Sontax 100mm Swivel base Bench vice

[MelbMan]

Bunning have a special on vices this week (Oct 12 2009) in their current catalogue. For $24.87 they have a Chinese made Sontax swivelling vice that will rotate through 360 degrees and open up to 100mm. Eltham had no stock so over to Mill Park in my case Monday to get one. Very nifty and considerably more versatile than the $33 Indian made Gripwell fixed base vice that would be the alternative. Strangely enough although made in different countries both are the same light blue metallic...perhaps this is the universal colour for vices?. But the fittings on the Chinese Sontax one are much sturdier, there's about 10% of the grease which is plastered over the Indian Gripwell one... here the grease is on everything bar the moving parts!

http://sontax.com.au/index.php?page=...emart&Itemid=8
Strangely the image on this website the vice and it's chrome fittings look rusty. Unbelievable for the sellers website! Mine all the chrome fittings are bright and shiny.

Getting home I look through my nut, bolt and washer collection for the right size and length to bolt this to the bench. It did occur to me to make a quick trip back to my local Bunnings but keeping in mind my handymans ethos "keep it simple and make do with what you have on hand" so countersunk domed head bolts slightly smaller than the holes in the base of the vice do the job. The Sontax has a 3 hole mounting on the base so in my case I make use of an existing hole in the redgum workbench top and drill two new holes. Use a nail hole to centre the first hole and finish up with a 4.0 or 4.5 drill bit.

So a quick fitting and the vice looks great on the front corner of the workbench. Rotation is controlled with 2 small clamps on the base of the vice.

One of the most cluttered places in our house is the "shed" In our case this is a workshop under the stairs with a door, a big open area with this big solid redgum workbench and outside a pool room where the pool filter lives.

So leading up to this new vice a bit of a spring clean and daylight saving project to tidy up the workbench. Gather all the bits and pieces in groups. Theres a pegboard on the back of this so using some self tapping screws (lying on the workbench ) find and put a selection of iron brackets on display for an upcoming project.

Like an office desk the art of a workshop seems to be getting items off horizontal surfaces where they tend to form in layers and get them vertical. And to find a place for everything and everything in its place so when it comes to worktime you can see and find what you've already got

With church fete season coming up in Melbourne I'm sure there'll be a few tools for sale at most. I suspect you could pay close to $20/25 for some ancient old vice that came out with the ark. I wonder why bother when you can have a brand new one like this for the same money.

Thanks to Keith from the Tool Shop at Bunnings Eltham for his patience and efforts ringing around a few stores to find stock.

[Wongdai]

I had a Sontax vice myself, but it was pretty rubbish unfortunately. I guess you tend to get what you pay for.

[MelbMan]

HI Wongdai....care to elaborate on where the failure took place?

I bought mine as an alternative to using clamps or the outdoor wooden red cedar table as a sawbench. Being only a Spring DIYer and low key at that I think my swivelling vice will do the job. I did see Irwin ones at Bunnings for more like $100 but non swivelling. But unless you've using a vice everyday and for heavy cutting and the like not sure if I could justify the difference.

I do have a cheap jigsaw... an XU1 which I must review. LIke the vice this won't see much action. But with cheap power tools my observation is that you find a lot of vibration the cheaper the tool. So if the dearer jigsaws vibrate less I'd be going for a more upmarket one simply based on that criteria.

Over to you