Where to buy X Y milling vice in Edmonton?
- Thread starter Showcase
- Start date
- Location
- Whitehorse, Yukon
How about KBC Tools?
Good service and decent pricing.
RC
Good service and decent pricing.
RC
if you are looking for inexpensive import.... http://www.princessauto.com/en/locations IIRC it was in the $50-75 range last I checked. Not bad quality.
If you are looking for better quality go with Busy Bee or something else..
If you are looking for better quality go with Busy Bee or something else..
Not gonna get any better at Busy Bee than PA. The X-Y tables that both sell are crap.
So are the Palmgren ones, they are just priced like they are not crap.
Essentially, if you are looking for one that moves smoothly, you will have to spend pretty close to the price of a cheap milling machine to get one.
The are sorta OK for use on a drill press for positioning stuff that has been bolted down, but not much else.
If you think you can mill with one on a drill press, well, best of luck. Wear safety glasses.
Cheers
Trev
I agree on the intended purpose. Trying to mill in a drill press is just a bad idea. Cheap cross slide vise is just for drilling, basic at that. More info is needed for the task at hand, before giving proper advice. Lotsa smart people on here whose experience could save one from making a very bad decision.
"Crap" is relatively a strong term. I've used them with success.
Are they as good as a cross-slide from a reputable manufacturer that costs 5 times more? No, of course not, but they aren't "crap" either. Understand and work within the table's limitations and it'll serve you well.
I agree 100%! There's a HUGE difference between a vice for a drill press and one for a milling machine. I found a place in Calgary selling used Industrial quality equipment and bought a vice weighing about 100 lbs. BEST PURCHASE ever made - stuck it on a "Chinese milling machine" and it does everything I need for 1911 "gunsmiting".
One further bit of advice ... if you're new to milling and using "marginal equipment" that DOES NOT DAMPEN VIBRATION - and milling aluminum - be prepared for lotsa excitement when machine/tool starts to CHATTER!!! Bad things happen so fast you don't have time to duck ... wear full face and body armour .... <):-(
Yeah, but an accurate one.
From this avowed cheapskate and junk picker's point of view, life is too short to be trying to accomplish anything useful with crap like that.
Save the money that would be spent on one, towards a milling machine. The RF-25 and RF-30/31 machines are a pretty capable addition to a small space shop, and they are a damn sight better drill presses than most on the market today.
The X-3 size and X-2 size mini mills are useful enough too.
So is a couple decent files, and a solid bench with a decent vise mounted on it.
Cheers
Trev
Acklands used to have those in their catalog. Pricey though.
KMS tools could likely order you one, but not super high quality. Likely better than Princess Auto though.
United Tool Supply should be able to get what you need, but it will be pricey there.
KMS tools could likely order you one, but not super high quality. Likely better than Princess Auto though.
United Tool Supply should be able to get what you need, but it will be pricey there.
Been there, done that and found that they are much as Trev suggests. I actually found that the whole cross slide vise was best used for making mortise slots in wood working projects. The one time I tried to use it on steel it was a total disaster. The chatter I encountered even after tightening up the gibs kept rattling the MT arbor loose in the quil and the cutter fell down into the work piece. Two ruined attempts and one broken cutter later I gave up.
I made up a scheme to simulate a draw bar hold in setup which avoided the taper vibrating loose but the whole setup was only just barely adequate for small aluminium projects at most and with painfully small cuts being the norm.
All in all I have to agree with Trev fully on this one. Forget the table and buy even a cheaper and smaller than optimum mill instead.
The vise on these are not even that good. The movable jaw on many examples has far too much slop to hold small parts correctly and with the stability needed for any level of milling.
Lots of milling machines to be had at good prices in Edmonton. Send me a PM if you want one ... Or two! I know where there's a nice cross slide table, new, up there as well. That's a table, as you would find on a milling machine, with T-slots, dials that actually move it in 1/1000 increments. And probably priced better than the "tool store" junk previously described.
