On Sat, 12 Dec 2015 06:39:33 -0500, Spehro Pefhany
wrote:

On Thu, 10 Dec 2015 19:10:32 +0000 (UTC), the renowned David Lesher
wrote:

A friend on the North Wet Coast in in need of a good vice, and a
drill press. He already has a mostly woodworking shop but also
is building up metalworking tools.

I'm trying to help Santa but don't know where to start. What
brand names matters in the metalworking vice category, and where
do you buy such? (Assuming we avoid H-F...)

On a drill press, his spouse didn't balk at $400 so I'm looking
at CraigsList in the Seattle area for lack of a better approach.
I've proved myself less knowledgeable on such than I thought.
Where is Yoda when I need him?

Grizzly is a bit of a step up from HF (IMHO) but still the category of
(mostly) China made tools. The QC is better and the support (IME) is
decent.

That's the experience I've had with Griz stuff, too.


China made stuff often looks pretty similar in design (so you might be
fooled into thinking it's just painted different colors for the
customer) but often comes from different factories with quite
different standards.

Quality probably varies with which batch of scrap steel it was made
from, too.

Y'know, rereading his post, I'm wondering if he meant to say "drill
press with drill press vise". My first take was shop vise and drill
press. We'll see, wot?

--
Creativity can solve almost any problem. The creative act,
the defeat of habit by originality, overcomes everything.
-- George Lois