Cross slide vise questions...

[Alex Franke]

I'm considering this HF 6" cross slide vise, which would be about $75 with a 20% off coupon. It has a couple of good reviews, but the other similar "milling vise" on the site gets some pretty poor reviews. Does anyone have any experience with these items?

Also, this would be for drilling some very precisely-placed holes (think circuit boards). Are the threads on these things set up for metric or English distances? (IOW, can you measure out repeatable distances with numbers of turns, like X turns per inch, or X turns per cm?)

Thanks,
Alex

[jdon]

can't say anything about amount of screw backlash; cursory inspection of manual (online): screws in parts list are all metric, so good bet that adjustment screws are metric likewise, FWIW.

[pelligrini]

I don't have one, and I've never really done a lot of small precise drilling. I did lay my hands a a couple models at HF. There was a fair amount of slop in the movement. I think this is a case of you get what you pay for.

[dbhost]

Some tools are designed for precision. None of the vises I have seen at HF fall in to that category... They work for just holding stuff, but if you want precision, look elsewhere...

[Alex Franke]

cursory inspection of manual (online): screws in parts list are all metric, so good bet that adjustment screws are metric likewise, FWIW.

Ahh -- this falls squarely into the "why the heck couldn't I think of that?" category. Thanks!

[gnal41]

I purchased a 4” HF cross slide vise a couple of years ago to mill .437 dia. X .300 deep slots in 1.25” sq. soft aluminum bars. The slot location was not critical, +/- .062, and the vise worked for that task.

I agree with previous posts that the vise probably is not a precision tool and would not have repeatable X/Y coordinates.

I am not a machinist but have been around several PC board design/mfg. (small & large) shops and from what I remember, the vise would not be a good choice for your task.