Vwpower: Some of the members have VERY dogmatic [either BLACK or WHITE] views about any imported vise. But reality can really differ a LOT from opinion.
I have had an apparently strong vise break like it was glass. I've had a broken vise refuse to die: the crack just never got wider, even when really stressed beyond the limit that cause the crack to first appear.. it must have had some internal stresses?
And there ARE plenty of Good name, old and heavy American made vises that to be honest were just junk.. Poor design, or poor metalurgy, and poor machining. Some real 'gee-wizz' designs that simply do NOT work very well.
And then there are the American made vises that are the standard that we see as 'setting the bar' for what a good vise is.
Reed, C.Parker, Athol, Holland, Yost, Prentiss, American Scale, and others that I just can't think of right now.
And there is the Craftsman 519x series.. a very good, well made vise that only has a very few 'issues'. Craftsman /Sears had these built by probably Rock Island or ?? The design pretty much took all the good ideas and designs, put them together, and made a very good product.
Each of us have our particular favorite makers and model of vise, or we are totally eclectic and like them all.
So the vise in question that the OP showed and asked us to identify, is an imported vise. There are some of that design made that are really not worth much at all. Some might be made with better metal and might work well for decades. But I do not know which is which.
I collect American made vises as an exercise in preserving the history and examples of a major industry in our country during the previous 120 -150 years. I like seeing the difference in quality, changes in design, and finding a pristine virtually unused vise that is 100 years old is exciting.
And I'm also into repairing the vises that have been miss-used and abused. I bring them back to good funtionality again, and sometimes a bit better than they originally were.. Mechanically,, I'm not one to fill old dents and scars with bondo and paint a vise to look like it's made of plastic.. UGH..
PierceA.
