[sansbury]

I recently made the mistake of getting the Carvesmart jaw system for my Tormach 5" vise. I love the system, but the problem is that it uses up 3" of jaw capacity. So instead of swapping jaws like I used to, now I end up moving the jaws between the inside and outside almost as often (chair)

Orange's vises look perfect but I am wondering how well they would fit. I don't want to get into mounting it horizontally. The big concern I have is with the fixed jaw being 4" deep, I'd lose an awful lot of table travel since I can't really hang the vise off the back edge very much.

[MichaelHenry]

I looked at the 16-in Orange vise a few years ago, mocked it and the Tormach up in CAD, and came to the conclusion that using the Orange vise would cost too much capacity in Y. There was talk of them making and selling a smaller vise but I lost track of progress in that area. Just checked and it looks like all their vises share the 4-in deep back (fixed) jaw. You might try contacting the owner (Sol?) and see if he has any suggestions. He seemed like a helpful guy in email.

[Don Clement]

I use a Kurt D688 on my 1100. With the Kurt mounted on a subplate located with two 12mm locating pins (one round and one diamond shape) the D688 doesn't take away any of the 10.5" Y-axis travel. Plus I never have to tram the vise.BTW
without moving the jaws the Kurt D688 6" vise has an opening of 8.8"Attachment 391828

Don

[Steve Seebold]

I bought 2 of the Tormach CNC vises about a year ago. A while later I wanted to build a Mitee-Bite fixture for one of my RC boating products.

Imagine my disappointment when I learned my 5 inch vises would only open 4.25 inches.

[skrubol]

Shars has a high-capacity 5" vise. The 550V opens about to 7" with stock hard jaws.
Just mentioning that if you want to save some money and be able to reuse the stuff you've already got for the 5".

[sansbury]

Oh, that Shars vise is interesting. I think that would get me up to 4" capacity which would cover almost everything I've needed to do recently.

Another thing I've considered is asking CarveSmart if I could buy just one master jaw, so that I could keep a jaw on both sides of the fixed jaw and the inside of the moving jaw.

[Peter Neill]

I have a pair of 5" Gerardis on mine.
Opening is 5.25", but you can flip the fixed jaws around to the back giving almost 8".
And the moving jaw carriage (underneath the jaw) can be flipped around to allow about 15deg of swivel, to clamp angled or irregular parts.
The jaws are angled and actually 'pull down' on the stock when you clamp them. Brilliant.
There are also a HUGE amount of modular jaws available for these too. Best vices (english..) I've ever had.

Company - Gerardi USA

Attachment 392046