New Vise Advice?

[ManualEd]

I need to order vises for a new VMC. Its a 60"x26" machine for general job shop work.
90% of my work would be first op in a Talon Grip/Piranha step jaw, and finish in a normal hard jaw.
The Orange Vises with Carvesmart look pretty nice.

Is it worth it to get the 26" orange vises for such a big machine?

Kurt makes a ground and HT steel Carve smart jaw that I was thinking of turning into a Piranha Strip hard jaw. Is the dovetail on the Orange Vise's accurate enough that you can swap the jaws between vises and have Z repeat within .001" ish?

Does Orange have a distributor in Canada, or somewhere close to the BC/Washington border I can pick them up?
The UPS shipping of $1100CAD isn't horrible, but the duties/brokerage will be a PITA.

I look forward to hearing everyone's opinions.

 

[crossthread82]

The dovetails definitely repeat to less than 0.001".

I only have the 20" models of the Orange Vises but if you plan on holding parts larger than about 18" in Y the 26" would be a good option.

One thing to note is that in single station config with the thin Carvesmart style hard jaws the vise doesn't close to zero, you're left with about a 0.500-.600" gap between the jaws. If you use regular 1" thick bolt on hard jaws it does close all the way.

I'd suggest buying the soft jaws for the dovetail system from Orange as well since they machine the dovetails onto the jaws and repeat much better, the Carvesmart ones are extruded and vary a little bit.

MMM-USA makes a pre made dovetail jaw that accepts their Piranha strips, you could just mill the front of the jaw in place in the vise to make it a pseudo hard jaw below the tooth strip if you wanted to.

 

[rjwalker1973]

I would go with the larger 26 orange vises

 

[ManualEd]

The dovetails definitely repeat to less than 0.001".

I only have the 20" models of the Orange Vises but if you plan on holding parts larger than about 18" in Y the 26" would be a good option.

One thing to note is that in single station config with the thin Carvesmart style hard jaws the vise doesn't close to zero, you're left with about a 0.500-.600" gap between the jaws. If you use regular 1" thick bolt on hard jaws it does close all the way.

I'd suggest buying the soft jaws for the dovetail system from Orange as well since they machine the dovetails onto the jaws and repeat much better, the Carvesmart ones are extruded and vary a little bit.

MMM-USA makes a pre made dovetail jaw that accepts their Piranha strips, you could just mill the front of the jaw in place in the vise to make it a pseudo hard jaw below the tooth strip if you wanted to.

The MMM dovetail jaws are only 1018, with gets trashed pretty quick with clamping flame cut material.

I would go with the 1" PermaJaw (50rc carvesmart jaw), and mill the Pirannha strip into both sides, then send them out for gas nitriding to get a proper hard jaw.

Is the dovetail accurate to within .001" between all the different master/sliding jaws, or do you have to match each hard jaw to the vise position?

 

[DouglasJRizzo]

I've never used Orange vises but they look like really quality pieces.
I have Kurt and many of them go back to the 1980s. All still performing well.

 

[crossthread82]

The MMM dovetail jaws are only 1018, with gets trashed pretty quick with clamping flame cut material.

I would go with the 1" PermaJaw (50rc carvesmart jaw), and mill the Pirannha strip into both sides, then send them out for gas nitriding to get a proper hard jaw.

Is the dovetail accurate to within .001" between all the different master/sliding jaws, or do you have to match each hard jaw to the vise position?

They repeat well between all of my vises. Obviously if you want them absolutely perfect you should put them in the same position. But I made a bunch of step jaws out of the carvesmart hard jaws (62hrc) and using multiple sets with a long part across 3+ vises I don't notice any height variation.