dutchgray
Well-known member
If your breaking the swivels on vices of this size you should swap to a fixed and have it mounted on a sturdy post instead of a bench.
Fireball Tool Hardtail Vise - The Best Vise On The Market???
- Thread starter dr_clyde
- Start date
IMHO - The Best Vise On The Market - HEUER Front. It's drop forged steel, it's has double start thread, it's smooth and it's not so heavy, so you need a crane to put it on workbench or clean. And it had pipe jaws and slim design, that allow to put some long tube vertically.
Why you need so much clamping force? It's not a shop press, it's a vice! It must be versatile!
Why you need so much clamping force? It's not a shop press, it's a vice! It must be versatile!
mike93lx
ALLIANCE MEMBER
Because it is awesome?
I think the Heuer is the other vise that is listed on his site, but it's out of stock now.
Jason's big vise test is what got me to buy a Dewalt vise. It did great and was quite inexpensive
Andy FitzGibbon
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The forged vise he sells on his site is Taiwanese. He had a Heuer in his big vise test, and it did pretty well, although it was totally destroyed by the end.
To me, the clamping force thing is more about demonstrating the strength of the design vs. actually expecting anyone to clamp something that hard in everyday use. It's one way to quantify the "strength" of the vise.
Back in the day, cast bench vises weren't primarily designed to be beaten on with sledgehammers. They were meant for hand work... sawing, filing, chipping, and other activities that don't subject the vise to massive shock loads. That's what blacksmith leg vises were for, and that's why they are forged rather than cast.
In test he uses 120mm version, it's Weight just 9,0kg, but holds plenty of abuse. 140mm (Jaw width) much beefier and weights 16kg -I have one (140mm) on swivel base - I know, that I am talking about.
Of course, there are many very good vises, bit imo, HEUER in price\performance one from the best, if not the best. At least in Europe. I like RIDGID Matador too, but HEUER little better.
I like very old model of Heuer front with round bar from 1939, I restored and sell two of them! And yes, they have ball bearing in spindle! And double start thread, in 1939! Sadly, that they changed design. On ball bearing its sooo smooth.
Of course, there are many very good vises, bit imo, HEUER in price\performance one from the best, if not the best. At least in Europe. I like RIDGID Matador too, but HEUER little better.
I like very old model of Heuer front with round bar from 1939, I restored and sell two of them! And yes, they have ball bearing in spindle! And double start thread, in 1939! Sadly, that they changed design. On ball bearing its sooo smooth.
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redragoon
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I'm curious about who is making the castings.
Strouty
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Damn you GJ, now I have one on preorder too.......
mike93lx
ALLIANCE MEMBER
You? Really? This is my surprised face
bwringer
Well-known member
Sorry, I had my viseology terminology mixed up.
What I need is often called a "multi-purpose" vise -- the kind with pipe jaws for holding round stuff on the other side, and the slidey bit is round so that the jaws can pivot to any angle. Yost calls it a "double swivel".
That said, coughing up $1,500 or more for one is unlikely to happen for me personally, but I do hope maybe Fireball comes up with one and lots of people buy it.
they have a bench vise
Terra Nova
Well-known member
Interestingly enough I was listening to a Weldmonger podcast this morning (Jody from Welding Tips and Tricks). The podcast was a couple years old but they had Jason from Fireball tool on. He said all the castings for his mega squares, etc. are done in Spokane by a foundry called Travis Pattern. Sounded like he had a really good relationship with them so I would bet dollars to donuts that's where the vise castings are coming from.
That's what he's talking about. It's in a bench vise form factor but it's intended use is as a flexible work holding tool in a machine shop. It's compatible with the same indexable soft jaws as their milling vises so you can take the jaws out of the mill, put them in the bench vise, hold a complex part without marring it, and perform tertiary operations like tapping and deburring. It's not designed to be a general purpose bench vise that sees abuse; it's made almost entirely out of aluminum to very precise tolerances.
Andy FitzGibbon
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Swindens in the UK makes a very similar unit... arguably better in certain situations, as the jaws and rotation are clamped independently. The Sawyer Tool Co. Nutyp style you mention (which has been copied by overseas companies for many years) clamps the rotation and the jaws with one handle.
The piston is made from 60hrc steel that’s titanium nitrided, steel screw aLao titanium nitrided, Steel slide nut, 60hrc handle, clamping force of up to 3000lb limited by the thrust bearing. Pretty sure the master jaws are either the hardened cast they use or steel. Not a vice I would use to hold something I was going to get after with a mini sledge, but still a general purpose vise, just a fancy one
I went the other way. I had a Heuer (I think it was a 140) and still have the Ridgid F-50. When clamping hard to one side of the jaws the Heuer seemed to flex, possibly due to the narrower slide. The Ridgid is more "rigid".
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American Locomotive
Well-known member
Yes the slide, screw and nut are steel, but the whole body is aluminum. The jaws are compatible with their machine vises, and will be made out of whatever material you want. It's completely application dependent
3,000 pounds of clamping force is not a lot. Even the cheap nasty Harbor Freight bench vise will do 6,000+ pounds by hand. It's really not a good general purpose vise, especially if you're going to be wrenching on it.
Yes, I have found this drawback in HEUER too. Ridgid is more rigid. But I dont like handle in Ridgid, I pinched my fingers between handle and moveble jaw! There is no much space, and if you not careful, fingers get pinched.
Al Borland
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My 50+ year old Wiltons and 45 year old Columbia are plugging along just fine. I'm approaching 60, and they will outlast me.
No need to invest in new ones. (Plus all these were free, except the little Wilton that attaches to my trailer hitch. That was $25 at a Garage Sale, with the receiver mount. 25+ years ago)
TTMotorsports
Well-known member
You can thank South Dakota v. Wayfair, Inc. for charging tax to everyone now. I used to buy stuff out of state just to save sales tax, well not anymore.
digital0ne
New member
2baditsnotachev
Well-known member
I actually prefer to use my 4.5" parker over my 6" prentiss for that reason. The smaller handle makes the vise alot more user friendly for most of what i do.
I mean, if you need a vise with this kind of capability, it isn't a showpiece. It's about being a badass at the job. It certainly sounds like that's what they're delivering...
Me too. It would probably make my workbench sag or tip though...
General Geoff
Well-known member
Price increased to $1800 now. Wondering if they'll honor the $1500 original price for early pre-orders.
New URL for Pre-order
New URL for Pre-order
Not a big surprise to me, shipping has to be easily $200-250 and a HD pallet/crate has to built to ship it.
mike93lx
ALLIANCE MEMBER
I would be absolutely astounded if they didn't. Increasing the price retroactively would be basically suicide
Of course they will - I can't remember if it was only implied or explicitly stated, but I definitely had the idea that the first round of pre-orders was at a reduced price.
General Geoff
Well-known member
Guess I'll find out in five months!
dnschmidt
Well-known member
The Fireball dude is amazing. His videos are the best on YouTube. The belt sander was crazy the huge vice absolute madness and this new vise the bomb. He's sort of off his rocker, in a good way, and I'm all in for these creative types doing wild and crazy **** just because he can. In fact, he might just be my hero.
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I'm glad to see someone respond that way. The overwhelming response to someone's accomplishments around here seems to be skepticism or just downright dismissal. I agree with you. I can both envy him and applaud him. I wish I had his job and could do it as well as he does. In the meantime, I've bought my share of stuff from his site to support the company and the content he produces (and because it's really cool stuff.)
I agree, Jason is killing it and is doing what we all would love to do if we had unlimited time and money. Basically, he gets paid to goof around in the shop coming up with products we all want to use.
What I love about Fireball is they are basically taking years of tribal knowledge and wants and turning them into products that are tweaked and improved for welders and fabricators. The squares he makes aren't that fundamentally different than the old cast iron angle plates machinists have used for decades, but these are hot rodded to be used by welders. Same with the vise. Nothing new, big bench vises have been around for decades, but an improved design from the perspective of the maintenance fabricator. We all cut chunks of stock and material for shims and spacers, Jason just put a magnet in them and sold them to us in a suitcase as a kit. It's pretty brilliant, really.
Lots of guys get jealous or envious of success and intelligence. Myself included, so I try to look past that but I still get caught up in it sometimes. I think what annoys people the most (myself included) is the guys who simply have a large megaphone via youtube or instagram and companies sponsor them with lots of free tools and equipment despite their lack of talent or ability. There was a time when Lincoln would give a free welder or two to anyone with a heartbeat and a youtube channel, even if they couldn't weld for ****. It really soured me toward Lincoln, because it showed their cards as being all about the free advertising and exposure instead of caring about the quality of the work they sponsored. It used to be you had to win podiums to get a sponsorship from a tool company, now you just need a few hundred thousand subscribers. I've seen some of the dog **** these "makers" pass off as welding, and Lincoln is happy to be involved.
I think that's the difference between Jason and a lot of other Youtube personalities. He's self made. He's selling or promoting HIS products, not just shilling for whoever gave him free ****. He's driving his own success with his brains and his hard work and talent. His business is where the money is made, not just the likes and subscribers. He can afford to be honest and upfront about the tools in his shop, because they're ones he bought because they're good or ones he has made.
slodat
ALLIANCE MEMBER
I placed a pre-order when I first saw it I October. No brainer. Can’t wait to add it to the shop!
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slowtwitch73
Well-known member
His Popular Mechanics builds are also great. Great vid prduction. Impressive guy... knows a lot for 40 yrs old.
mike93lx
ALLIANCE MEMBER
I'm always amazed with the illustrations and editing in his videos. I wonder if he is doing it all himself or he hires a designer/editor. Either way, he's doing awesome and making some really cool products
slowtwitch73
Well-known member
He's getting views too. Master class in 'how to do it right'.
It’s actually designed to break if you use a cheater bar it’s in his video
Andy FitzGibbon
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Out of curiosity, I looked up the list price of comprable Reed swivel base machinists' vises in 1931. Inflation-adjusted prices are in parentheses. I know inflation adjustment isn't a 100% accurate measure, but it's an interesting point for anyone who thinks the Fireball vise is overpriced.
206: $52 ($951)
207: $70 ($1280)
208: $98 ($1792)
209: $115 ($2103)
206: $52 ($951)
207: $70 ($1280)
208: $98 ($1792)
209: $115 ($2103)
dutchgray
Well-known member
The 8" Irwin Record 114 workshop vices are ~£1100 ($1500) over here now, which is getting real close to one of those and are no where near as nice and definitely do not open as far, they are also Chinese.