Air vises

[thesidetalker]

Nah, if you want one let me know. And that's probably air freight, if you aren't in a hurry I sent about 70 lbs to Charlotte a while back for under $100. Hope this vice isn't heavier than that or putting it on the table will be no fun. Took a couple weeks but if you aren't in a rush, saving money is good.

No thanks, I don't need one. If I did it wouldn't even be a consideration. I don't buy chinese tooling. You do you though.

 

[Kingbob]

I guess it comes down to how much does $600 (or I guess $1500 if it is a min of 2 + shipping) means to you. For me I'd rather know I'd be able to get someone on the phone for parts and trouble shooting. But if I was dicking around and experimenting any way yeah I'd probably go for a $600 ali vise or better yet I'd check ebay and bid spotter for a used good'n first.

 

[gkoenig]

In other words, bla bla bla, you don't have a clue so you're just regurgitating the marketing schtick of some german company. Whoop-dee-arfing do.

I had to count it up, but I have 57 Schunk KSP vises in production on various projects over the years. One has never so much as set a foot wrong. Ever.

Go buy 57 of those communist slave built pig metal Alibaba squeezers and call me when they accumulate 7 figures worth of parts made without a hiccup.

 

[mhajicek]

I had to count it up, but I have 57 Schunk KSP vises in production on various projects over the years. One has never so much as set a foot wrong. Ever.

Go buy 57 of those communist slave built pig metal Alibaba squeezers and call me when they accumulate 7 figures worth of parts made without a hiccup.

That's the thing, not everyone is in the same position. Compared to many I'm just getting my feet wet; 57 Shunk KSP vises would cost about as much as my whole operation so far.

 

[gkoenig]

That's the thing, not everyone is in the same position. Compared to many I'm just getting my feet wet; 57 Shunk KSP vises would cost about as much as my whole operation so far.

True!

But this is across 14 different projects at various outfits, most of which have 2-4 set up. One of them has 14 making 1 part across as many spindles. For me, that is 57 vises that I have specced out or (mostly) engineering specced out on projects where I know the outcome and keep regularly updated on the running status/issues.

All I am saying is that the vise is not the place to save money - they have the highest accuracy and reliability requirement of any component in an automation setup, and they suffer the most abuse. They are cycling, with high forces, hundreds of times a shift while being subjected to high vibration and cutting loads, while getting sprayed with coolant and chips.

If you have exceptional process reliability, vise quality is nowhere near as critical. If you are probing everything, using part presence detection, interlocking the vise clamping pressure line with a switch that alarms out on pressure loss, using tool break detection religiously? Ok, go ahed with the Alibaba pot metal vise and there is not much that you'll be risking. Does anyone ever implement that level of process reliability? Hardly.

Well, places do... once they've climbed the automation learning curve and realize that 5 seconds of probing and designing vise jaws with presence detection and a little IO wiring is WAY cheaper than babysitting cascading failures. But it takes almost everyone a few rounds of failing to get to the place where they bother to implement all that stuff.

 

[EmGo]

Go buy 57 of those communist slave built pig metal Alibaba squeezers and call me when they accumulate 7 figures worth of parts made without a hiccup.

This would appear to be making decisions based on emotion rather than knowledge and logic. That might just be me, though ...


btw, two months ago I ran off over 2,000 small spline shafts for gas chromatographs, 450 spur gears for old cars, a few hundred milled parts also for old cars, and some other stuff I forgot. What did you do ? With those fingery things on the end of your arms, I mean ? Get any dirt on them ?

and one more thing, doc ... at my place, I pay the bills. Money talks. Elitist fantasies about the best device since sliced toast don't buy breakfast.

 

[pat pounden]

This would appear to be making decisions based on emotion rather than knowledge and logic. That might just be me, though ...


btw, two months ago I ran off over 2,000 small spline shafts for gas chromatographs, 450 spur gears for old cars, a few hundred milled parts also for old cars, and some other stuff I forgot. What did you do ? With those fingery things on the end of your arms, I mean ? Get any dirt on them ?

and one more thing, doc ... at my place, I pay the bills. Money talks. Elitist fantasies about the best device since sliced toast don't buy breakfast.

first time hearing "toast"-has always been "bread"--;learn a new thing everyday!

 

[EmGo]

first time hearing "toast"-has always been "bread"--;learn a new thing everyday!

See, with the proper $83,000 Schunk vices (plus shipping and installation) you can toast the entire loaf at once, then slice it up afterwards with Schunk slicers and not lose one single piece of buttery goodness due to the loaf exploding out of those communist pig vices

p.s. cinnamon loaves excepted, peanut butter coating voids warranty, only trained and certified technicians are allowed to use this equipment.

 

[gkoenig]

This would appear to be making decisions based on emotion rather than knowledge and logic. That might just be me, though ...

The simple fact is that I've laid eyes on hundreds of automation setups in CNC machines, and 100% of the pneumatic or hydraulic clamping blocks I've seen in use are Schunk. I've also met plenty of engineers who found the Schunk price as absurd as you (and I!) do and tried the other brands... and they all went right back to Schunk for a myriad of reasons. Reliability. Holding force. Accuracy.

Schunk has been doing this for a long time. It will be great when someone else catches up and makes something that matches Schunk quality so we can get some price competition and plenty of us will take occasional fliers and try the competition out, but so far? None of them have been successful.

btw, two months ago I ran off over 2,000 small spline shafts for gas chromatographs, 450 spur gears for old cars, a few hundred milled parts also for old cars, and some other stuff I forgot. What did you do ? With those fingery things on the end of your arms, I mean ? Get any dirt on them ?

and one more thing, doc ... at my place, I pay the bills. Money talks. Elitist fantasies about the best device since sliced toast don't buy breakfast.

Oh my god, you actually made some parts? You want like an award for that? A plaque for the wall? Chili's gift card?

I made parts over the last couple of months as well, because I have a nice business making camera gear. You know what I did with the money from selling those camera parts? I bought a Schunk KSP100 and grippers and all the stuff to automate my machine so I could spend less time getting my fingers dirty and more time arguing on here with curmudgeonly bastards on PM.

 

[EmGo]

I made parts over the last couple of months as well, because I have a nice business making camera gear. You know what I did with the money from selling those camera parts? I bought a Schunk KSP100 and grippers and all the stuff to automate my machine so I could spend less time getting my fingers dirty and more time arguing on here with curmudgeonly bastards on PM.

Oh cool, a gentleman machinist ! What did we make, 3 parts for a Hasselblad ? Which you sell for $1800 each ?

It is nice that the world has a wide variety of customers so that some people can support their hobbies. However other sectors of the trade have to work within the limits of economics. Playing with a $50,000 seat of NX and automating your 50 parts/month luxury market is great. It's nifty to find a niche where you can do that. But it's not nifty to extrapolate that to the rest of the trade. There's a hell of a lot of uses where your elitism is not only silly but actually destructive. People do not want to spend $90 on a toaster. That's why there are no US toasters at Walmart.

I would never deny that what you do is cool. It's like the little old german machinist with everything perfect and everything in its place. But that does not work for a large segment of the business. Trying to make these ironclad rules ("NX is the best, you must use it. Schunk is without peer, that's the only solution") is unrealistic and false.

I knocked out those shafts with the simplest little crappy fixture you can imagine. Buying a schunk vise for that would have been nothing but an $80,000 waste of money. An inexpensive bit of tooling that does the job will work just fine (and save a ton of money).

Playing with your dick can be fun but it doesn't pay the bills.