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.
--
Cheers,
Roger
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Roger Mills wrote:

If you're thinking of buying one of ALDI's £5.99 table vices, don't
bother.
I have two vices, rather at opposite ends of the spectrum

a Record No 80 "Imp" that I bought when I was about 13

http://www.oldtools.co.uk/record-hand-tools/3837-record-imp-vice.html

and a Samsonia No 38A "Perfect" vise model J

http://i58.tinypic.com/opxxxv.jpg

Sounds a bit like the Draper branded one I bought from Maplin ages ago.
But I'd guess for a lot more money than that in real terms.

The casting which clamps to the ball warps with age and ceases to clamp.
But a bit of filing make it work again, but weakens it. Not that I'd use
it for anything where you'd expect a vice to be rigid.

The jaws are only 2" and I only really want it for holding PCBs etc when
soldering. And it's screwed down to the workbench - the supplied clamp
being pretty useless. I'd happily pay more for a quality item.


In article ,
Roger Mills wrote:
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.

--
*Income tax service - We‘ve got what it takes to take what you've got.

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

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

On Sun, 28 Jan 2018 22:21:38 +0000, Roger Mills wrote:

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.

With a Panavise 301 from the mid 60's still going strong, I'll pass.

http://www.panavise.com/index.html?p...-eqskudatarq=2

For any portable work I have a vice that cost under a tenner from Toolstation.

For anything 'heavy' in the workshop there is a Record No 8 vice that weighs
more than an aircraft carrier.

--

Hmm, I had a set of jewellers screwdrivers where the blades were nice and
hard and the handles looked good but the joint between them failed on most
long before you had done up any screws. So much for looking good. they were
branded Stanley, but I suspect they were in fact counterfeit.
This was 10 years ago now and so rubbish is not a new concept. Draper
hacksaw blades that broke far faster than usual,
etc.
Brian

--
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This newsgroup posting comes to you directly from...
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Blind user, so no pictures please!
"Roger Mills" wrote in message
...
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.
--
Cheers,
Roger
____________
Please reply to Newsgroup. Whilst email address is valid, it is seldom
checked.

Brian Gaff used his keyboard to write :
Hmm, I had a set of jewellers screwdrivers where the blades were nice and
hard and the handles looked good but the joint between them failed on most
long before you had done up any screws. So much for looking good. they were
branded Stanley, but I suspect they were in fact counterfeit.
This was 10 years ago now and so rubbish is not a new concept. Draper
hacksaw blades that broke far faster than usual,

The later handles tend to be cast zinc, so very weak compared to the
brass handled type they used to sell.