Hi Ade. Very nice vice. I have brought a vice a while ago like this. He he. Thought I would have a milling machine by now. Just got it stored away for now. Very nice indeed
Hi Ade, great vid, keep em coming me old. I got the 5” vevor vice for my WM16B and stripped it down after watching your review of the 4”. I found that along with all the sharp edges the lead screw oil hole wasn’t drilled through the brass bush, so no point having an oiler at all! Remedied by removing the brass bush and knocking the oiler down and out, then spotting through into the re-installed bush and drilling the bush to let oil flow through it! Might be worth checking yours if it has a brass bush! Cheers Steve
Bella la morsa che ti hanno regalato. Grazie per gli auguri, si ho passato un buon Natale e ora contraccambio per un sereno anno nuovo a te e famiglia. Ciao
Ade, I have had the 5" version of this on the milling machine for jut over a year and have found it reliable and with a couple of modifications it has made a good replacement for my old milling vise. Apart from taking off the razor sharp edges I added a brass split collar on the lead screw as I didn't like how the supplied one was just driven onto the threads and then, after machining the inside of the front through hole, I added thrust bearings to make the operation a lot smoother and increasing the clamping pressure. I have not used the swivel base and mounted it straight onto the mill table but did use the hole in the bottom to have a pivot point mounted to the T slot on the mill bed. One of the drawbacks is that with the location of the mounting lugs the vice has to be mounted a long way forward with a big overhang on the front so that I can fully use the cutting depth.
I had exactly the same vice for Christmas 🎉🎉 and a set of carbide milling tools. My vice had exactly the same movement in the jaws and short bolts. But all in all it looks like great value for money.
Nice. I bought a similar one (without the mounting holes, ears or whatever you wanna call it, but with grooves, similar to your grinding vice). Same experience with "edges are a bit rough", but otherwise works fine, and no issues. I of course, had to make my own mounting hardware, since it didn't come with any way to clamp it with just T-nuts. I've had mine for a couple of years - and a week or so ago I was wondering why my drill wasn't all the way through yet, only ti discover that I had half a hole in the side of the vice. Not pleased at all with that, but still works OK. I think it came out of the same factory, but sold via a different company in the UK, those that have a part-circle and some currency used in the EU, and barter in the name (you know who I mean, think - I don't want to directly name names here). I think I got it from Santa as well, except I think I also paid the company selling it tp give it to Santa... ;)
A nice gift from your wife Ade. These are excellent vices for the money. A Kurt copy, but at a 10th of the price. Strangely enough my wife got me one for Christmas two years ago. I have the 3" version, as I have a much smaller mill than yours. I also have the rotating base, but haven't used this yet. Happy New Year to you Ade. All the best from Nobby @nobbysworkshop
Too bad they didn't send you a freebee, that was a very nice evaluation of the product that will more than likely sell a barge-fuel of these vises. I got a similar one several years ago and it's been great for home work. Anyhow, have a nice new year Ade and best wishes for 2024!
Nice. I have a pair of 5" vices I matched dimensionally (will not do that ever again) and a 6". Great price and not awful for the home workshop. The 6" was very good for flat , square and twist, the 5" took work. All needed extensive cleaning and deburring. the black shmoo of the "grease" was cleaned out and replaced as were the thrust bearings on the 6" vise. The 5" vices were ok in the thrust bearings. I think you may struggle to drill on the mill with the loss of Z travel by the extra hight of the vice. Thankfully I have a knee mill with 540mm of Z travel and still I might have to use one of the 5" vices. and collets instead of the drill chuck. Thanks for All your time to provide videos for another year.
I think I have the same vice but painted black. I found the stationary jaw was lifting as I tightened the vice. I replaced the bolts with significantly larger and that minimized the lift. I also found the hardened jaws were not flat, and there was a dip around the holes for the mounting bolts. When I checked the base for flatness there was twist. Scraped the base. Lapped the jaws on a diamond sharpening stone. Better, not perfect. Knowing the deficiencies now is annoying. But I guess it is value for the $
Hi Ade, Hope you, and your family had a good Christmas , and may I wish you all a safe 2024. As many have commented, quality per unit cost is unbeatable, a bit of fettling, and eminently for for purpose; possibly the top end brands will perform better, or should do on constant use? I bought a second hand import of eBay ten plus years ago for similar money, it was abysmal, SHCS were sheared off and glued in, keeper plates used double spring locking washers to provide compliance. 10 to 15 hours was needed to make it usable, moan over. Great review and modifications Ade, thanks for sharing. Regards John from the Black Country UK
Those manuals must be included for entertainent purposes. Good way to finish the video, with a grin. 😂. I put T slot keys on my milling vice. They are great but, I cut my own slots with the vice upsidedown on the miling table clamped to a length of gauge plate in a T slot. This way I know the jaws are right to the machine. When I checked it by tramming the vice was spot on. It took a bit of setting up to get the bottom of the vice flat to the table but worth it. When bolting the vice on the table it has proved accurate and repeatable😮.
I have a few of these vises. Pretty good kit but needed some work. Needs some deburring and the bottom would better be scraped flat. Clever of you to use the mill in place of a surface plate.
Dear Ade, Nice to see you as always and yes these instructions are probally better thrown away. Probally done through some sort of computerized translation app their end. But the quality is fair. Thank you. Enjoy the holiday.
I've got the same vise from a different name outfit. Found the same issues. I actually tried some scraping with a sharp ended file. It dulled rapidly. But I managed to rub the file face across the high areas pressing down with my other fingers on the back of the file. This turned out to be pretty good at surfacing the high spots down by the few hundreths needed to true things up to a nicer degree. Far from perfect of course but I reduced the runout by a fair amount. Squared up the fixed jaw block in a similar manner which made the jaw face more vertical. Not up to Kurt standards I'm sure. But it fixed a lot of the runout and non square that was on it as delivered.
I have the 3 inch variant. One extra mod I made was to replace the that removable lever with a permanently fitted handwheel (I had a spare from a lathe tailstock upgrade) . I find it so much easier to use and I certanly don't need all that leverage to hold a piece. Only thing I needed to do wat paint it red as just ocassionally I would grab that handle instead of the Y handle on the Mill :-)
Good review! I did a basic unboxing video on mine but I was pretty happy with the quality for the price. Maybe one day I’ll strip mine down while I’m procrastinating over something else ;-)
Thanks for the review, I have the same mill and I use the warco, 75mm I think, vise which is good if you don't need to tighten it much, I have been wanting to ask your recommendation for a better vise, although that one is a bit big. While I'm asking I have a nearly new clarke cl430 lathe and it's not accurate enough, I am torn between buying a warco180 to do the accurate stuff and replacing it with a wm250v or 290v, the 180 will leave my workshop cluttered and the 290 will need special measurements to get it in not to mention the Financial outlay, I know it depends what jobs I want to do , but I am flexible on that I just want to work through the principles of machining so the jobs can suit the lathe to an extent, in the next year I want to start making bench top steam engines and take things from there. Seasons greetings Malcolm
I don't know what stepper driver, you've got on the powerfeed, but check if it has some acceleration setting. Steppers often can't do sudden starts or direction changes. You don't need much acceleration - just a bit.
I bought the 6" version of this vice off Vevor, I have no idea how they can make them for the money. Seems OK so far but not really had a lot of use yet, as my new to me 1966 Italian milling machine came with the orginal vice which is very nice.
Hi Ade, another great video and a good appraisal of the vice. I have a question which I hope you can help with… I’m considering buying one of these vices and need to know by how much the fixed-jaw end of the vice casting will overhang the back of my table and potentially reduce y-axis travel by interfering with the column. Unfortunately the Vevor website and various eBay images do not give the dimension I need. Could you measure the distance between the hold-down bolt centreline (x-direction) and the back of the vice casting..? Sorry to be a nuisance, but I’d appreciate your help. Thanks in advance, all the best and a happy new year, Aidan.
I asked the saint for an FP2 milling machine, but he ended up with an FP1 milling machine, but he didn't accept it :(( does anyone know where to find this saint?? ...
Well, you really shouldn’t do anything to the hardened jaws other than remove burrs if there are any, but never round them off. The same for the cast iron jaws where the hardened jaws fit. Those are all supposed to be sharp to the corner edge. The rest of the vise doesn’t matter. I’m surprised how small the jaw screws are. For some reason, Chinese copies of the Kurt always use undersized screws. For example, the 4” vise I bought in 1998 from Grizzly, a big importer here in the USA, was 5/16”, about 8 mm. Recently I bought a high end version from them and it uses the same 3/8”, about 10mm, that Kurt uses for this size. I would be concerned about using these jaws on the outside considering their small size. Be careful to not crank down on the part if using the jaws on the outside. On the inside it doesn’t matter too much as the hard jaws are pressed against the cast iron jaws, unless you’re gripping something very thin on the top of the jaws that extend beyond the cast iron jaws, then again, it’s just those small screws resisting the pressure. What I do with the tendons is to put a thick parallel into the vise jaws that is tall enough to stick out the top of the jaws. Then I flip the vise over and fit the parallel into the (clean!, debuted) slot and push it to the back of the slot, then clamp it down. I then mill the tendon on both sides to closely fit the slot. That way it’s parallel to the fixed jaw of the vise. Let’s keep in mind that the 4” Kurt costs about $575 here in the states, without tax or shipping. This costs?
£52 or about a tenth of a Kurt (which we can't really get in the UK, there is a dealer for them but they don't list prices, I have never seen a real Kurt in the UK)
I noticed that you pronounced "gib" with a hard _g_ . When I did metalwork at school ('60s Leeds) we pronounced it "jib" , and this is confirmed by friends as old and doddery as I, from Scotland, Wales, and British in Brazil. I'd like to know the history and correct pronunciation of the word.
@@ade63dug I have just looked it up in my OED, and it says it's late 18C, meaning a piece of metal to hold something in place, pronounced jib, but giving a secondary pronunciation of gib. Perhaps my pronunciation reflects my age and that of my friends (old gits all)!
Must admit that I have always called them "G"ibs. From when I first used a milling machine at school at the age of 12 in Lancashire, when I did my apprenticeship in the merchant navy, our company engineering shops in Birkenhead and the College in Liverpool always with hard G. And even after I came ashore all of the maintenance engineering workshops I was in charge of always G, never J. I'm semi-retired now after over 50 years in engineering and can never recall the soft Jib.
