my new to me vise

[chuck foster]

i had a "k" type vise given to me so i thought i would see how good it was by putting it to use.
well when i put a block of steel in it the block would lift about 10 to 12 tho. so i adjusted the movable jaw but it made no difference.
on further inspection i noticed that the jaw did not lift but the block of steel lifted on one side, so i pulled the vice apart and found all most every part was not square or was machined very poorly.

this is the vise in question, just your average run of the mill import vise.

when i removed the movable jaw i found this

the jaw was machined very rough and it was not square to the base of the vise not was it flat in any direction
this next picture shows about 12 tho of paper between my straight edge and the movable jaw face

so i squared it up in the mill and had to remove .0225" to get it square and flat

next was the bottom of the movable jaw and it was no better.

i removed .0095" to get it cleaned up

with that all done i turned my attention to the fixed jaw and you guessed it...........out of square to the vise base as well
so i clamped it to the milling machine table with some shims under one side to square things up.

it only took .005" to get things all cleaned up on the fixed jaw.

the removable jaws were taken to work and run through the surface grinder to fix them up. i had to take off .021" to get them fixed up.

after all of this was done i assembled the vise and tried clamping all kinds of different sizes and shapes of material.
i am happy to report that after all the work fixing this vise it now works like it should. when you clamp a piece of material in it the movable jaw moves up only a few tenths of a tho.
and every thing is square and parallel like it should be.

it was rather frustrating to see the very sloppy workmanship or lack of workmanship applied to this vise but they are made for a low price.
i would like a proper kurt vice but as we all know they are not cheap............but if got one i would not have to fix it and i would have missed out on all this fun :big:.

chuck

 

[dsquire]

Chuck

It looks to me like we are going to have to start referring to this as a "Do it yourself "k" type vise kit". Glad to see that you were able to get it to do what it was meant to do. :bow:

Cheers

Don

 

[keys]

Chuck,

Your write up inspired me to take a look at my import vise I haven't used because I was so disgusted with its quality. I ran a dial test indicator against the fixed jaw and found it changed .015. The movable jaw changed .010. I machined the cast behind the jaws and have it holding parts to less that .001 over 3 inches.

My vise also had the trust bearing exposed, letting all sorts of swarf in. I added an o-ring between the thrust washer and cast to seal that up while I was at it.