WEN Cross Vise, 4.25-Inch with Compound Slide for Mills and Drill Presses (CV414),Black

I got my Wen 4.25 cross slide vise this morning. I don’t know how Amazon can deliver it overnight for free? Box was in perfect condition and I knew I was off to a good start. I unboxed it and started playing with it. It comes with the slides locked and handles off. I assembled it and adjusted it and I was pretty excited about how nice it looked and functioned. I disassembled it and cleaned it up and used valve lapping compound on all the contact surfaces. Lubed it up and reassembled. It works really great for an 80.00 vise. I read reviews about the quality and I think it’s great for the price. You can probably get a 700.00 to 1,000 dollar vise that is near perfect. Everyone would still buy this vise because they don’t want to spend the money on a high quality piece, myself included. I did buy 4 new set screws and nuts to replace the set screws that doesn’t have nuts. It made a big difference because I had screws back off when I was playing with it. I have yet to mount it or clamp anything in it but I don’t see any problems with it. The casting was smooth and looks good also. I wanted a Wilton 5” for my JET IDP22 but I couldn’t get any Dimensions on the base to see if it would work with my table slot locations. It looks small on my drill press… if you are willing to spend some time on it, you will have a good tool…

If you read the reviews about these cheap vises, you will see a lot of complaints about how smooth they are, or that they can't get tight enough to not wobble. The angles measure 30 degrees (or 120 depending on your perspective), so I cut a small piece of pine 1x3 at 30 degrees, wrapped it with sandpaper, and got to work on the tracks. I used 220 - 400 - 600 grit, as I already had it from other projects. I decided it was better to keep the sanding even, and leave the deeper tooling marks visible, but smoothed out, than to have perfect looking tracks that are uneven. I spent about 4 hours cleaning, sanding, chasing the threads, lubing with a thick oil, and adjusting. In all the reviews I read no one mentioned the angle or making a tool to fit the groove (a wooden block). I now have a cross vise that should be worthy of milling out a few 7mm tracks (mlok) in a piece of wood, but also exceptional for just dialing in a location to drill. It still has play when direction of the dial is changed, and I suppose a nylon washer or thrust bearing would help, but for my purposes is it great. It is smooth on both x and y axis, and when I stop anywhere along the track, it is rock solid. Make sure to sand the plates, especially where the notch is stamped into them, and lube the handles too. 3/8" bolts fit, 1/2" is too wide, I used 1-1/2" length on my craftsman 12", but also bought 2" and large and small washers and wing nuts so as to not drive back to the big orange box for bolts.Btw, I first purchased the HFS 4" cross vise, which I had to send back because the set screw was stuck (and was a flat head). Although I wanted that vise because it sat lower on the press, the quality was terrible, with cheap handles, and terrible casting voids, so I ordered this one, hoping that if the design was good enough for wilton or palmgren, it might come from the same place, and be ok with some work. Time will tell, but right now I am happy.

The product is made to a price point, and within that price point it does its job well. It is generally well thought out and practical to use. The cranks work well and the markings are correct. The cranks do have backlash so when processing material you want to work in only one direction if you can help it, but that's normal for something at this price range. Another thing to watch out for is that there is a rod parallel to the rails down the center of the vise which makes it dangerous to drill through a part which is mounted on the rails: you will hit this rod which will result in Fun. Use a set of parallels and keep your expectations reasonable and you will get a lot of value out of this piece of equipment. Try to use it as a replacement for a Bridgeport milling machine and you will be your own worst enemy.

It is sturdy and heavy with bulkier angles than most. The screws are not precision. You can lock the slides with the setscrews for more precision drilling or cutting else it may shift while in use. The mounting does not fit my drill press, so I have to use metal clamps to hold it to the drill table. It is the best I could find without spending a lot of money for a unit with precision screws. Works OK for me. I do not do precision work and only occasionally need a cross vise. I think it is a good deal.

Handle is cast and cracked after less than a year of intermittent use. Lots of play in the table, especially when reversing direction. Markings are useless.

Working Great as Advertised.

Here is what is good. It's a better design with a better fit and finish than most of the ones for sale in this price range. To be exact, you can find some identical to this one for twice the price. It's fairly sold and carriage moves pretty smoothly. I didn't completely dissemble it to improve the movement. I simply added some tacky grease to the slides. For the price (about $75), it is okay. And it fits nicely on a Craftsman 10" drill press from the early 2000s. I secured it with four 1/2" carriage bolts and one 7/16" carriage bolt in the back. No modification to the Craftsman drill press was required. And there is plenty of room to use it on the drill press.Here is what is not so good. The handle have sharp pointed ends. There may be a reason for these, but they kept sticking my hands through me gloves. They are quite sharp. I ended up grinding the sharp ends round on a table grinding and then buffing them smooth. It's much more comfortable to work with now. Next, there is a considerable amount of slop in the controls. And there's no way to improve this. I was able to tighten the slides, but the slop remains when changing direction.Overall, I'm giving this 4 out of 5 stars due to the slop in the controls which doesn't appear to be necessary with this level of fit and finish.

The base was smaller than expected so we fabricated something to fit, but this vise is well build and strudy. Excellent quality!

Buena calidad fácil de usar

Llegó antes de la fecha prometida. La herramienta superó mis expectativas, es muy suave en su manejo, y su maquinado en sus superficie es excelente. Sujeta las piezas a trabajar fuerte y sin maltratar.

Bon outil, fonctionne bien

This is made to a low price point. Both the sliding screws/shafts are bent, which in practise makes it's hard to turn with a point of easy turn. I'm keeping it bcos well there's nothing out there that competes on price, even though the quality is pretty low. I tried bending the screws so that the sliding mechanism was more consistent, however that caused more variation. The actual vise is good, just the sliding mechanism is unsatisfactory.