handle slid through the pivot point so that it is all on one side of the pivot point, you should be able to run the vise from full open to fully closed with just an extended index finger against the handle.
There should be no binds or rough spots for the full travel distance of the movable jaw.
Look for nicks, gouges, flat spots on the leade screw, and dings and gouges on the beam. Some can be stoned or filed off, but if too deep, pass on it.
The beam and leade screw should travel into the base at a 90° angle to the jaws.
Look out for jaw face retaining screws that are bent, or that have the holes they screw into stripped out. These are sometimes odd thread sizes on older or imported vises, even those of good quality, and can be tough to replace or re-drill and tap.
The jaws should come completely together, evenly, with no gap along the entire junction of the faces, and should do so with just hand pressure tightening the vise.
You shouldn’t have to gorilla tighten it to get them to meet that way. If they close and leave a gap at one end or the other, or at both ends, or in the middle, the jaw faces are not parallel or the beam and leade screw are not perpendicular to the faces, and you need to find another vise.
If you find a good , high quality vise that is used, and the faces don’t meet quite parallel and flush, but are not off by more than a tenth of an inch or so, it may still be a good buy provided you are willing to do a bit of work on it, or take it to a machine shop and have them true the jaws.
The jaws can be milled or ground parallel if they are the source of the problem.
If the beam and leade screw are off, that can take a good bit more work to correct, and you might want to pass on that vise.
If the vise has a swivel base, it should have at least two locking points on it to keep it from rotating, and the locking bolt/nut/handle combination should be in good shape, not hammered out of shape or made of some cheap alloy.
If the vise won’t lock against rotation, but is otherwise in good shape and of good quality, take a close look at it, can the swivel base be removed and the vise bolted to the bench as a fixed position vise? If so, can you live without the swivel feature?
A quick word here about bolting a vise down. The bench should be substantial, at least 2 inches thick of good , solid wood, or 1 inch thick steel for a top, and the entire bench should be sturdy, no wobbles, and heavy.
I prefer to bolt the bench down to the floor with “L” brackets on all legs if possible, and also lag screw it to the wall studs behind it if the bench is against a wall.
For some things, I end up adding weight in the form of 100 pound sacks of sand to the bench shelf near the floor. This makes it heavier and dampens vibration nicely.
A bench top of 2x12’s side by side to form a base for the bench top that is 1.5 inches thick, then add a piece of ¾” thick MDF with Melamine laminate on the top side over the 2/12’s makes a very sturdy bench.
The Melamine makes it easy to wipe clean, and if it’s white, it’s easy to see small parts that get dropped on it.
The top ends up being about 2-1/4 inches thick this way, plenty of strength for the bolts on the vise base, and I spread the clamping load of those bolts out with the largest fender washers I can find on both ends, under the bolt head and under the nut & lock washer on the bottom side. Torque them down tight, and do it again once a week for a month or so until the wood fibers stop being compressed and the moisture content stabilizes. If the vise gets loose with the passing of time, tighten them down as needed.
Some types of vise have a flat, hardened work surface called an “anvil” behind the fixed jaw.
While it is sufficient for use on small or light gauge work to flatten something against, etc. I don’t recommend using it for much more than that.
Spend the money and buy a good anvil of the type used by blacksmiths. For a gunsmith or car mechanic, a 55# anvil is usually large enough for most things.
A good quality anvil has a definite “ring” to it when struck with a hammer, cheap ones of cast iron with barely hardened faces (the flat portion you actually hammer metal on, not the rounded horn) will have a dull “thud” sound to them. If the face of a good quality, used anvil has some nicks and dings in it that are not too deep, they can be ground out and the face leveled for a few bucks at a machine shop.
The same holds true of the small anvil surface on a vise, it can be ground flat and true if it has been damaged but the damage doesn’t go too deep.
A number of styles of vise will have pip jaws below the main flat jaws.
These are great for holding pipe for light work, but they really don’t have enough purchase to hold pipe for threading, for that you need a true pipe vise.
And definitely don’t use them as a barrel vise, they won’t exert anywhere near enough pressure on the barrel to keep it from slipping as you thread the receiver on or off, and are likely to not only mar it, but bend it or crush the bore as well!
Buy or build a barrel vise, I can supply basic details / plans for several styles if you need them, ones I have built and used myself over the years that work and don’t cost a fortune, if you have a good drill press or mill , and a MIG or TIG or Stick welder that is. They can be bolted together also.
When using the vise, always try to get the work piece centered up in the middle of the vise, directly over the beam and screw, if possible.
This point provides the greatest clamping force, and the least “racking” of the jaws, so that they will want to remain parallel when not clamped down on anything.
If the work piece is shorter than the length of the vise jaws, definitely center it up in the jaws.
If it’s longer, try to align the portion of the work piece that will be worked on with the center of the vise, so that it will be most securely clamped and able to resist whatever force is applied against the work piece , such as filing, grinding, sawing, hammering, etc.
Of course whatever you are doing, always try to avoid damaging the jaws and jaw faces in any way, sooner or later those nicks and dings will catch up to you on some future project.
They can be dressed out, but it’s easier to just avoid putting them there in the first place.
If a very long piece is clamped in the vise, try to support the outboard ends in some manner, this will keep the piece in position in the vise.
If the piece has to be leveled for the work to be performed accurately , then supporting the outboard ends of long pieces becomes essential to accurate work.
Short pieces that must be clamped on the end of the jaws to be drilled or filed, etc. should have a piece of material of the same basic hardness and same size (diameter, cross section, whatever) clamped at the same time at the other end of the jaws so that they close evenly and exert an even, parallel force on the jaws.
For round stock , use jaw faces with “V” grooves machined into them, or use “V” blocks on one or both sides of the round stock to clamp it securely.
For tall work pieces, replace the stock jaw faces with shop made or purchased tall faces, remember as the height goes up, the thickness of the tall face needs to be increased so as to maintain rigidity.
If you are clamping an object in a vise to mill or drill on it, any action that requires that it stay securely in the vise and remain level, as you slowly clamp down on it, use a dead blow hammer or a lead hammer to tap the piece down.
Tighten, tap, tighen, tap, etc. until it is securely held.
This is necessary because, with the exception of the KURT® style angle clamp vises, and the tool maker or die maker screwless vises, vise jaws, as they close, tend to lift, and carry the work piece up and out as they do so.
The Kurt® and screwless vises are designed so that as they tighten, the moveable jaw pulls downward, usually with about ½ pound of force for every pound of force exerted in the lateral, clamping direction.
If you need to support a piece of work in a vise so that one surface is above the vise jaw faces, use parallels, these are machined pieces, made in pairs, of flat, hardened steel bar stock that are ground so that their length and width dimensions are identical to a very high degree, and so that the edges are all parallel.
If you are trying to mill an object so as to obtain sides that are parallel to one another, and / or are at 90° angles to one another, and you don’t have a flat face to start with that you can rest against the bottom of the vise “ways”, for the first clamping and milling, put the object down tight against a round bar, such as a piece of drill rod.
This will give it a single point of reference in the Z axis, and allow you to machine the opposite surface without it wanting to slip in the vise.
“Ways” are found on milling machine vises, they are the flat, polished surfaces that the moveable jaw slides upon when the leade screw, cam, lever, or piston is activated.
They carry the weight of the moveable jaw, as there is generally no beam in this type of vise.
Between uses, keep the vise clean, brushing off any chips, sawdust, filings, etc. from the beam and screw, pick out any “pinnings” (small bits of metal) that may have gotten caught in the serrated jaw faces, and occasionally put a bit of light machine oil on the leade screw and beam, just enough to leave a sheen that you can see in a bright light.
That’s about it for this type of Vise, I’ll let some of the other, more learned than I, folks here on the forum fill you in on the other types of Vices…………