Review on Revolutionary Forward Ductile Channel HY 30404 4In - Enhancing 360 Degree Functionality by Michael Briggs

Edit: This vise is still going strong. No complaints at all. Also a bit of a rant about some of those negative reviews. I've seen a number of reviews complaining that the vise metal is "soft" and therefore not strong. This includes reviews that post pictures of them hitting him with a hammer and he leaves a trail. Don't listen to them, they don't understand materials science. They test the vise for hardness by hitting it with a hammer, not strength. These vices are made of very durable ductile iron. The whole point of ductile iron is its ability to deform without losing strength; malleable, not brittle. The problem with cast iron is that it can be brittle and if a local area is subjected to excessive stress it will fail by cracking rather than warping. These cracks, in turn, can move because they interfere with the material's ability to distribute stress and create an area of concentrated forces at the end of the crack. Ductile iron is designed to deform at the point of stress. Most likely it will bend or fold before tearing. This is a good property for vices that can be subjected to high point loads such as impact or pull when tightening. The fact that the vise will flex when you hit it with a relatively hard hammer is actually proof that the vise is what it says on the box, malleable. This means that it can withstand impact and absorb stress by deforming in that local area and not compromising the strength of the rest of the vise like a crack would. Think of it this way: glass is very hard. If you hit it with a hammer, it will never bend. But he gets that toughness by sacrificing plasticity. The same goes for high carbon steel, extremely hard. You can sharpen a carbon steel knife blade to a razor sharp edge. But if you hit it against something hard instead of bending the edge, it breaks off. Every materials science decision is a compromise. In a vise, rigidity is much more important than hardness. ----------- Let's get to the review ---------- I've had several vices of varying quality. over the years. It easily ranks in the top 2 or 3 in terms of quality. Definitely the best quality for the money. If you are looking for a lifetime vise that you will be using 50 years from now, then this is it. In terms of build quality, I would compare them to the Wilton mechanical vises. Minimal jerk when changing direction, the screw feels firm and precise. Even after fairly heavy use, it still has good positive reviews. With a thread pitch of 5 threads per inch, this is a good compromise between mechanical advantage and travel speed. I've used high tpi machine vises for years and it came in handy when you really needed to clamp something, but opening the jaws when I needed to put in a little more was a chore. It feels like you've just sat and filmed for an eternity. Resilience is plentiful. According to my calculations (thread pitch 5/inch, handle 6 inch) that gives a mechanical advantage of about 15/1. So if you can put 100 pounds of force on the handle, you'll get about 1500 pounds of clamping force, more or less. If you really are, you could probably go up to around 2,000 pounds, but after that the friction will build up pretty quickly. It withstands fairly powerful hammer blows and bending. The twist locks are well designed and hold the vise firmly in the orientation you lock it in. So far I haven't found anything to complain about. Hold of course but I prefer a lighter knurl which is a compromise between chewing at work and hanging on to life, but you can also just use some jaw pads.