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Buyer beware, this vise is really a boat anchor

John Conroy

John Conroy

member
Premium Member
Take a look at the vise body under the fixed jaw.

https://www.kijiji.ca/v-hand-tool/edmonton/milling-machine-vise/1585011277
Screenshot_20210912-070956_Chrome.jpg
 
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wow. Piling on my experience with the Happy Vise, I wish these offshore makers, instead making crap for 1/10 of the cost of a quality tool, made them as good as they could be for say 1/3 -1/2 of the quality brand tool.

and what is the vendor thinking trying to sell it!
 
That GS brand is actually a pretty good vise, when they don't have broken castings.

The seller says it's in good shape, just dirty. I wonder if he even knows it's broken.
 
Not being sarcastic, that vise has been abused, that's why it broke. As far as offshore vises go GS is one of the better brands.
 
I notice it is Taiwan which is usually better, but still, a vise that snaps imo itsn't much of vise.

Granted if you put a long enough pipe on any one of them, eventually something will let go. Still, after decades of being at it and participating in online forums, I've seen number of broken vises, all low cost Asian models. If you look at the proportions, placement of the key and what has to shear for it to let go compared to say a Kurt, it might be argued that its design flaw vs poor quality cast iron - i.e. a little longer jaw and key moved away from the end might change things.
 
I'm surprised people buy them; you can have a Kurt for that money and they don't seem to snap. I had no idea they were priced in that range, but still looks like low quality;' vises aren't suppose to break in two. otoh, in fairness maybe this is the only one that has ever broke, and because an operator put a 6' pipe on it.

One time I called Sowa on a replacement part they had the Canadian distributorship for. A European product. This was after getting a price of $150 US from the US distributor on on realizing I was in Canada said I had to call Sowa. Call Sowa who say $440. I say "what?! I was just told $150." Sowa says no problem, we can match that. Holy markups batman! Also, they sold it to me through KBC so further were able to discount as KBC had to make money. That and their practice of rebranding and cranking up the price of tools makes it not my favourite place.
 
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A reason that the Kurt and the 'good' Taiwanese clones don't break isn't just materials - they beefed up the casting near the keyway. This is a much older clone that tried to emulate the D633 in cast iron instead of ductile iron, which is the original material.

Nowadays Kurts are make of Mehanite (I hope I spelled that correctly), a higher tensile version of cast iron with some of the properties of ductile iron.
 
P.S. the seller knows that this is broken. There is no way that you can get a decent cut on a vise like that. He may have even heard it when it let go.
 
Is it just me, or is it missing the actual jaws? Looks like open bolt holes where the jaws would have their attachment screws go into the fixed and movable bodies.
 
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