Fantastic Tools From The Toolroom #1 Precision Vises 

The only complaint I have about Tom's videos is there's not enough of them... Though they are a bit like crack, so low volume means I can be a functioning addict.

Great series, look forward to the next installment!

Thank you, Tom. Your introductory speech tells it all. You're very generous for sharing your knowledge and explaining the neat tools machinists use.

Sweet collection of vises! Thanks for show them!.

This is going to be a great series; thanks for sharing!

Thanks Tom for another awesome, entertaining and informative video! ATB!

Bout time we heard for you! Thanks Tom

Helpful video, many thanks Tom

oh god. please find time to do more. really good to get a video from you.

Love it...I can't get over how cool your shop is and your knowledge Tom! Long time no see!

Thank's for your time love me some tools

Thanks, Tom. Great video.

Fun video, Tom. You answered a question I had about a Hermann Schmidt vise I had picked up. I observed the few tenths out of square, and wondered. But, when you pointed out the reasoning, it was a head-slapper.

Thanks Tom - I appreciate your willingness to satisfy my tool addiction for the day.

Thanks for advising us on your vise vice - all advice appreciated!!! Looking forward to #2. God bless.

Glad to see a new Oxtools video :)

Thank you for this. Your expansive knowledge and experience, is very helpful in explaining the differences that might not be apparent to most.

That vice from Steve is a beauty. I recognized it imeaditly by his star shaped logo. Anybody interested in this type of thing should take a look at the video you did covering the tooling that he made. Top notch workmanship!!

cool vises, great lessons too...

Good to see you back on RU-vid Tom. Trust you and wife are safe and well

Thanks for the video Tom.

Love the Intro Tom! Also a nice collection of vises. ATB, Robin

👍 enjoyed. Thanks Tom.

Great grasp of the vise situation. Thanks for the video.

Great mission statement Tom! Enjoyed very much as well as good to know. I always get hungry when I think of meatloaf! May the vise be with you!

Very cool set of tools! Thanks for the review!

cool, really cool! it's like having a tupperware show for aficionado of metal works. Thanks Tom!

I really loved your intro on this one. To be honest, I love most everything you post.

Loaning out a vise: Once I had a bunch of little parts to fettle, so I stopped at Sears and bought a Craftsman vacuum-base vise with 2.5" jaws and soft jaw pads. It probably cost less than $20, and did the job nicely. One of my coworkers walked by my desk,saw what I was doing and asked to borrow the vise when I was done with it. When I gave it to him I asked him to be careful with it because it was my personal property, not owned by our company. When he returned it to me, the soft jaws were trashed. I kinda blew my stack. He just looked at me and said, "Well, I had a job to do!" Several years later, I was using my brand new Mitutoyo digital calipers and Mr. Vise-Destroyer asked to borrow them when I was finished. You would think I had learned a lesson from the vise...

man I have been worried about you,,, good to see you again,, thanks for the video..

always great to see a vid from you

Thanks for showing off your collection! I got a vice like the Herman Schmidt VO-4 you showed, mines 80mm width, I use it on the mill. And yes, hate the way the pin has to engage in the notch but I'm sorta used to it now. I got a smaller one with a through-pin rather than the ratchet thing, and I too found I can put the smaller vice in the larger vice at an angle.

Glad to see you back on the tube

Quite a collection, very cool. V-block tour next 😁😁

Great stuff . Cheers .

Thanx for sharing this interesting important content 👍

A man of many vises.

Hey Tom , that was a truly GRIPPING video !😊

Great video, I really enjoyed seeing these vises. You have some interesting pieces in your collection.

Thank You!

Thank you sir for sharing keep up the great videos

This is going to be a nice video series.

Dude Steve's vice is nice! I like tge layout, ratios, everything

Very neat!

Loved it! For me, the quality of your videos is what makes them great. I vote for best/most useful handtools. Thanks! Daniel

I recognized the Fakes vise right away from the knob and general shape. I have a larger one (easily twice the size) that needs a restoration. Thanks for reminding me!

Awesome tools, I love that dinky little vise..

Thanks. Didn’t know about the pin and spring in the little vices. Just upgraded my brown and sharpe vice.

Can never have too many vises. I enjoyed your insight on these.

Thanks. You are a man of many vices. I've got a Shars "tool makers" vice, (no self respecting tool maker would use) and after some modifications to that annoying notch system nut works OK. The holes down the side allow me to reposition the jaw while bolted to the table. Works for holding parts at an angle in the mill vice or on the rotary table. Mr. Pete just made a hand vice video.

I share your mania. My collection is a little more modest. Unfortunately, I don't understand English, but I watched the entire video. Thanks!

your video perfect for my OCD, thanks

Live long and prosper Tom!!! 🖖🏻

I really acknowledge and admire your metal working skills, as a boiler/maker welder my general tolerance range is shown on the drawings but +-1mil, no problem it’s my bread and butter my trade. After purchasing a lathe I expected to work to 1 tho max and within 10ths, I have learned not so easy, it’s a learning process, buying precision tools and a lathe does result in precision parts.

Love the video Tom! I would love to see your process on checking the squareness of that Schmidt vise. I have a Starrett and have noticed that it is out a couple but never thought about the tension aspect. I checked it static. Enjoy all of your videos!

Every time I think about how I wish Tom uploaded more frequently I think of two things: 1) editing and uploading content is a PITA; and 2) Tom is probably doing really cool stuff and could care less about filming. Our loss. Thanks for the knowledge and entertainment.

Welcome back Tom!

Thanks for the (ad)vise. :)

Am a long-time subscriber. Nice intro!

Thanks Tom - I was selfishly hoping that we'd see more of you during the shutdown & worried a bit that the virus may have hit you or your family. Good to see you're well. As for the video selection, I vote "D" All of the above - please :) Stay safe and well.

Great video Tom, watch yer fingers

Tom your videos are incredible. I pickup multiple things that are useful. The splash guard on the back of the grinder is number one priority for me (sick of fumbling with long sheet metal drop in guards that are usually always either to high or low)

Good content. Thank you. It would be interesting to see you recreate some of the weird stuff you get into at your day job. Not at work but in your shop. You did a tour one time and there was some really wild stuff going on.

Intro felt like an AA meeting, or in this case, TA: “Hi Tom!” We addicts feel your pain.

I have a 1" precision vise that I made that works great for grinding flats on locating pins.

Tom, the intro to this video was great. I hope you make it your channel introduction (or part of it). Loved the spirit of the message. Great content about vises too. I have one of those asian clones of the Herman Schimidt - it has a 100mm jaw width and I think the advertised opening is a bit larger again perhaps 125mm. It's a brilliantly made vise and very accurate, and grips well enough to mill with. I used it on my previous mill and will set it up soon with clamp bars for my vertical mill too. Thanks again, Craig

Tom, I loved your comments at the beginning of the video. Your reference to life long learning about the metalworking trade and your duty to share is admirable. Oh, and I enjoyed the vice porn too. Regards, Mark from down under. 🇦🇺

The home shop has the most amazing residential fire suppression system eyes have been on.

Hey Tom, if you need some small parallels take a regular set of 6" parallels and have a wire edm guy cut them in half. When I was a moldmaker apprentice I split the price of a set of parallels with another guy. To cut them our wire guy clamped them together and wire cut them in half, insta - grinding vice parallels!

Good thing for you that you got to Chuck's before I did, Tom...if I'd seen that Steve Edwards vise first I'd have it. Beautiful!!

Jig boring. Who remembers that? I still have some precision lengths and micrometers for a P&W machine around here somewhere. Great job, Tom.

Tom's back!! Yea.

Just bough my first. A Gibralter in 3", MSRP 490$. I am a hobbyist so this is exciting for me: Seeing what and how you lay it all out. Thankyou.

Tom, it was so good to see you again !! I just wish we could meet up in person some day. I hope you and yours are doing well, with all of todays social road blocks. Your friend here in southwest Michigan, Cliff

Great Video! Always quality watching, thanks Tom.

i'll just go ahead and say it, Mr. Pete the "you-tube shop teacher", has you beat on vises. Might not have the quality, but he dern sure has quantity! Good video. You didn't show the little vise you made and did a series on. It was bad-assed!

Great video, thanks Tom, enjoyed. Curious to how the bronze nut was secured in Steve’s vice, pinned somehow or just a press fit into the rear block?

Gripping stuff! V blocks next, please.

I don't think that alot of people know what can be done with just a right angle plate a granite slab 12"x a hight gauge and a drill press .Yes and a hacksaw make it a starrett they cut nice and straight. I guess they call them bench tools. Great show Tom! Oh ya files lots of files!

Little Machine Shop does sell a set of 3" parallels but I figured that out after I made my own.

I really appreciated your introduction! BTW: Can you do a video on hypoid gears? I've seen some pictures of them being cut and "some" of the setup. I know they're probably all made on CNC machines now, but they used to cut on milling machines with a dividing head, a shaft, and a gear on the feed. Thanks! Keep up the good work.

Tom, that first vice is begging for a ring to act as the zero reference. With a small thumbscrew you could set the zero point anywhere around the circumference.

I can see that first vise being used for making some sort of radii due to the lack of external angle adjustment on the top... maybe for grinding tool bits?

Wb Tom hope your keeping safe

If? MSC was correct when I bought my 4" capacity Accupro grinding vise Tom I specifically asked where it was made before buying. U.S. made was the answer I got, but there's zero information anywhere on the vise nor was there on the packaging to confirm if that's in fact true. I've never handled a real Herman Schmidt so can't compare what they make to what I have, but at about 1/5th the price I suspect the HS products are still a large step above mine. However it still checks out well under the 2/10ths allowed deviation spec in every dimension and in some areas under a 10th. It really is the nicest and best made grinding vise I've personally used. Even the finish grinding is some of the best I've seen. It's one of the few tools I've bought where I think I might have paid too little. Where ever it was really made someone knew what they were doing when they ground it. Unfortunately I can't say the exact same brand or vise from MSC today is or isn't still as good. Afaik that Accupro name is one of MSC's house brands so anything with it might have been made anywhere.

Toms back.

Oh boy, the press is on the work table...either the intro is old, or the project is back in the works.

When you first showed that toy vise with the handle on it, my first thought was that it was some sort of violin maker's vise.

The last vise you are displaying is the Starrett 160 ‘Toolmakers Steel Clamp’ and lists for $193.00 on Starrett.com. Thanks for making the video. Stay healthy.

Your 1 minute into for this video is PERFECT. I wish this were part of every excellent video you've shared. Please keep uploading videos as often as possible. Your content inspires others to create and share. Thanks you, Tom!

Just from the first 30 seconds I want to give 50 likes......!

And I think the swiveling front of the Starrett vice keeps you maintaining the back datum of the vice. And, yes, maybe annoying in use but with a purpose...

Love my Wilton 11702 3 axis. You have one Tom?

Those Starrett vises are handy little bugs. They seem to list on E**Y for more than the new price, for some reason, often with one jaw missing. I tend to use them (Starrett and the B&S version) in places where a toolmaker "parallel" clamp won't quite make it. They don't have the same hold in parallel cases, but when the angle is more than a few degrees, they are a lot easier to get full grip. Starrett calls them a clamp, not a vise, and I would guess my use is why. I also tend to pull them out when running CAD training. Lots of good geometry in these.

for the small vise, just consider, if you could get industry prices that large shipments of tool steel hover at, and you were making those small vises, you would be making them not one by one, but many at the same time... how many of those vises can you fit to grind parallel on your large s.g.? How many of them can then be transferred to the mill, gang setup, given the dovetails, especially on a horizontal setup, where you could gang mill rows of 10 of them at the same time by placing 5 cutters along the arbor, vises setup so the cutters are where they need to be... Its a large scale operation that produces no less than 20 vises at a time, hardens them, finishes all the surfaces on the grinder again and voila, shipment box ready... And consider that those are made like anything else on a cnc setup, which can operate with a jig setup to make hundreds of those every few hours, ready for h.t. and ``finish grinding to spec``... That in itself gives you a clue how they can make profit even at 40$ a pop... Hell, i bet i could supervise and direct an assembly line that could profit damn well from producing such vises... To the point that a power generation system would have to be made in house, to produce electricity for the production at lower prices than industry electricity costs with recent increases globally, just to kick the profit margin even higher... At factory scale, running a profitable production of these little vises is easy as fuck... Especially when its a multi facility factory that has every operation available in house, so the whole operation can be directed as a linear flow, or a cycle, if you have grinding to start and finish, with heating in between...

Tom, what about the hole pattern on the bottom of the vice that Steve made? I think it has a smart purpose. What do you think or know? Best, Job

With the cost of grinding vises today that are perfectly adequate for most grinding work I have no idea why anybody would make one now. As Stefan said, everything is made of rubber. Remember the Suburban U-Grind-it kits. There's a style of milling g machine vise that was being sold probably 20 years ago called a Quad CNC. The vise was different in that the fixed jaw was at the front towards the user. The fixed jaw was bolted to the vise base vertically and in the horizontal plane. Plus this jaw carried the activating screw. This type of vise would probably be well suited to being the basis for a grinding vise. Because the fixed jaw is carrying the thrust load from closing pressure I think it would have a lot less jaw flex than some other types.

Thanks for the look at all your vices Tom. Btw I looked up the price on the Starrett precision vice and it's list price is over $1500.00!! new

You mention a stainless grinding vise. Are they magnetic? Thanks for sharing. Good seeing you on the Tube.

Didn't you write a column for Cutting Tool Engineering Magazine? If it was you, you gave some very and interesting tips . I enjoyed your column very much.