Vice sizes

[Lewayne]

Newbie question. when they say a 4" or 6" machine vice. what exactly are we measuring? what would be a pracrical size for a mill drill with a 8 x 28 table?

[BadDog]

That's typically used to refer to the width of the jaws. Size of vise to select for a specific table depends on what you are doing, z-space, etc. For my Bridgeport 2J I've used vises with jaw widths from 3" to 8". But mainly a 6.

Guys with smaller machines often prefer the harder to find 5", or even 4". And I've seen smaller vises used, often called "screwless" or "toolmaker" vises. Just make sure it's a vise suitable for work holding on a mill. I've seen some try to use some pretty sketchy "drill press" vises, but that's asking for trouble.

[johnfreese]

FYI, Stefan Gotteswinter, a prolific author of You Tube videos uses the screwless vise on his mill. I believe he has a Rong Fu RF45 mill. By profession he is a toolmaker so he should know what he is doing. I should add that I don't think I ever saw him taking heavy cuts with large end mills.

[Lewayne]

I was looking for a decent 5" vice for the mill drill. but I ran across an almost new Kurt 6" .
I mean the paint isn't even chipped and it has no holes drilled in it by accident.
For $275 local so no shipping either. so I went ahead and bought it, even though its a bit bigger than I wanted/needed.
Maybe I can work a trade sometime.
So. what do you guys think?

[John Evans]

live with it ! Kurt's are the standard others are measured by.

[NP317]

You SCORED!
Enjoy using it.
~RN