In message , Roger Mills
writes
If you're thinking of buying one of ALDI's £5.99 table vices, don't
bother. I bought one, and it's total crap. Neither of the threads - for
clamping it to a table and opening and closing the jaws - work
smoothly. The working part of the vice is connected to the table
fitting by means of a ball joint, allowing the orientation to be
adjusted. Problem is, said ball and its housing are both made of cast
aluminium - with lots of flashing, preventing smooth operation.

I've improved it somewhat by totally dismantling it, fettling off the
flashings and then lubricating everything before re-assembling it.
Unless you're prepared to do the same, I would recommend avoiding it!
Mine is now probably worth six quid after I expended twenty quid's
worth of labour on it.
I actually have a pair of the Aldi table vices, one of each of the two
mountings, bought a few years ago.

They have been more than adequate for what I bought them for - mainly
holding small, often electronic, parts and, separately, for providing an
extra "hand" that can be fixed somewhere on a boat when two hands won't
do.

Maybe the quality has dropped since I bought mine, and I may well have
stripped them down for a bit of fettling, but I've always been very
happy with them.

Where I have been let down is with buying cheap vices, not from Aldi,
for use with the bench drill or milling machine. There is some real
rubbish out there. What looked OK in the advert or in the shop has just
ended up in the bin.
--
Bill