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Fireball Tool Hardtail Vise - The Best Vise On The Market???

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dr_clyde

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Jason over at Fireball tool unveiled the production model of his handmade vise at Fabtech this week calling it the Hardtail Vise. Unfortunately due to my busy work schedule I was unable to attend and see it in person. It looks like an incredible tool that could arguably be the nicest vise currently available on the market for new purchase.

Jason says it was designed to be similar to but better than the old Reed vises that everyone fights over at estate sales and auctions.
Fireball Vise.jpg

6" wide removeable jaws
14" wide opening
Ductile cast iron construction
16,000 lbs advertised clamping force, (he had a load cell in it at fabtech, guys were pulling over 30,000 lbs force by hand at the show)
Made in USA
Ball bearing and thrust bearings on the lead screw
Over 250 lbs.
Enclosed slide

Introductory price of $1500

I am strongly considering a deposit on one of these, this thing looks incredible.
 
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Mr. Wonderful

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considering the price vintage iron is going for, i may have to sell a couple of my old vises for one of these! Plus it's made in Washington, even better! I love his videos.
 
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Ign

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Honestly the price doesn't seem ludicrous considering what you get and it should last numerous generations of users
 
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gatewaysysop

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Stuart in MN said:
Out of my price range but it looks pretty nice.
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Can't argue with the aesthetics, it is a looker.

dr_clyde said:
His price is right in line with the comparable Wilton.

I'm a Wilton fan, and given the choice of where to spend my $1500, I'd go with Fireball. This is twice the vise for the money.
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I agree. Just my $.02, Wilton's are ridiculously over priced and over-rated for what they are. Especially now.

ez-duzit said:
I am another that will never have a need for such an expensive trophy.
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Count me in this camp.

I certainly can't take away from the good looks or the build quality and I dig that it's produced here. Credit where credit is due. That said, I could never justify Bridgeport money for a 6" vise with an extremely shallow throat and no pipe jaws. I'm sure it's great for surviving YouTube clamping force torture tests, but unless you're routinely grenading vises by using them as a press, that's a solution in search of a problem. And even then, there are much cheaper and better solutions if that really is what you're using your vise for.

Again, much respect to them for making this available, and to each their own, but it's not something I would ever spend that kind of coin on.
 
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exmaxima1

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I think it's a great homage to the classic Reed/Prentiss/Rock Island/Athol/etc vises, but for $1500 I would want some newer technologies and features. The Fireball Hardtail makes the $999 Orange CNC vises look like a bargain. Not everyone needs over 3000 lbs of clamping force, but precision and versatility make life easier and rewarding.
 

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Terra Nova

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Looks amazing, give him credit for producing a high quality American made product.

Think about what those Reed and Prentiss vices cost relative to median income back when they were new? Relatively speaking this may well be a bargain.

I would consider it if I was running out of shop upgrades to do. It would be tough to justify but I view it more as a luxury item. We probably all own unnecessary / hobby items in that cost range that aren't used anymore or very often (how many fishing boats haven't seen the water in years?).
 
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shawhite

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Maybe he will make a smaller version 250lbs vise is more than I would ever need. Interesting he elected to go with ductile iron when some guys on this forum point to him when claiming forged vises are superior. Apparently he didn’t think so. But it is a nice looking vise.
 
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seber

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shawhite said:
Maybe he will make a smaller version 250lbs vise is more than I would ever need. Interesting he elected to go with ductile iron when some guys on this forum point to him when claiming forged vises are superior. Apparently he didn’t think so. But it is a nice looking vise.
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Ductile iron is as strong as mild steel but much cheaper to use as it can be cast. It also has the advantage of not having a HAZ from welding.
 
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woody 73

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I have a few vises, but that one sure takes the cake. Either I win the lottery or a bag of cash falls out of nowhere, (it did happen believe it or not back in the 1980's when an armored car doors came open and the cash spilled out in my hometown).

Very nice vise well made! (y)(y):)
 
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General Geoff

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Pre-ordered one. I'm a sucker for super heavy/super stout vises, and compared to a Wilton 600S, this thing is nearly twice the mass and probably close to twice as strong in terms of clamping force tolerance due to its main nut design.

I bet this thing balloons to $2k in price after the first production batch is spoken-for.

Now I just have to do some workbench reinforcing to accept this behemoth!
 
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Terra Nova

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So I did a little digging, from what I can tell a Reed 408 was right around $100 in the 1920's ($105 in the catalog page online)

Online info varies on median household income in the 20's but one source puts it at $3,269.40. IRS puts that number at $68,703 today.

So a Reed 408 was 3.2% of the average household income. A Fireball vise at $1,500 is 2.2% of the average household income.

Could explain why there aren't a ton of 408's kicking around for sale...

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Packard V8

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Terra Nova said:
So I did a little digging, from what I can tell a Reed 408 was right around $100 in the 1920's ($105 in the catalog page online)

Online info varies on median household income in the 20's but one source puts it at $3,269.40. IRS puts that number at $68,703 today.

So a Reed 408 was 3.2% of the average household income. A Fireball vise at $1,500 is 2.2% of the average household income.

Could explain why there aren't a ton of 408's kicking around for sale...
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FWIW, $100 in 1920 would be equal to $1,367.84 today.

jack vines
 
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American Locomotive

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exmaxima1 said:
I think it's a great homage to the classic Reed/Prentiss/Rock Island/Athol/etc vises, but for $1500 I would want some newer technologies and features. The Fireball Hardtail makes the $999 Orange CNC vises look like a bargain. Not everyone needs over 3000 lbs of clamping force, but precision and versatility make life easier and rewarding.
Click to expand...

It has a fully boxed dynamic jaw, ball bearings, thrust washers, pre-load spring to prevent backlash and even has a machined way to keep the jaw tight and aligned. It's far more modern than just about any other historic vise. Those features are more similar to a milling machine vise, than a bench vise.

The Orange Vise is an extremely nice vise, but it's a completely different tool meant for a different purpose. It's meant to be used for fixturing and doing secondary operations. The fireball vise is also absolutely massive. Like, it's huge.

 
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GeoBruin

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Very nice vise. I know it sounds expensive but most of us here are probably using vices that are 50ish years old or more and there's no reason to think this wouldn't last at least that long. In that context, it's a relatively minor investment.

I hope they sell a bunch of them and make a ton of money so they can keep making cool tools. I have at least a half dozen of their squares and they're just awesome. Plus, come on, their videos are awesome.
 
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dutchgray

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dr_clyde said:
His price is right in line with the comparable Wilton.

I'm a Wilton fan, and given the choice of where to spend my $1500, I'd go with Fireball. This is twice the vise for the money.
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Price is comparable to the heavy duty 6" or 8" Records and those are Chinese and the Fireball will definitely be stronger than them.
The most useful feature is the opening capacity has been stretched out a lot compared to everything else and it has been beefed up in the slide so it won't break when you have it open a long way.
 
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paulsomlo

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Beautiful vise, but at 250 lbs and 33 inches long, I think I'll just hang on to my Wilton Mechanic's vise - at least I can move it myself.
 
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General Geoff

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Once you remove the dynamic jaw so the vise is two pieces, it should be somewhat portable by a single person. I would assume ~120 lbs for the dynamic jaw, and another 150 lbs for the base
 
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dr_clyde

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I gotta admit, I'm kinda surprised by how many people are getting hung up on the price. I think it's pretty obvious that a vise of this size and class really isn't meant for a home shop to hold lawn mower blades and stuff like that. Even though you couldn't justify it for a home shop, I would think you could see where it could be justified and understand why this isn't just **** swinging or a trophy.

This is really intended for industrial maintenance and fabrication shops where you would routinely subject tools like this to daily abuse and could really take advantage of the mass and opening width. There really isn't anything else on the market that does what this vise does, and I think this tool is a great value for what it does. $1500 is nothing in a maintenance budget for a large manufacturing plant or as a tool in a shop that works on heavy equipment or large weldments.

You can't out-engineer idiots entirely, but a bench vise is subject to more abuse than any other common tool save for maybe the big flat blade screwdriver. If I was running a maintenance department, I would buy this in a heartbeat, as it would out live anything else I can buy. I used to say the maintenance guys I worked with could break a bowling ball with a feather, and they destroyed more cheap bench vises than you can shake a stick at. When the line is down and the the company is losing thousands of dollars an hour, nobody thinks twice about putting a cheater pipe on the vise handle or getting the BFH out and really working over what's in the vise if need be.

I wouldn't put this on a bench next to a mill to hold stuff for deburring or general file work or whatever, I would much prefer the Orange that takes soft jaws from a Kurt vise or a 4" Wilton. I would absolutely love this vise bolted to a heavy plate table for straightening bent shafts, or holding large components with weird protrusions or stuff like that. There have been DOZENS of times I wished my 6.5" Wilton Tradesman opened up a few more inches. 14" throw is HUGE.

I probably will end up buying one of these, maybe not right away, but I can totally see the utility and usefulness of something like this. At a certain point, price is no longer the first thing you look at when you buy tools. Being able to serve your customer, make money and complete the job comes first. You gotta spend money to make money, and I've spent WAY more than $1500 on stuff I use way less often than a bench vise.
 
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ez-duzit

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dr_clyde said:
...I'm kinda surprised by how many people are getting hung up on the price...$1500 is nothing in a maintenance budget for a large manufacturing plant...
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This being largely a forum for home shops it should not surprise you that most of us neither own large manufacturing plants nor have their maintenance budgets.
 
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dr_clyde

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ez-duzit said:
This being largely a forum for home shops it should not surprise you that most of us neither own large manufacturing plants nor have their maintenance budgets.
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People have jobs and interests outside of their little bubbles. I know for a fact there are members here who work in industrial maintenance, heavy equipment shops, large machine shops and lots of places that could use this vise. Maybe they can’t justify it for themselves, but when the boss asks what they should spend some budget money on, wouldn’t you think they’d like to know about stuff like this?

I worked in maintenance long before I owned a shop and would have loved to have known about tools like this when I was outfitting a maintenance shop.

I will never understand the view of “this doesn’t directly apply to me, therefore we shouldn’t discuss it”.

I’ll never travel to space, but I still think rockets are cool.
 
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exmaxima1

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American Locomotive said:
It has a fully boxed dynamic jaw, ball bearings, thrust washers, pre-load spring to prevent backlash and even has a machined way to keep the jaw tight and aligned. It's far more modern than just about any other historic vise. Those features are more similar to a milling machine vise, than a bench vise.

The Orange Vise is an extremely nice vise, but it's a completely different tool meant for a different purpose. It's meant to be used for fixturing and doing secondary operations. The fireball vise is also absolutely massive. Like, it's huge.
Click to expand...
I understand, but the cost of all the expensive machining on the Orange vise defends its price. On the Fireball you have some huge castings but relatively little machining. I just don't see $1500 worth of castings (presumably imported since that's where they ALL come from lately) and a few passes in a mill. A typical machine like a bandsaw or jointer weighs 250 lbs but they cost half that.
 
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