China Vs USA Machinist Vise

The problem is US distributors. Chinese manufacturers will provide whatever quality the distributors are willing to order. US distributors order large quantities and insist on details that lower the cost. I am speaking from experience. I know Chinese manufacturers who make milling machines of excellent quality. The ones they sell in China are beautiful. The US distributors come in and order 500 and insist on cheap bearings, lead screws and then they insist on further price reductions if the manufacturer wants the order. Otherwise, the distributor walks and finds a manufacturer who will give them the price they want to pay. In China, I can buy products off the shelf as good as any you can get in the US. The top brands never make to the US market. If they did, the distributor would have to charge US prices. They have to make a buck and this is how they do it.

Stopped watching when you decided that the handle from another vice not fitting was a fault. Guess what, the tools I use on my old Norton don't fit my new Honda.

And A german made :o?

I personally love my Shars 440V. Bed height only varies by .0002" over 6" and I've measured only a few tenths lift. You get a lot of vise these days for $300.

Free expensive vice verses bought cheaper vice......I think I understand your reasoning for your biased view.

Too much hand movement.

If no one will say it I will ... you full of shit. The vice you got for free and don't mention the price, you also mention things like the undercut not milled ( doesn't matter because it doesn't touch the surface you putting it on. Come on ... be real and compare apples with apples. Compare your overpriced Winn to the over priced Curt that would be fair.

So,what is your point ?Chinese won the war ! ! ! ! ! they dump their "cheap and bad quality" stuff of US markets and thousand s of your look alike "genius" make videos on daily basis ! ! ! ! ! !

While the vise is definitely significant to precision finishing, it does not supersede correct and precise work set up in a vise using parallels/shims etc.This should be obvious, you had to do that much when you were regrinding the vise components; that said the better the vise, the less setting up, but yeah you still need to tram/set up the work piece etc. Castings are a perfect example of the necessity to properly set up work, never ever, near perfect, so yeah it doesn't matter how good the vise. The China made vise precision was well within the bounds of allowing precision setup of work pieces.

I just came for the comments

Is anyone surprised that cheaper product is of lower quality?

Just get a Kurt angle lock and be done with it. End of story!

totally agree the Chinese vice is of lesser quality, now go and buy a chinese vice at the same price range as Winn and then compare, I think you might be surprised when comparing apples with apples aka same price range.

if price is not an issue,like in this comparison...compare German made ROHM wise with USA made one ...You will see that USA vise is junk...same like Chinese one is compared to USA made one...yeah ROHM also cost 3 and half time more then US one

Could you put the Chinese vice on 1 2 3 blocks and Mill the bottom flat to make it better? I do understand that a surface grinder would be best

Thank for the video. Of course your glasses really need grippy pads

Buy $60 vise and scrape it in. Hobbiest shop rate is worthless :P

Well that is one way to get a free winn vice , and i thought the german comment was hilarious

Not surprising. I never buy anything that needs precision from China. They just don’t focus on quality. Visit a Chinese factory and a German factory you’ll understand why. I’ve seen Chinese factory still going with half the roof collapsed.

What is that dial indicator stand he used?

About the curtain, I do think people like the shop background, I know I love the shop background. It is nice to be able to look at your shop while you are explaining the topic.

This vise will last a very long time.
It’s not only the finish, it’s also the quality of the steel, the quality of the fittings and the fact that you’re supporting a craftsman.
Why would you buy a cheap Chinese vise?
If I had that cheap crappy vise, I’d hate using it every time I looked at it.
QUALITY BEGETS QUALITY!!
I would rather save my money and purchase quality, especially when it’s not that much more, or at the least, purchase a used vise.
Good review. Great vids. 👍

I doubt my old ass bridgeport will even care which one I get. It has worn ways. I'll get China vise or maybe a used Kurt vise. I don't need that kind of precision.

hi i have mini mill need a 3 inch vise cant find one that does not lift the work up when tightened anyone no a great 3 inch vise

Usually love you content but IMO this video is kind of pointless and just completely biased:

You're very careful not to mention when introducing the two vise options the cost of the Speedlock. It's $600 (three times that of the Chinese import).
Not exactly a surprise that if you pay that much more for a product that it's going to have more invested in the product quality and manufacture. I think this is generally the case.
Don't get me wrong, I think the Speedlock is a fantastic vise (as one would expect for the cost). However, a more relevant comparison would be to compare two vise at the same price point.

Price marks the difference good video bad compared put it in your Cnc and make a part with both

Why does the vise even matter if ex. you are running OP2 in soft jaws. Whatever alignment issue would be compensated by the CNC during OP1 and when cutting the jaws. Why the fanatisism?

The bottom of the Chinese just doesn’t make it, he said 😀

Do you think an old Bridgeport vise is good?

I knew before pressing play it would be a biased, unfair review, there was never going to be any other outcome. Down voted.

I knew before pressing play it would be a biased and to see him dancing in favor of the US vice confirmed it. Buy a $600 Chinese vice and compare that to a $ 200 US vice. I think he gave fovor to us vice so he get a free one.

i see lot of people whining and whaling here ... yes, it is way cheaper and it is worse obviously .. .. perhaps the chinaseium unit its ok for many people.
however he said something important, VERY IMPORTANT at the begining ...... the vise its a FOUNDATIONAL tool. I have many cheap tools and dials and shit in my amateur shop, but at least you need a couple of GOOD things to have a clean accurate start of any project. If all your stuff are chinaseum cheap parts, you have infinite variables and few trustable references. I am not rich at all, but i am tryig to get a NEW KURT , a NOGAFLEX magnetic base (stable and accurate) and one or two MITUTOYO genuine dials. With this parts, i feel i have some solid starting foundation for a job ... bits, several tools, DRO, Collect will be chinasium as budget is not solid. At least i know some basic measures will be correct and the part would be stable and still along the job ... just my idea, of course .....

A poor tradesman blames his tools.

Because a poor tradesman can't afford nice tools.

Almodt of china's stuff is cheaper, less costly.

You are REALLY CONFUSING to me (and maybe others) when you say for bed parallelism....ten thousanths of an inch. I realize you mean one tenth of one thousanth but I am sure you are saying 10 thousanths....not one tenth of a thousanth..... .0001 and .010 we both know that is a huge difference....SORRY, YOU JUST WERE NOT CLEAR TO AT LEAST ONE VEIWER...ME.....thank you!Mark

💡Many "American Made" products are actually Chinese/foreign made products that they've re-branded as "Made In America"😱 And far too many people believe that "Made In America"💩😂😂😂😂👍

It would have been better to have included an industry standard Kurt vice in the comparison.
There's also the relative comparison which can't consistently be done - how an import vice compares against some old abused pre-kurt vice.. I suspect the import would still beat my old vice at home, or most of the traditional vices at work.

Hello, After watching your video I checked my own 5 inch jaw Chinese vice and sure enough it had all the faults revealed in your testing. I had another Chinese vice that had been sitting in my workshop for months, acquired from a friend who had bought it to go on his drill press, it was however too heavy and he asked if I would swop a lighter K type I owned for years for it, I did so as a favour.
The only superficial difference between the Chinese products was the colour, the new one blue instead of grey. The fixed jaw was perfectly perpendicular to the bed rails, as was the moving jaw. With this brightening my day I started the process shown by you in the video and the blue vice passed on all counts. The ground surfaces were superb for flatness and the base was parallel to the rails.
Unfortunately I had thrown the box away and there are no markings on the vice, the test booklet has the name Accu-lock and was filled in with very close tolerances that proved correct.
I know that, " ...one swallow doth not a summer make...", but you can be lucky.

If you buy the American one
just waste your money 💵

I still am using my KURT vise I bought new over 50 years ago, there in no better vise in the world, will last a life time.

I have a very tired ENCO vise just like that. Its pretty worn out, one side is .0025" higher than the other.

The Chinese vise was out 4 .000"th because it was pulling the part down what it should do, plus you can move the jaws to clamp thicker parts with it as well so I don't think you gave a good review.🤨

What a completely pointless video!!!

Always nice to see what looks to be fine grade chinesium compared to the real stuff. I have one of these vices that I use occasionally. It rests on my harbor freight drill press and its used mostly for wood. Works fantastic 😅

Well done... Thank you

I bought three of the Chinese vise and now I'm screwed.

You immediately told us that the Chinese vice was around $200. But then you neglected to tell us the price of the Winn vice. Why was that?

I stopped watching when he stated that he got the fancy one for free.. we all don't need to build stuff to go to the moon!!

Horrible music