Milling Machinist Vise

[Pipescs]

Finally getting around to finding a better vise than I have been using on my Bridgeport. Looking for a six inch. I find various ones on EBay.

Looking for guidance. Are the Kurt Vise worth the extra money compared to one by Enco or Shars?

Needless to say my Bridgeport is old and has a certain lack of tightness already so I am not looking at super repeatability.

[John Evans]

Short answer is YES !!

[Ironwood]

Completely and utterly better.

[Harold_V]

There's far more to a vise than just repeatability. The resistance to forcing the part vertical as the vise is tightened is one of the things that's quite important, and that's not a feature you're likely to get from lesser vises. Not suggesting that the Kurt is unique in that regard, but it has a well earned reputation for quality.

A little story.

Many, many years ago (late 60's), I sub-contracted from a shop the roughing and partial finishing of hundreds of small brass blocks, which became read and write heads for IBM computers. I had to machine them to length, width and height, chamfer a couple edges as well as roughing a couple slots. I had only a half thou tolerance on squareness. Of interest, these brass blocks were finish machined on an NC (not a CNC) mill after I had prepared them for final machining.

In spite of the fact that my mill had been properly dialed in, squareness evaded me consistently. I resorted to offsetting the head of the mill to compensate for what turned out to be problems with the vise (a Bridgeport). I resolved the issue by purchasing a Kurt, which has served me perfectly well since then. When I acquired my Haas CNC, I purchased a second Kurt, as it is my opinion that one should stick with things that work as they should.

If you can afford one, buy the Kurt. It's a piece of equipment that will pay you dividends eternally.

Harold

[LIALLEGHENY]

A word of advise from my own experience, buy an original KURT vise....not the competitors Chinese knock off......I was given a knock off and cranked down on the handle (without a cheater bar) and snapped the vise in half.....

Nyle

[Duder321]

I've never used a Kurt but have a Chinese vise at home and bought a glacern for work. Wow it is nice. My Chinese vise is fine for me at home but if the Kurt's are better than glacern then I'd be afraid to use one they must be so nice! In all seriousness, the glacern 6" is as accurate as our metrology lab can measure (< .0001) and I can't see anything that will fail. If $200 is a lot of money to you, I wouldn't feel bad saving that money buying the glacern when they're on sale.

[rrnut-2]

My first tool: a 4" Kurt Vise! Then I bought a Bridgeport. I have never been sorry. Yes, sometimes its a little small for the BP. I also bought a 6" Chinese imitation and tried it out. It went to the scrap yard as it wasn't even worth playing with, much less what I paid for it.

Jim B

[SteveM]

If you search Craigslist, you can find a genuine Kurt 6" vise in good shape for $200 (I've seen one for $150).

The 6" is too big for my use, or I would have grabbed one of those.

It actually gets expensive when you look at 3" Kurts, as they are no longer in production and don't come up on ebay very often.

Steve

[SteveHGraham]

I bought a Parlec (now TE-CO) instead of a Kurt. I saved some money. When I got it, I was upset to see that when I tightened up on parts I thought were square, they would rise enough to allow the parallels under them to slide. But people told me this was acceptable, and it goes away when I bop the parts with a non-marring hammer as I tighten the screw.

I considered buying used. People kept saying there were all sorts of Kurts in "great condition" out there for $150, but the ones I saw looked pretty mangled, and I did not trust them.

[warmstrong1955]

I bought a Parlec (now TE-CO) instead of a Kurt. I saved some money. When I got it, I was upset to see that when I tightened up on parts I thought were square, they would rise enough to allow the parallels under them to slide. But people told me this was acceptable, and it goes away when I bop the parts with a non-marring hammer as I tighten the screw.

My Enco vise did that. I took it apart, and polished up the wedge, which is supposed to pull the jaw down.
Doesn't do that so well, when it looks like it was cast by a drunk in the dark. A little work with a soft disc did wonders.

I cleaned up that, among other things, and it quit lifting. Parallels stay put.

And still....it ain't no Kurt.

If you have the money....go Kurt.

Bill

[SteveHGraham]

How much were your parts lifting?

Man, that didn't come out right. I hope that question wasn't a Man Law violation.

I was getting just enough lift to make the parallels slide.

[ctwo]

don't make it something it's not...


try polishing the wedge, Steve...