New Vise and Soft Grips

I had been limping along with a small and inexpensive Bessey 4″ vise that I got from Home Depot a while back. It was rusting pretty bad and I couldn’t seem to get it to grip anything anymore like it should. I didn’t feel like using a cheater bar because the I honestly don’t think the vise would take it.

I started my research to find a practical vise that wasn’t going to cost me an arm and a leg. I’ve started going to Lowe’s more often to get descent tools that aren’t going to break the bank. I still make the occasional trip to Home Depot, but it’s further away from home, thus making Lowe’s more convenient. But, I found some nice Irwin vises there. They had the normal small 4″ style vise, which I wasn’t interested in. There were two models that I was looking at.

The first was the Irwin 5″ Multi-purpose vise. This was intriguing because it had a rotating jaw section of the rise. It rotates 360 degrees, while the base only rotates 120 degrees. I wasn’t as concerned about the base rotating very far, but I didn’t want a fixed base either. It also had a very nice anvil section which was much larger than the laughable almost one inch square I had on my previous anvil.

The second option was the Irwin 6″ Mechanics vise. This is just like your normal vise. The vise jaws were fixed on the vertical plane, but the base could rotate up to 120 degrees as well. I liked having another inch of surface area for clamping down on material.

I eventually chose the Irwin 5″ Multi-purpose vise. Below are pictures of the vise installed. I had already used it for some of the project work today, but felt I should cover this as part of the costs I’ve spent for this build.

I also found some great soft grip vise pads with magnets on Amazon. They were the Trisense 6″ Vise Jaw pads. These are very well built and have a very soft rubber to cushion the part in the vise. The only problem I have is that the magnets are not as strong as they lead you to believe. Granted, this is meant for a 6″ vise, but all four of the magnets are engaged on the vise, so it should hold securely no matter what. But it quite often ends up falling off and I have to reattach it.

All in all, this is working very well so far and does not mar the parts that I’ve put in there. I had to repair a wooden draw pull and this was the easiest thing to hold the drawer pull together while the glue dried. It did not leave any marks on the wood and held the piece solidly together. I would recommend both of these for a good vise and hopefully I’ll be able to provide more complete feedback as the project goes on.