double station vises - middle of the road pricing

What middle of the road brands do you all recommend? I don't want to get cheap junk, but a step up from there. I would love Orange, Chic or even Kurt But of course can't spend that kind of money. We don't run production but we have been getting more jobs that are a few hundred pieces at a time and would be nice to get a few more parts going.

Thanks

Merry Christmas

I have 9 Orange vises on 3 machines. We aren't a crazy high production shop and rarely see more than 100 parts per order. These vises have changed the way we operate. I have several fixtures made to mount directly to the vise body and the new Carve Smart soft jaws are so easy. I'm not a fan just because I have them, I'm a fan because they flat out perform. Its so nice to be able to rely on the equipment you have between your table and spindle and I would absolutely not consider trying to save money there. Scrape you pennies and buy quality from the get go.

lakey0 said:

What middle of the road brands do you all recommend? I don't want to get cheap junk, but a step up from there. I would love Orange, Chic or even Kurt But of course can't spend that kind of money. We don't run production but we have been getting more jobs that are a few hundred pieces at a time and would be nice to get a few more parts going.

Thanks

Merry Christmas

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Can't spend the money for one of those vises even though you're getting a "few hundred pieces at a time"?
It would pay for itself on the first job most likely. Tell whoever holds the wallet to fork up the cash and get one a.s.a.p.

We have both Orange and a few Glacerns double vises from several years 5+ or more and still going strong. Prefer the Orange vises but do like the sliding chip guards on the Glarcern's when used on a VMC.

just like picking out the right machine for the application. workholding is a very powerful way to differentiate yourself and make that spindle work harder for you vs the other way around. why do shops go out and spend 100k+ on new machine and worry about saving $100 on a vice? skimping on tooling or workholding is a terrible way to spend that kind of coin on machinery. so with that being said what kind of parts you looking at holding?

Have 4 Kurt and 10 Toolex double station vises by far the Toolex is much better vise. Would buy it just for the chip shields and multiple options for hard jaws and soft jaws.

I have a 6" double Kurt. It's only a click better than some chinese doubles I bought years ago, and it cost 5X as much. I gave the Chinese vises away after a lot of use. They worked fine, made money, but were quite rough. The Kurt was a disappointment, considering how much it cost, and my expectations for it. At that time it was a stretch for me to buy. Must have been a Monday version.
I have an old Chick 6" double, and it's been in use for a long time. It's been solid and reliable. Wasn't cheap, but gold standard after 25 years of use. Not current design at all.
I have a few Glacern 4" double, and they have been good and solid.
I now have a couple of Orange vises, and they are so easy to use and set up. Carve Smart jaws are awesome. I have not used them as doubles yet, but only a matter of time.
(have some old reliable Kurt 6" single too, pretty solid)
I also have a couple of the Chick One-Lock, and they have been great.

From my experience there doesn't seem to be much "middle of the road" in vises...
I have a couple dozen vises, mostly single station. There are some enco specials that were on used bridgeports when I got them, some Kurts, and a couple years ago I got 2 Tee-CO's. The Tee-Co is middle price but I won't buy another.
I also needed to prove out a concept of a double 4" but didn't want to spend big coin to test. The only 4" double I found in short order was a shars off eBay. It has actually been fine, I have no problems with it, but I probably only used it 50 times. No idea how it would last.
However, from all the feedback I'm reading over the last couple years, I'm pretty sure my vises from here on out will be orange.
I have thrown out a bunch of Chinese single vises. Just not worth it. They cost too much in the long run from frustration, wearing out, parts breaking, inaccuracies... the whole thing.

For middle of the road Glacern, Shars and Grizzly sell what appears to be the same double 6" vise for around $1k. I have one of the Shars version and it's been a decent vise. There have been a few minor issues with it, but nothing major.

That being said, I just ordered two new Orange Vises. I use them enough to make it worth it to me to spend the extra money on a better vise.

Whatever you do, stay away from the cheap ($300-400) Chinese vises. I had two of those that I spent a lot of time trying to get right. One of them I could never get to work right. I was able to get the other one working, but after about 1 year of use, the casting cracked. They both ended up in the scrap bin.

Depending on the parts you make you can make some small simple fixtures out of aluminum and mitee bites. You can always shop online for used vises but sometimes you risk paying for junk or worn out vises.

So can you guys school me a little on vises. Other than quality of the steel and parts, what makes a good vise? I've only used Kurt D688 and couple other older model Kurt single stations. They have all worked flawlessly for our uses. Other than tearing them down to clean, which doesn't happen very often, they have been problem free.

I'm not looking to cheap out because we are cheap! I definitely understand, you get what you pay for in most cases. And the fact that you spend a lot of money on machine tools, but that alone doesn't make quality parts. Job will only run as good as the setup.

Thanks for the replies so far. I am going to look into the carve smart system. I can see how investing in just vises can change the way thing are done!

When I first bought a machine vise, I cheaped out and got an Enco branded one. The fixed jaw would flex about .012" on one end and .008" on the other end when closed on a parallel part with moderate force. POS. Got a Kurt 688 and fixed jaw deflection went to under .001", and consistent across the 6" width. I've still got that vise on my manual mill.

I now use a Chick One-Lok for my vise work on the CNC. Love it. Love the quick jaw change over and opening. Would love an Orange Vise, but I'm doing mostly fixture work now so the vise work is limited.

I've made the "save a few pennies now" mistake too many times. Cry once is a much better approach than crying all the time.

Eric U

The first thing you would notice is the "exact" feel you get with a none cast vise. I didn't expect to notice any difference at all but its unmistakable. The example I have used in the past is being able to face a .375 or .5 inch thick aluminum plate that is 15 inches wide. You wouldn't be able to get a solid feel out of a lower quality vise.


The biggest value I see is that I can configure the Orange vise in lots of different ways. The center jaw has 3 positions, and both the back and front moveable can be pinned in place. Like I said above, I have three vises on sub plates on one of my machines so I can easily design a fixture to span three vise bodies and use the .5 dowels and 1/2-13 mounting holes to locate. I believe Orange is still making an option for side mount. The ball lock options is also really nice. I don't take mine on and off often but when I do they are back on and located in a minute.

Most of the features above are available on most of the higher end vises, but I can't speak to their performance. Also, the fact that Orange is made in America should be worth giving them a shot. At the end of the day were all depending on that mindset to survive.

lakey0 said:

So can you guys school me a little on vises. Other than quality of the steel and parts, what makes a good vise? I've only used Kurt D688

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I used the Kurt for about 20 years until we got some Chick One Lok vises, and holy crap what a difference they make.
Not only are they a far better build quality,the time it takes to change jaws, setup jobs is now just a fraction of what it took with the Kurts. They have a different feel to them, whereas the Kurts you can feel the "spongy" effect and with the Chick's you can't. It's rock solid.
We're a job shop and change jaws sometimes 10-15 times a day per machine.
I can swap out jaws in no time and they repeat.

The best thing I love about these Chick One Lok's is the center portion is CLOSED! No open screw for chips to clog up. I wouldn't go back to the Kurt style if you paid me.

I used to have the Kurt Double station vises, two of them side by side. They sure looked pretty the first time I put them in there... then I used them for a while and learned to hate them with a passion. It seemed like I could never make them repeat, and they lacked rigidity compared to the old plain jane single station Kurt vises. I would much rather have two single station vises than one double station vise (Kurt). If I need more density I get creative with Mitee Bites.

red beard said:

For a middle of the road Glacern, Shars and Grizzly sell what appears to be the same double 6" vise for around $1k. I have one of the Shars version and it's been a decent vise. There have been a few minor issues with it, but nothing major.

That being said, I just ordered two new Orange Vises. I use them enough to make it worth it to me to spend the extra money on a better vise.

Whatever you do, stay away from the cheap ($300-400) Chinese vises. I had two of those that I spent a lot of time trying to get right. One of them I could never get to work right. I was able to get the other one working, but after about 1 year of use, the casting cracked. They both ended up in the scrap bin.

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I also have the 4" shars double vises that Grizzly and Glacern sell. I have run them hard for 3 years now. These are all the same exact vise and all are made by Autowell. All replacment parts can be bouth easily from Glacern. The only trouble I have had was with leadscrew. It pretty soft and some hard chips got in there and rolled some of the threads. I ran a thread chaser down it and is was good as new. "Both left and right handed"
I run 5" jaws on these and there a good middle of the road vise and not your standard china junk.

That said I have got my money out of them and once Orange has 4" vises in stock I will be upgrading for the flexibility.

Mtndew said:

I used the Kurt for about 20 years until we got some Chick One Lok vises, and holy crap what a difference they make.
Not only are they a far better build quality,the time it takes to change jaws, setup jobs is now just a fraction of what it took with the Kurts. They have a different feel to them, whereas the Kurts you can feel the "spongy" effect and with the Chick's you can't. It's rock solid.
We're a job shop and change jaws sometimes 10-15 times a day per machine.
I can swap out jaws in no time and they repeat.

The best thing I love about these Chick One Lok's is the center portion is CLOSED! No open screw for chips to clog up. I wouldn't go back to the Kurt style if you paid me.

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have you seen the 'version 2' one-lok? I had a half dozen complaints about the original, but it looks like they've solved it with some improvements. Much lighter, can adjust the moving jaw position with one hand.. lots of cool stuffs.

rlockwood said:

have you seen the 'version 2' one-lok? I had a half dozen complaints about the original, but it looks like they've solved it with some improvements. Much lighter, can adjust the moving jaw position with one hand.. lots of cool stuffs.

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I still have plenty of complaints!

Can't pick the damn thing up from either end for one, which makes it REALLY AWKWARD when you have a subplate that it locates onto... IE the one they make for it. If I were sliding them on I wouldn't care so much but their complementary products should really be operator-tested IMO and this never seemed like a consideration. They're about 80lbs with the hard jaws so it's not trivial, and I don't want to drag the pins across the plate.

The locating pins are ninety f-ing dollars a pair! This only really applies if you have a subplate though. Still feels gouge-y. Also can't buy them without a wrench now.

Can't turn it on its side.

Can't get two next to each other, especially with the subplate.

Can't buy a split washer from them without buying a full rebuild kit (I understand this one but it still sucks).

Softjaws are expensive ($50 a pair for aluminum and no steel option) - as you know - much cheaper to make your own but they won't hand out the model for that. We said screw it and just buy 10 sets from Monsterjaws and machine the pocket (also thanks again for that model).

There's STILL a LARGE area of the softjaws you can't cut into or you'll hit the dovetail. Which is worse IMO than hitting the bolt heads since replacing bolts is cheap and it'd likely cost an end mill either way.

If I had to start fresh I'd recommend Orange. The CarveSmart system makes way more sense, the vises are more versatile (anyone know if you can set them on the side perhaps?) by making them front, back, or double vises, and I've heard nothing but amazing things about Sol's support.

Atomkinder said:

Softjaws are expensive ($50 a pair for aluminum and no steel option) - as you know - much cheaper to make your own but they won't hand out the model for that. We said screw it and just buy 10 sets from Monsterjaws and machine the pocket (also thanks again for that model).

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I drew up my own model that I use to make my soft jaws.
PM me and I can send it to ya if you wish.

rlockwood said:

have you seen the 'version 2' one-lok? I had a half dozen complaints about the original, but it looks like they've solved it with some improvements. Much lighter, can adjust the moving jaw position with one hand.. lots of cool stuffs.

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I don't know what the V2 is. We have 10 of them, and it's identical to what's on their website.
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