[LRF]

Hi,
Considering the purchase of the Shars 400 DS, 4" double vise. Curious if anyone has one and has feedback?

[luv2ride]

I have also considered the same vise. If it is anything like the 440v I bought a few years back it should be a great and precise enough vise.

[LRF]

Currently I machine 3 of my parts in a single material bar, at a time mounted in my 5" Kurt. The bar is a little over 8" long and I have special steel jaws mounted in the vise that I use that are aprox 8" long also. Works very well however since Tormach tool change time on the ATC is not what you could define as "quick" I want to minimize this per part time cost by increasing the number of parts being machined at any one time for each tool to 10 parts. I am planning to do this by setting up each program run using material bars that contain 5 parts each and then with double vises I can put 2 bars in the machine at each time. To do this I am going to purchase 2 each of the 400DS vises and the machining bars will straddle the 2 vises. Of course there will also be custom vise jaws installed.
I have spent time measuring the machine and laid out the plan in CAD and I believe it is going to work.

Here is some info that you all may or may not be interested. There is a used machinery sales guy locally to me that has 3 ea Kurt DL400 vises for sale. They are not new but fine as they are or could be rebuilt. One appears a little newer but all appear to be 1990's vintage (just a guess as I am no expert). The newer one is in better condition and I believe he wants $650 for it. The other two he would probably take $500 ea. He offered 2 of them to me for $900 or $1000 depending on which 2 I took. There is only one handle and that goes with the newer one with all its jaw plates. I did not buy because I decided since my setup requires a little specialized custom jaws that for a few hundred more I can get exactly what I want.
Anyway if you want to talk to the guy let me know and I can provide contact info. Word to the wise if you negotiate price with him, don't try to low ball him or get cute he has been at selling machines all his life and he knows what he needs to get out of something. But this is not to say he won't dicker.