I had a soldering job to do on a very small printed circuit board, and I didn't want to have to struggle[1] with it in any clumsy, awkward fashion. I recalled that I'd seen a rather nice little vise for such work at Busy Bee, so I looked it up and found that it's on special for $29.99 CDN, from its regular price of $39.99. Needless to say, I nipped out to Busy Bee in Pickering and got one. Here's a view of the box that it comes in.
And here's the vise clamped to my workbench.
The capacity of the bench clamp is 2 1/16". The upper 'jaw' of the bench clamp has a non-marring rubber pad.
Here's a view of the vise at work on my printed circuit board repair.
The vise did exactly what I needed it to -- hold the circuit board steady while I soldered in new components. The resilient jaw pads were just what was called for.
With the jaw pads removed, the rear jaw of the vise has cross-grooves for gripping round stock.
Aside from that feature, the naked jaws are not the textured grippers that you get on a mechanic's vise -- they're smooth and slippery. That's about the only downside to the vise.
The multi-angle locking feature works as it should; the vise head absolutely, positively can be locked in place however you please to position it. Here's a view of the feature's innards.
An M8x28mm carriage bolt is the clamping/locking screw. An M6x15mm flathead screw serves as a vertical retention stop for the assembly.
And following are a few specifications:
All in all, a very nice unit. I expect that I'll find many uses for it.
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Notes:
[1] The words 'work' and 'struggle' are not synonyms. If one is struggling instead of working, one is ill-prepared, ill-informed, ill-equipped or some combination of the three. The 'illness' needs to be dealt with.
[2] Busy Bee variously claims a jaw opening of 2 1/2" or 2 3/4". I don't see how they can arrive at those figures; at 2 1/2", the rear jaw has come unscrewed. I specify maximum vise jaw opening with the vise screw still fully engaged by its nut.
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