6 Inch Ductile Iron Bench Vise with 360° Swivel Base & Steel Guide Bar - Heavy Duty Forward Bench Vice for Woodworking, Metalworking & DIY Projects (Model 30606)

Edit 11/2023 : I've really abused this thing and it still has minimal lash, holds the things I want to hold, has no cracks and generally works perfectly. I still recommend it heartily after a number of years of use.-------------------------------Edit 09/2022: This vise is still going strong. No complaints at all. Also, a bit of a rant about some of these negative reviews.I've seen a number of reviews complaining the vise metal is "soft" and therefore not strong. This includes reviews posting pictures where they hit it with a hammer and it left a mark. Don't listen to them, they don't understand material science. They are testing the vise's hardness when they hit it with a hammer, not its toughness.This vise is made of very strong ductile iron. The whole point of ductile iron is it's ability to be deformed without losing toughness; pliable, not brittle. The problem with cast iron is it can be brittle and if a local area is over-stressed it's likely to fail by cracking rather than deforming. Those cracks, in turn, are likely to travel because they interfere with the material's ability to distribute stress and create an area of focused force at the end of the crack.Ductile iron is designed to deform at the point of stress. It's more likely to bend or dent before it cracks. This is a good property to have for a vise that's likely to be subject to high point forces like impacts or tension from being tightened. The fact that the vise dents when you hit it with a relatively hard hammer is actually evidence that the vise is exactly what it says on the box, ductile. It means it can take hits and absorb the stress by deforming in that local area and not affect the strength of the rest of the vise like a crack would.Think of it like this, glass is very hard. If you hit it with a hammer, it will never dent. But it gets that hardness by sacrificing ductility. Same with high carbon steel, extremely hard. You can sharpen a high carbon steel knife edge to razor sharp. But if you hit it on something hard instead of folding the edge over, it chips off. Every decision in material science is a trade-off. For a vise, tough is far more important than hard.---------- Rant over, on to the review ----------I've owned a number of vises of varying quality over the years. This easily ranks in the top 2 or 3 in terms of quality. Certainly the best quality for the money hands down. If you're looking for a lifetime vise that you will still be using in 50 years, this fits the bill.I would compare it in build quality to Wilton's mechanics vise. Minimal lash when reversing directions, screw feels tight and precise. Even after fairly heavy use it's still has a good positive response. At 5 threads per inch screw pitch it's a good compromise between mechanical advantage and travel speed. I used a high tpi machinist's vise for many years and it was nice when you really needed to clamp down on something but opening the jaws when I had something larger to put in it was a chore. Felt like you just sat there spinning forever.It has plenty of clamping force. Based on my calculations (Thread pitch 5/in., 6" handle) you get about 15/1 mechanical advantage. So if you can apply 100lbs of force to the handle you get a clamp force around 1500lbs give or take. If you really got on it you could probably get up to about 2000lbs but the friction is going to go up pretty quick after that.It stands up to some fairly vigorous hammering and bending. Attachment points are beefy and I can't see the vise ever failing there. The swivel locks are well designed and the hold the vise tight in the orientation you lock them in.So far I haven't found anything to complain about.The only thing I would mention is the jaws it ships with are pretty aggressive. They sure do hold but I prefer a lighter knurl that's a compromise between chewing up the work and holding on for dear life. But you could also just use some jaw pads.