What Makes A Good Bench Vise?

21 Mar.,2024

 

I'm not sure my preferred vise would be popular given it's not substantially different from what is out there. However, most vises on the market don't necesarrily have the features I like in one vise. I have a number of bench vises, but the two that get used in a farm/ranch setting the most are a 4inch Milwaukee Tool machinist and a Wilton 6a mechanic's vise. I'm also looking at this from the perspective of a general use vise that is a little beefed up from what is usually available in this jaw size. A monster vise like the fireball would be neat, but between cost and having an adequate workbench/vise stand to take advantage of it means it would be hard to justify buying. Here's a few of my thoughts on what I would like to see which I know could be very different from others.

I think for all around use a jaw width of 5" would be a good compromise. A throat depth of 4.5" hopefully has enough depth to work in most cases without making it so tall that it doesn't match up well with most workbench heights.

I do not really use swivel bases and could live without it, but the ability to add one on would probably be worth it.

I never change the jaws on my vises, but that's because I do not have other types of jaws to use in their place. I would welcome having jaws that are easily changed out for different situations. I like the idea of the jaws being threaded for retaining screws instead of the vise being threaded for them. Also, regarding jaws, I like on my Milwaukee that the jaws are something like 1.25" tall which offers more vertical gripping area than the Wilton 6a.

I do not use the anvil on my vises. Partly because this site got me nervous to hammer on vises at all. Also because most of the time if I have to hammer something flat, it's something that requires at a larger hammer and some agressive blows. I'm not sure any vise anvil is really appropriate for the times I need to hammer on something.

While I do use the pipe jaws on the 6a, they aren't all that good due to being so narrow. If a set of pipe jaws could be fitted over or in place of the main vise jaws, that seems like it would be more useful.

A hex head on the spindle could be handy at times, but I do worry it could be abused by the wrong person.

Weight wise, I think so long as it doesn't go over what is practical to ship, make it robust. To be honest I'm not sure what would be an appropriate weight for a vise like I want. For example I have a newer Yost 205 (about 75lb) with comes somewhat close to my ideal vise dimensionally, but it does seem a bit underbuilt for a 5inch vise with a 5" throat depth. Especially compared to a much older Yost 205 which has less throat depth, but everything else is built heavier. A milwaukee 288 5" combo vise with swivel bases comes in around 100lb. I guess if the non swivel base version of what I'm describing comes in around that weight, I would think that would be robust enough but it's just a guess.

Cost? This is a tough one. Using what Milwaukee tool charges for their US made vises, I think I'd be good up to $1,000. That's said, that is not a very concrete number since I know nothing is cheap these days.

ETA. I'm going to undermine what I said earlier about what kind of vise I would like to see, but the more I got to thinking about it, I had an aditional thought. The reason the Fireball vise came into being was partially because there aren't many good or affordable options when it comes to very large bench vises. Then when even that vise ended up being more expensive than initially thought, we ended up with this thread. What I described is basically a refined and beefed up version of already existing bench vises. In all honesty, I could keep buying and using those currently produced models and make do just fine. However, if I did want something large I'm back to spending a lot of money on a very small number of options. Point being while there is a small market for a very large vise, maybe there is more need there for something new.

 

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