I'm looking for a general purpose bench vise for a home workshop 4-8" jaw
width in the below $200 price range. My concerns are reliability and
durability when subjected to occasional abuse. It would be nice to imagine
the vise lasting 50 to 100 years (why not?). For my $200, I would like the
luxury of knowing how/why my purchase will best meet my needs.

The choices appear to be:
cast iron (generic)
grey iron
ductile iron
steel (I guess this means cast?)
drop forged steel

Strangely, almost all US made vises today are iron, with the better ones
being ductile iron (e.g., Wilton). Why is that? Chinese vises, on the other
hand, are most often made of cast iron. Some are made of (cast?) steel.

Drop forged bench vises made in Germany (Ridgid and Heuer) and Taiwan can be
found on the internet. The German-made vises have lifetime warranties and
the Taiwan model carries a 10-year warranty!!! They are advertised as being
"unbreakable" or the equivalent, and lighter than cast iron for comparable
strength. Relative to forged steel, cast irons are brittle and fail
catastrophically rather than "gracefully". Are steel vises more easily
repaired or do they really never break?

Blacksmiths (whose products, of course, are forged) have used forged steel
vises for centuries, abusing them with heavy pounding of very hot metals.
They strongly advocate forged steel vises for blacksmithing. Yet, it seems
that non-blacksmithing machinists and metalworkers on this ng prefer iron
vises (Wilton, Starrett, Parker, etc.). Why? Wasn't casting originally done
to reduce costs, rather than to improve performane? Is it all a question of
what you grew up with: blacksmiths with forged vises and machinists with
cast iron?

Ridgid claims 75,000 psi for its drop forged vises, while Wilton claims
60,000 psi for its ductile iron models (Machinist and Tradesman), and 30,000
for its Mechanic models. Wilton's imported vises (Lowe's) are rated at
25,000 psi.

Precision could be an issue, I guess. But we are talking about bench vises a
nd not parts of a CNC table. Side play in the jaw (within reason, of course)
strikes me as more of an aesthetic issue than substantive for all the bench
work I can imagine. Or is the concern with side play *after* the workpiece
is clamped tight?

Another factor that distinguishes iron from forged steel is vibration
damping. CI is doubtless better in this regard than forged steel. But the
main source of vibration would seem to be from pounding, which is the
blacksmith's realm, and the blacksmith would not own a cast iron anvil, for
example.

Finally, it has been suggested that in practice, casting is more likely to
introduce hidden faults than forging. I suspect forging is more costly: it
seems to be so in the case of Taiwan product prices but not so in the case
of German products!

From what I have seen on the internet, a strong case can be made for drop
forged bench vises. What is the case for the superiority of an iron bench
vise (let's talk only ductile iron here). Exactly what benefits are derived
from a ductile iron bench vise over a drop forged bench vise for
approximately the same cost?

And does anybody have any information about the various "steel" bench vises
offered for sale? Jet has a reputation among woodworkers for high-end
quality products. The make low-cost general purpose steel bench vises in 4"
to 10" widths for prices in the $50-100 range. How are these likely to
compare with drop forged vises?

Apologies for the long post. My intent was to provoke an overdue and lively
discussion on the subject. Thanks for your comments.

My first suggestion is to include your location, as lots of people who've
been collecting tools for some time (like me) have extra bench vises
aplenty and these would be in the WAY-sub-$200 price range. For example,
I have a 5" Eron with a bent handle sitting in my driveway which you can
have if you want it. It's in Kirkland, Washington, though, and you gotta
come get it. First piece of advice: get it free if you can.

Next, I can tell you that I have owned a Chinese 5" bench vise since
the mid-80s. I have absolutely beat the crap out of it (or the Bondo
off of it) many times and it just keeps on ticking. I think I paid
about $39 for it. It is *very* suboptimal compared to the best vises
around but I still use it a lot even though I have a nice Wilton
installed right on another bench. So my second advice is get it cheap
if you can't get it free.

OK. There may be some subtle differences between the casting methods
or terminology between all of these vises but basically there isn't
any difference you are likely to notice between any of the various
cast vises. I've personally never run across a drop-forged bench
vise but agree it would be stronger but unless you get three apes
on the end of an eight foot cheater bar I can't imagine breaking
a vise anyway so who cares? I see a whole lot of big ancient cast
iron machinists vises being used as blacksmith vises, too, so that
isn't really a reason to not get cast iron. Blacksmiths don't hit
all that hard anyway, not if the iron they're beating on is hot.

Third suggestion: if you want a blacksmithing vise try a cheap cast
iron one first. Make enough money with it so you can then decide at
your leisure whether to invest in a forged vise.

I would totally ignore the damping issue on a bench vise. Jaw
precision *is* an issue sometimes (if you are using your bench
vise jaws to bend sheet metal, for example) and here you clearly
get what you pay for.

You certainly want your vise screw as protected as it can be. Anything
with an open screw I'd pass on. I like Wilton machinists vises but
I don't think they actually work any better than any others. But they
look cool and have a cool name ..

Good luck.

Grant Erwin


x wrote:
I'm looking for a general purpose bench vise for a home workshop 4-8" jaw
width in the below $200 price range. My concerns are reliability and
durability when subjected to occasional abuse. It would be nice to imagine
the vise lasting 50 to 100 years (why not?). For my $200, I would like the
luxury of knowing how/why my purchase will best meet my needs.

The choices appear to be:
cast iron (generic)
grey iron
ductile iron
steel (I guess this means cast?)
drop forged steel

Strangely, almost all US made vises today are iron, with the better ones
being ductile iron (e.g., Wilton). Why is that? Chinese vises, on the other
hand, are most often made of cast iron. Some are made of (cast?) steel.

Drop forged bench vises made in Germany (Ridgid and Heuer) and Taiwan can be
found on the internet. The German-made vises have lifetime warranties and
the Taiwan model carries a 10-year warranty!!! They are advertised as being
"unbreakable" or the equivalent, and lighter than cast iron for comparable
strength. Relative to forged steel, cast irons are brittle and fail
catastrophically rather than "gracefully". Are steel vises more easily
repaired or do they really never break?

Blacksmiths (whose products, of course, are forged) have used forged steel
vises for centuries, abusing them with heavy pounding of very hot metals.
They strongly advocate forged steel vises for blacksmithing. Yet, it seems
that non-blacksmithing machinists and metalworkers on this ng prefer iron
vises (Wilton, Starrett, Parker, etc.). Why? Wasn't casting originally done
to reduce costs, rather than to improve performane? Is it all a question of
what you grew up with: blacksmiths with forged vises and machinists with
cast iron?

Ridgid claims 75,000 psi for its drop forged vises, while Wilton claims
60,000 psi for its ductile iron models (Machinist and Tradesman), and 30,000
for its Mechanic models. Wilton's imported vises (Lowe's) are rated at
25,000 psi.

Precision could be an issue, I guess. But we are talking about bench vises a
nd not parts of a CNC table. Side play in the jaw (within reason, of course)
strikes me as more of an aesthetic issue than substantive for all the bench
work I can imagine. Or is the concern with side play *after* the workpiece
is clamped tight?

Another factor that distinguishes iron from forged steel is vibration
damping. CI is doubtless better in this regard than forged steel. But the
main source of vibration would seem to be from pounding, which is the
blacksmith's realm, and the blacksmith would not own a cast iron anvil, for
example.

Finally, it has been suggested that in practice, casting is more likely to
introduce hidden faults than forging. I suspect forging is more costly: it
seems to be so in the case of Taiwan product prices but not so in the case
of German products!

From what I have seen on the internet, a strong case can be made for drop
forged bench vises. What is the case for the superiority of an iron bench
vise (let's talk only ductile iron here). Exactly what benefits are derived
from a ductile iron bench vise over a drop forged bench vise for
approximately the same cost?

And does anybody have any information about the various "steel" bench vises
offered for sale? Jet has a reputation among woodworkers for high-end
quality products. The make low-cost general purpose steel bench vises in 4"
to 10" widths for prices in the $50-100 range. How are these likely to
compare with drop forged vises?

Apologies for the long post. My intent was to provoke an overdue and lively
discussion on the subject. Thanks for your comments.

I have gone through two or three of the chinese so called look alikes or
"want a be" bench vises and have returned everyone that includes Wilton's
line of Columbian vises sold at Home Depot, these will lock up if you clamp
on either end of the jaw resulting in a sudded and spring type opening when
released also many have been returned by other owners to H.D. for cracked
bases. If you want one that has good precision, solid clamping, etc stay
with known names i.e. Record(England), Wilton (USA) or Jet has an excellent
precision/machinest vise (not their entry level vise) but they are not
cheap. I lucked out when Lowes was clearing out their Record line of vises
and picked up a 6" 1/2 turn release series cast steel reg. $154.00 for
$45.00. There are a few left here and there at different Lowes so give them
a try.