Wilton Industrial Drill Press Vise, 4" Jaw Width, 4" Jaw Opening, 1-1/2" Jaw Depth (Model D144)

Most of my work is with wood, but I do some small scale metal-work and thought this might come in handy occasionally. It has. But I am surprised by how often I use this to hold small wood pieces for drilling. What makes this vise more useful than the typical bolt-down style is the squared-off sides. It allows quick alignment of workpieces in a variety of situations. For example I can lay a block in flat, then tilt the vice up on it’s side, and be assured I’m going to drill a hole perpendicular to the end. You may also slide the vice along a fence when chain drilling a series of holes at the same offset. The precision machining and squareness are what make this possible. The perfectly smooth jaws make it possible to securely hold wood without leaving marks in it. With it’s 9.5 pound weight I rarely need to fasten it to the drill press table in use, as I can safely drill most holes (even in metal) holding it with just my hand. If I do need to fasten it to the table I use a couple of long reach clamps on the flat surfaces of the vice. With one small exception the vice appears to be accurately machined as promised (see dislikes). It’s certainly true enough for most of the work I do. I jotted down some of the specifications and measurements of this vice on a piece of cardboard, and will post them as a photo. What’s not to like? A couple of things: The steel jaws were slightly wider than the vise body, and this made it wobble when set on it’s side. I scribed a line to mark the excess, removed the jaws and filed them true. It only took a few minutes, but considering this is advertised as being accurately machined I was a little disappointed. I wish the handle that controls the jaws was shorter. When the vice is fastened down to the table, you need to slide the handle back and forth as it’s turned to keep it from hitting. I may shorten it someday, or replace it with a knob. That would make adjustments much quicker, but of course the leverage would be less. These are minor complaints, I considered deducting a star for having to adjust the jaws, but that seems overly harsh considering this is such a nicely machined vise. Besides anyone buying a metal-working vise shouldn’t find it too much trouble to apply a few swipe s of a file to the jaws :-).

A really nice little vice, very little slop in the moving jaw, plenty of mass keeps small work in place even without extra clamping. I like the flangeless design, as the vice can be used on it's side. I recommend this one if you are on a budget. However, as this is an inexpensive vice, accept that it will arrive grimy, covered with nasty, black, gritty grease, there will be sharp burred edges in places, and even some paint chipping (final machining was done after painting). So disassemble (I left the jaws in place) clean and degrease all, remove flakes of paint, deburr with a small, fine grit stone, clean again with a clean rag and solvent, re-grease the main-screw, oil the ways, reassemble. Now the vice may get close to it's potential, it seems 30 minutes hand work made a huge difference to the feel of what I got "out of the box"

Pretty good for an import vise. I was initially impressed by the fit and finish of the vise. No burs on the edges, no messy paint lines, and the jaws lined up very well. I inspected it on my surface plate and it measured well within .001" of squareness and parallelism. The reason I gave it 4 stars instead of 5 is because, although it is a functional size, it is fairly low weight. I have only had this vise for a few months and it has already rotated a number of times when exiting through the back end of the hole when drilling steel. Although it is common for a drill to catch on the bur when breaking through the work piece and try to spin it, this vise has tried to spin with quite small drills. I would not feel comfortable drilling a medium sized hole using this vise as the holding fixture. Granted, you could always use toe clamps to secure it to the deck, but if I am going to go thought that trouble, I would rather just fire up my milling machine. But for the price, it is an acceptable and accurate light-weight vise.

This is a nice, heavy (10 lb) vise with replaceable face plates. I like that there is no screw or guide rods below the middle of the opening. If you center your work and drill through it, you won't damage the vise. Of course there are other ways to mitigate that risk anyway. I also really like having the machined sides and bottom so you have a right angle built in for turning work on it's side and trusting it's already angled correctly. My vise gets a little harder to operate the further open it is - I'm not sure why, but it still works fine. I thought it was a bit bent, but figured out that when turning the screw there is a little bit of play that simply made it look like the screw was slightly bent. It came with a reasonable but light coat of largely dried on oil. I'm not sure if it sat on a shelf in the heat forever before shipping out, but this is a classic piece of work you would find in an industrial shop or high school shop class and looks like it hasn't changed in many decades. I expect it to still look like this several decades from now and still be working fine. Not dried oil would have been nicer. Another reviewer stated their clamp faces were out of tolerance by a few thousandths. They were correct. You can adjust the faceplate a little bit by loosening and retightening the plate in a more accurate location - this works for one of the faceplates on my vise. The other faceplate either has it's faceplate mounting holes drilled slightly off, or the vise's mount holes are slightly off. This can alter the accuracy of the 90 degree angle if you flip the vise on it's side and attempt to drill that way, or if you are using the slots for gripping rounds - but it will be a very, very small amount. Most users aren't working that kind of tolerance and will have no issue with it.

Excelente servicio, llegó un dia antes de la fecha estimada de entrega. En cuanto a la prensa, es Wilton, no esperaba menos que calidad Wilton. La usaré por muchos años.