An experience I had with an imported vise:
A business was closing, and had a sale of remaining tools, benches, shelves etc.
On one work bench was a Starrett vise, about 3.5" or 4" jaws. It was cast in the typical Starrett style.
It was an enclosed-screw vise, and looked used, but not broken. The handle turned, and the dynamic jaw moved in and out.
I did not do an extensive look-over on the vise, nor did I run the jaw all the way in or out... I just spun the handle a few revolutions and pushed and pulled on the dynamic jaw. There was some in and out free-play but nothing terrible.
When I got the vise home, and proceeded to clean it up and attempt to tighten up the excess endplay in the nut and mainscrew, I found that it not only was an imported vise, named with an American company's name but NOT made with quality materials.
The nut was very loose in the dovetail in the bottom of the static jaw, I tried to shim it and take up the free-play, but when I did, the mainscrew would bind in the threads and jam !! As I watched the mainscrew thread into and out of the nut, it was painfully apparent that the mainscrew was stretched, and had a slight bend in it, Straightening the slight bend made the binding in the threads worse.
In the end, I gave the vise to a guy who needed a vise of any sort for fairly light work, I showed him how the threads jammed and he just shrugged and said, I can live with that..
Currently several American vise retailers, like Wilton, Yost, and Reed, have many imported products in their available for sale inventory, with their names either cast into the vise or a stick-on label showing their name..
To me it's a shameful end to a once thriving American industry. But there is not that much hand work done in industry these days, and therefore a high quality machine vise is a feature of past industry practices.
The above mentioned vise retailers, do still make their largest vises in the USA, at least from what I have learned. Wilton still offers their larger Bullet vises that are made in America, and Yost still offers their largest Combination vises that are made stateside. But Reed's website only shows 'homeowner' or light utility vises that are not remotely close to their products made as late as the 1980's.
I have several Reed 4", 4.5", 5" and 6" vises made after 1950, and they dwarf the current vises Reed offers with the same jaw size.. It's a shame.. I think there is still a market for a good, high quality vise. BUT that is from MY point of view.
I grew up struggling with a cheap, open-screw vise that didn't tighten up square, the swivel base would constantly work loose, and it was very frustrating for an 8 year old kid trying to make things out of scrap steel and wood..
When I started working in a car repair business while still in High School, I learned how nice a good heavily built vise is.. The shop had a big vise that I simply never looked at closely, It had an enclosed screw, and yes I did occasionally use the top of the dynamic slide to hammer on something bent to straighten it. I'm guessing the vise was a 4" to maybe a 5" vise, It opened wide enough for me to use it to hold cylinder heads in while I drove out valve guides, cut new valve seats and lapped-in valves for engine rebuilds. I wish I had a clue what make the vise was. Too many years and since the vise simply worked well at the jobs I needed it to do, I just ignored it, and used it. I did occasionally wipe grinding dust off of it and squirt some motor oil on it, and up underneath at the mainscrew.. LOL. I now know how much better the vise would have worked had I given it a bit more cleaning and lubrication.
When I set up my own shop, my grandfather gave me what then was to me a HUGE vise.. I still have it, it's a Reed 404-1/2 R. A swivel base, swivel jaw, very heavy vise. I never used the swivel jaw and until a few years ago, didn't know that the pin could be removed.. it had been hammered on and was almost flush with the top of the backside of the jaw.. After getting interested in a big vise that I had bought, I started reading about various makers and soon went to look at my long-time user vise.. and found it to be a pretty high quality and collectible vise.
Anyway, Keep looking, there will be hundreds of good quality American made vises within 100 miles of Youngstown.
If you want to take a road trip, I'm roughly 275 miles from you, but have several good heavy user vises that I would part with for $100-$150 each. 4" or 4.5" either fixed base or swivel base. These would be dupicates of various commonly available vises that I have in my collection of American vises.
The photos are of the 4 vises I found within an hour's drive of my home on one evening at two or three different garage or estate sales.
Hope this helps..
PierceA
