Shars milling vice

Milling Vises on the Shars sight are about 1/3rd the cost of their american made counterparts. Anyone wish to share their experiences with these?

first before lock.


Chinese is a crapshoot. And if you read the rules at the top of the page you will find that this tyoe of discusion is not allowed

This is about the only time I'll comment on Cheap import products because the vises are so frigging awful.

Avoid them like they were made from radioactive dog crap.

I bought one on the "can't be that bad, should be worth $100" kinda justification...

Nope. Not machined square and the jaws wouldn't even open all the way.

Gave it away.

When I got into this game, my partner had some cheap crap vises, said they were fine, $99 for a 6" vise. We worked with them for a bit, then bough some real machines, and I put my damn foot down, bought a pile of Kurt D688's. He bitched and moaned the whole time, until he realized, the don't flex, they don't lift, (they do, but not as much, by far). A lot less scrap, a lot less thrown parts, hitting thickness within a .001 time after time after time.

A quality vise pays for itself very quickly over a very suspect POS.

Even if you're home shoppin' it. A quality vise can make you feel like a superstar, a $99 piece of shit is just going to aggravate you and drive you out of the garage. "AHHH but its all the same.." No its not.

The Shars milling vises have two significant faults according to my experience. One can be remedied and the other cannot.

The fault that can be remedied is over-all accuracy. You might get a vise that's dead accurate or one that's close enought for most work. Then again you may have to almost rebuild the thing to get it flat, parallel and square. This takes only time and talent. Otherwse Shars is pretty good about TMA replacements.

The problem that cannot be remedied is the cast iron used in the construction of the vises sold by Shars. It's quite soft. This makes it easy to scrape but unsuitable for a production shop where accellerated wear is a select-out factor.

BTW, Kurt Vises are made of 90,000 PSI alloy iron. It's pretty stout stuff and lasts about ten times longer before re-conditioning is necessary.

Otherwise I think Shars vises are OK for the home shop provided they are carefully checked before putting them into service. If you have a powerful prejudice against import equipment don't even think of purchasing one. You will never be content with plain functionality.

About 5 years ago I really wanted a Kurt D50 to replace my original Palmgren (which was pretty beat.) The D50 was no longer available and the ones on eBay seemed to be very expensive and/or pretty beat.

So I bought a Shars 6" w/ swivel base. Big mistake. Shipping will add another 50% to the price on the Shars and you will get a vise that is at least as inaccurate as they claim (0.002" on square and parallel.) My vise is out 0.004" in the middle of the fixed jaw. It did get me through a time of no working vise but now I still have to get a good one.

A Kurt D40 w/ swivel base will set me back about $800... except, since I bought the Shars already, the Kurt will cost me $1000.

So... trying to save money ended up costing me more

-DU-

shars carries the same cheap stuff others do but for less, ie if cheap is good, cheaper is even better, thus Shars is the best!
some of the stuff is ok, some marginal, I have bought some stuff over the years. About 6 or 7 years ago they ran a sale on 123 blocks for like 3 bucks, I bought a pile of them and used them to build fixtures. They have decent service and try hard, they are Chinese and at that time were difficult to understand on the phone.

Don't own one, but the Glacern (sp.) milling vices are supposed to be very good.

I've heard that the Glacern stuff is more prone to rust for some reason.

We used to sell them and I broke 3 of them, they will break if you actually try to tighten something so it wont fly out but other than them not being square they are a great deal, you can set it on your mill and it will take up that space where a Kurt vise should sit. I have seven Kurts from 4 inch to 8 inch and use them everyday and have never been dissapointed. I know it hurts to spend the money but just do it and you will never need another one, same goes for toolposts get aloris and you will be happy.

I have two of the higher quality, heavier, more expensive version. Had them keep the swivels to lower the shipping cost. Guy said many folks do that

Couple hours on the surface grinder with them both and they are twins, before about .038" different in height the nothing was parallel.

I'm pretty happy with them, they aren't as glass smooth as the Kurt's but...

Jamie