Vise Tool Price

[Heartbreak Writhe]

Thehardware store I'm working at has a Wilton vise with 5" jaws on 50% sale. Normally it's around $84, so $42 is about the price I can get it for. Has anyone used Wilton vises before? Are they a good brand?

Let not the swords of good and free men be reforged into plowshares, but may they rest in a place of honor; ready, well oiled and God willing unused. For if the price of peace becomes licking the boots of tyrants, then "To Arms!" I say, and may the fortunes of war smile upon patriots

I have one that found it's way into the back of my truck after a few paychecks bounced. Mine has removable jaw pads. I can replace them with wood, plastic, nylon, teflon alum or any other material to suit the job at hand. If these vises have that feature, don't even slow down on the way to the registar. You can't begin to realize how useful that feature alone can be.

Wilton is a great vise company. You need to bare in mind they have a wide variety of product with a wide price range. I have a Wilton that is very expensive new and one thats on the cheap side. The good one takes all the abuse i throw at it. The cheap one is only good for grinding.

I have spent years buying, selling and collecting bench vises and pricing is a difficult subject to cover. There are many variables including where you are selling (Marketplace), where you are located (if selling local), the condition of the vise, utility value, replacement cost (if still made) and collectibility. Comparing past sales on eBay is a huge help as well, I recommend and use WorthPoint to get historical sales data. While not an exact science, I will detail my process for valuing a bench vise. Let's first take a look at the many factors...

Where you list your vise for sale will make a huge difference. Local marketplaces like Facebook Marketplace, Craigslist or others will generally bring less money than a nationwide online auction site like eBay. You will get top dollar on eBay, but you will also have to deal with listing fees, packaging and shipping your vise. How much more will you get on eBay? It really depends on the next factor, your location. If you are in the "Rust Belt" of the country I typically see 30% - 40% more when I sell a vise on eBay after shipping is removed from the equation. If you are in any other part of the country, I would lower that estimate to 10% - 20% over selling local.

Just like real estate, it's "Location, Location, Location!". I live in Pennsylvania and am tripping over vintage vises, but someone in New Mexico does not have that good fortune. Most vises we mass produced in the Rust Belt, where the majority of our nations manufacturing occurred. Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, Connecticut and Massachusetts. I have a harder time selling a vintage vise in Pennsylvania that someone in New Mexico, California or even southern states like Georgia or Florida.

Let's face it, you would rather list your vise locally, take cash and meet face-to-face to deliver the vise. Shipping a vise to me is nerve-racking as it's a heavy chuck of cast iron which when thrown around by a delivery driver can suffer much damage if not properly packed. If you are outside of the Rust Belt, expect to get slightly more money on a local sale.

When trying to sell a common, non-collectible vise the price typically comes down to utility of the vise and replacement value. A perfect example is a regular machinist vise versus a combination vise with pipe jaws. The combination vise, all other factors being equal should bring more money. Extra bonus points for swivel base, swivel jaw and a double swivel vise (body rotates)

Many vises are still available today new e.g. Wilton, Yost and Ridgid. When looking to sell an older version of a current brand, you have inflation on your side. Many of the Wilton bullet vises sell for $300 - $1000 depending on jaw size. Given the better casting quality on the older vises (my opinion) you can typically get 40-60% of new cost depending on condition.

Here is where things get tough. The market is finicky and your best bet is using comparable sales figures from eBay. Since eBay does not give you history past 30 days, your best bet is WorthPoint. They have data from way way back, and is the only tool I recommend for researching collectible pricing. Besides vises, you can use the tool like I do for pricing other treasures that you find in the wild! Nothing beats picking up a vise, and finding a lathe, machinist tools or other valuable antiques you can flip to fund your vise addiction!

Starrett pin vises are useful for securely holding small stock, taps, drills, reamers, scribers, wire, small files, and other tools. The jaws on all are hardened and with a few turns of the binding nut, a firm grip may be obtained. Handles and binding nuts are nickel-plated except for the 166 pin vise. A hole extends through the full length of the handles so that wires of any length and any diameter up to the full size of the tool can be held.

240 Pin Vises with Tapered Collets - .010-.200"/0.25-5.1MM

Special tapered collet, providing maximum clamping surface. Smaller body diameter than the chuck to allow fast opening and closing and rapid rotation when used on small work. Available individually or as a complete set in a convenient case.

Bench vises are essential workshop helpers, and putting together a list of the best models to test was no small task. First, we drew upon personal experience with woodworking, automotive repair, welding, and plumbing to determine the most important features of a bench vise. Then we selected models for testing from the brands we trust the most in the category. We gave some preference to reputable manufacturers, such as Wen and Wilton, but we also looked at lesser-known brands if they had high customer ratings.

Once mounted, we used the vises for gripping several common items, including boards, pipes, and other pieces to see how well they stabilized the items as we worked on them. We loosened stuck-on fittings with the help of wrenches, sharpened chainsaw blades, planed and routed wood, and used a power drill to drill holes in the items.

The vise comes with a dog: a bar that can be extended upward on the front of the vise to stabilize larger boards. Dogs are relatively common on wood vises, and we really liked how smoothly this one pushed up and down and how well it held our boards. A dog is used in combination with a bench stop on the top of a workbench.

We also hammered the end of a copper pipe flat on the anvil on the back of the vise. The serrated jaws are replaceable, but throughout our testing, which included cranking down tightly on multiple iron and steel items, they survived with only a couple of surface scratches, so we think they will last a long time before needing to be replaced.

With smooth inner jaws and a 10.25-inch jaw width, the Yost woodworking vise securely holds large wood projects without marring the workpiece. We mounted this face-mount vise to the front of our workbench, where most woodworking vises are made to install.

The vise has holes on the inner jaws designed to attach custom wood jaw liners, so we fabricated two wood liners to fit the jaws. That involved routing out sections on two boards to match the size of the jaw plates and then attaching the boards to the inner jaws via screws. This gave us a larger gripping area for holding boards without the risk of marring the wood. Most professional woodworkers will fabricate their own liners for this reason, but the jaws themselves are smooth enough to support many wood projects without damage.

One of the nicest things about the Yost vise is its quick-adjust lever that allowed us to move the outer jaw in or out quickly. This was a big time saver, as we could move the jaw to fit the board size and then use the handle to increase the gripping pressure.

While the Real Avid is made with gunsmithing in mind, we feel it could easily cross over for other hobbies that require gentle but secure gripping power, such as working on fishing reels or sharpening knives.

We decided to use a 10-inch section of steel rebar in place of the handle so that we could still tighten and loosen the jaw plates. We felt we could probably order a replacement handle or simply continue to use our homemade handle.

Each type of bench vise has specific features, such as jaw width, quick-release ability, and swivel, that can significantly affect how well the vise will function in a shop. Becoming familiar with the following aspects will help when choosing the best bench vise.

End vises are almost always used for woodworking, and they may come with wood jaws or jaw liners that let the user avoid marring boards while clamping. Depending on the size and style, they may have one tightening screw or multiple tightening screws for securing the workpiece.

Throat depth in both bench vises and woodworking vises refers to the distance from the top of the jaw to the top of the screw mechanism that tightens the vise. Essentially, it quantifies how deeply a user can clamp a workpiece down inside of a vise.

Throat depth is important, particularly when edge-planing wide boards or welding wide pieces of steel. The larger the throat depth, the easier it is to clamp these wide materials toward their centers, providing more stability and holding strength while allowing users to apply more leverage or weight. Generally speaking, the larger the vise, the deeper the throat depth.

The ability to swivel is possibly the most important feature of a good benchtop vise. For instance, swiveling the jaws out of the way might allow a DIYer to get a better angle on the anvil surface, which can make a big difference when trying to strike or bend something to shape.

Glenda Taylor is a product tester and writer specializing in the construction, remodeling, and real estate industries. She and her husband own a general contracting company, and Taylor is experienced in both residential and commercial building applications. She tests a wide range of power tools as well as other home improvement, household, and lawn-and-garden products.

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