How to Improve an Import Machinist Vice For £10  

That's how I view devices made to Chinese standards as well. They're producer goods, it's a good base but it needs a little work to become a good product. A 6" Kurt vise will be at least 6 times as expensive so depending on much your time is worth (and whether you like doing these modifications), this is a good deal.

The needle bearing you have does nothing for you when tightening the vise. It only lets the screw turn more freely when opening. You need to try again to put a bearing on the inside. Perhaps by mounting the vise base on the lathe cross slide (fixed jaw end on the right), with a boring bar in the chuck, and back boring a spotface for a bearing seat.

Hi George Clements Almost all machine vices have jaw lift, but these vices are of the KURT design. The sliding clamp jaw has hemispheres pressure pad which provides downward force when clamped. One of the main problems with jaw lift is over tightening the vice. You have to select a vice which will cope with the forces generated by the cutting process. These are Hobby vices, which generally mean they should be used on hobby machines (normally low power) I'm not trying to preach to you or be clever. Im just trying to be realistic regarding what we are all buying? Regards Mike N

With those vices I'd be more concerned with flatness and parallelism than the lead screw. And fortunately you have a surface grinder to address that issue. If you haven't checked it yet, your going to find it out by at least .002 to .004 (or more) side to side, front to back.

since you have a surface grinder, consider truing and flattening the bottom so it aligns with the jaws riding surface.

Thanks for the video 👍

For interested viewers, the Arceurotrade accuvice has these mods as standard. That is not to say they are free from requiring a few tweaks. Deburring is #1 issue. Second is the ""swivel pin" between the vice and the base.Rebore it and make a new shouldered pin that is within a decent tolerance. Third is making sure the hemisphere pressure pad is free to swivel in the slid Forth is the tenons are " let's just say" inadequate so make some new ones to fit your machine table. Measure your table slots as they are unlikely to be 14mm you might expect, unless you have a non Chinese mill! Lastly " come on" for the price you have got to accept the fact that you need to finish off the assembly. Other than above, I'm well satisfied with the product and would buy another one tomorrow. I'm Not sponsored by Arceurotrade, I'm just reporting my findings, and I believe that they represent very good value for the money.

I suggest adding 20% to the budget and purchase the hardened races that are normally available with thrust bearings. If you were able to part off the steel used for your DIY washers they weren't hard enough and will deform under load.

Surely the force on the leadscrew will be on the inner face when the vice is tightened? I've got a Vevor vice on my mill and to be fair, it was just fine out of the box. For the money, they are hard to beat. Very impressed with the quality of the grinding and the general flatness and tolerances when measured on my surface plate.

The oil port is a good addition, i would make a brass or even better a bronze washer to put on the lead screw because when you'll tighten the vice the screw will rub against the cast iron.

Some newer designs don’t have an oil fitting on that bearing. You really need to find out before you start modding designs. The new Kurts, for example no longer have that oil fitting. They don’t need it.The most important thing to check on these cheap imports is to indicate all the surfaces to find out how badly the surfaces are off from parallel from the table and everything else on the vise. Changing the bearing doesn’t do much. And, yes, that vise is much too large for your mill.

Good mods on the vice, well done. You could machine up a smaller diameter brass washer to fit where the other thrust bearing got damaged. That should help reduce the friction when clamping items in the vice.

It's easy to fall into the "it's only two inches" trap, while technically true, a more appropriate description would be 50% bigger. Everything is half again bigger on the 6" compared to the 4".

10:30 the barring is on the wrong side of the casting. You had it right the first time. Just mill more material out of the way. Or just chunk the vise and get a KURT.

I have been upgrading vises w/ Torringtons for 15+ yrs. I normally buy races w/ my roller bearing purchases. The races are hardened. I discovered this when I didn't have the correct ID races, but some smaller ID races had a large enough OD. (Small ID races are often offered w/ 2 d8fferent ODs. Don't why.) My thought, simple, just enlarge them... A bit skated on the race, an end mill refused to cut. It took a high speed die grinder & stone to enlarge them. I got an older Vevor looking 6" vise w/ a used mill I bought this summer. It has an oiling ball & ball thrust bearing on the inside. Just got an order w/ a roller thrust bearing for the outside, this allows all end play to be removed. I have also done the same for this vise as I have for my other machinist vises, installed a 4" handwheel w/ rotating handle. They're fast, the cast iron version has enough mass you can give a bearing'd vise a spin & it floats open or closed. The 4" diameter & extended handle gives enough leverage to hold any near parallel material without overtightening & distorting things which is easy w/ an 8" lever as a bearing'd vise cinches down so much easier, you need to adjust if you have 'gorilla arm' tendecies. Roller bearings installed on a bench vise eliminates ever needing a cheater bar or hammer to tighten or loosen the jaws; no more pretzel'd slide handles which don't slide any longer. The least expensive, most productive upgrade you'll ever do. The 1st time I bearing my vises, a cheap Japanese 4" vise was rehabilitated after it's near 30 yr sentence as a door stop, to being a working, productive vise, for the 1st time. (Purchased when Japanesium was equal to junk, nearly 50 yrs ago... it spent almost 20 on a shelf, until I needed a doorstop one day.) GeoD

I use mine as is, saved my time

To be honest I think the vice would have been fine as supplied. I would take the view it's better not to put crushing loads on a small bearing. ( You didn't anyway on the bearing that would have taken the main clamping pressure.) A bit unfair on Vevor. It would have freed up with a little use.

$800 in matching and you have one half as good as a Kurt, I did enjoy the video, though. 😊

Didn't you harden thrust washers before grinding them? 'Soft' washers are a waste of time with needle rollers. From video's I've seen, and after buying a Chinese mill vice, they are not particularly accurate, as mentioned in other comments, base and working surface are not parallel so anything machined in them tapers between 0.004" and 0.006" across width of vice jaws (4"~5") I haven't even measured front to back yet. I guess scraping bottom surface co-planar with jaw surface could fix things and would still be way cheaper than buying KURT or similar at £6~£700.

Hi, Thanks for the warning, especially the hugh size: I almost bought this vice. Now not so likely. regards from Hamburg / Germany Matthias

Fair dues. Looks good value for money if you can do the modifications. Would have liked to know whether there is jaw lift on the vice. Best wishes.

Looks like a naughty drill mark on the left hand side rear😀.

How much does this vice weigh?

So, Joe...now you need a larger mill to mount that vise too.

Hey Joe, what is the part number for the bearing please?

Thanks for the adVISE

I bought china junk and invested my time fixing a band new vice. Then I bought a Kurt DX4 and a DX6. Buy once, cry once.

If you want to improve, spend money in a good quality once.

So out of the box it wasn’t a great deVISE but you managed to increase its serVICEability so hopefully you’ll get many years of serVICE from it.😂