Milling vice, fantastic shopping experience

[MattH]

I've been looking to buy a couple of large capacity milling vices for a little while now to enable me to start work on my next project.
I was watching these from ArcEuroTrade: http://www.arceurotrade.co.uk/Catal...ine-Vices/ARC-Versatile-SG-Iron-Milling-Vices
But they've been out of stock for a while. I contacted Arc and asked about eta which they gave me. Friday I got an email to say they where available. Friday night I ordered two of the large version plus some other bits.
Saturday morning I got a call from Arc to discuss delivery because they are very heavy and they can only ship with TNT who's tracking is poor.
Dispatched Sunday and delivered this morning as promised.

I have no connection to Arc, I have ordered from them in the past as have always been pleased. I think it's worth mentioning as the service has been outstanding.

Anyway, here is one of the vices. It's a beast and very well made, excellent value for money. Plus a set of 600mm Calipers I ordered at the same time:

 

[Wendelspanswick]

I've been looking to buy a couple of large capacity milling vices for a little while now to enable me to start work on my next project.
I was watching these from ArcEuroTrade: http://www.arceurotrade.co.uk/Catal...ine-Vices/ARC-Versatile-SG-Iron-Milling-Vices
But they've been out of stock for a while. I contacted Arc and asked about eta which they gave me. Friday I got an email to say they where available. Friday night I ordered two of the large version plus some other bits.
Saturday morning I got a call from Arc to discuss delivery because they are very heavy and they can only ship with TNT who's tracking is poor.
Dispatched Sunday and delivered this morning as promised.

I have no connection to Arc, I have ordered from them in the past as have always been pleased. I think it's worth mentioning as the service has been outstanding.

Anyway, here is one of the vices. It's a beast and very well made, excellent value for money. Plus a set of 600mm Calipers I ordered at the same time:
View attachment 78672 View attachment 78673

I've always found Arc helpful, I would use them more but annoyingly they don't stock anything larger than MT3 and my mill uses MT4 so I end up using RDG or Chronos who tend to be more expensive and worse quality.

 

[Flathead_Dave]

I like that vice,for the working size it's nice and compact.All you need now is some deeper stepped soft jaws,as supplied for the Kurt.

 

[MattH]

I like that vice,for the working size it's nice and compact.All you need now is some deeper stepped soft jaws,as supplied for the Kurt.

For a 6" vice to open to 8" is fairly rare. Plus you can move the jaws around to hold up to 16".

I bough two because I need to mill the sides of some 120x60 RHS that's 1600mm long.

 

[ronan]

What brand (if any) are those vices Matt ? I bought an old archdale vice because i was worried about the quality of the far eastern stuff. Sometimes i think i would be better off having bought a foreign one.

 

[MattH]

There's no branding on them. By the sounds of it they are generic Chinese with a few tweaks for Arc.
I've not seen them anywhere else though. Quality seems good, they are nicely ground on all working surfaces, the have an anti lift jaw and they are very heavy (30Kgs each).
Here's a couple of pics of them next to my 6" Vertex:



For £165 each delivered you can't really go wrong!

 

[Wendelspanswick]

Morse taper sleeves don't work in a mill unfortunately. Because of the drawbar you cannot use sleeves with a tang, you can use open sleeves but there is no easy way of getting the sleeve out once you've put it in!

 

[GW8IZR]

I have one similar to this with a drawbar which is a handy thing in the box of 'stuff'

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/like/281833773099?adgroupid=13585920426&hlpht=true&hlpv=2&rlsatarget=aud-133395220626la-131843259426&adtype=pla&ff3=1&lpid=122&poi=&ul_noapp=true&limghlpsr=true&ff19=0&googleloc=1006539&device=c&chn=ps&campaignid=207297426&crdt=0&ff12=67&ff11=ICEP3.0.0-L&ff14=122&viphx=1&ops=true&ff13=80

Lets see if that huge link makes it

I know it has limitations for big cuts and getting the height of the smaller tool to stay put but its handy to have

 

[addjunkie]

They dont seem to be unreasonably priced, big vices are rediculous money even tatty old used ones.

Must admit for home use i cant really complain about any of the imported tooling and such ive bought for the prices, even vertex stuff is made in india.

Sit down and add it all up for insurance purposes it can be quite scary!

 

[Wendelspanswick]

I have one similar to this with a drawbar which is a handy thing in the box of 'stuff'

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/like/281833773099?adgroupid=13585920426&hlpht=true&hlpv=2&rlsatarget=aud-133395220626la-131843259426&adtype=pla&ff3=1&lpid=122&poi=&ul_noapp=true&limghlpsr=true&ff19=0&googleloc=1006539&device=c&chn=ps&campaignid=207297426&crdt=0&ff12=67&ff11=ICEP3.0.0-L&ff14=122&viphx=1&ops=true&ff13=80

Lets see if that huge link makes it

I know it has limitations for big cuts and getting the height of the smaller tool to stay put but its handy to have

I have one and also the same problem of never knowing whether the tool you have inserted is going to stay put!

 

[nick952]

Morse taper sleeves don't work in a mill unfortunately. Because of the drawbar you cannot use sleeves with a tang, you can use open sleeves but there is no easy way of getting the sleeve out once you've put it in!

There are "proper" sleeves for this, that have a thread and thin nut on the end (or even just two spanner flats), to extract the sleeve eg:-

http://www.chronos.ltd.uk/acatalog/info_OPS1.html

Nick.