WEN Cross Vise, 3.25-Inch with Compound Slide for Mills and Drill Presses

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…

As with all the Chinese made machine tools, it's rough out of the box. I took an hour or so to dismantle, clean, adjust, and lubricate the vice, and it works fairly well. Don't expect a precision device, this is for hobbyists or laymen, not for true machine work. It will serve my purpose fairly well, I'll use it for holding stock and some light machine work (80% lowers). I'll be measuring and marking everything by hand, although the marks on the dials are accurate. There is a lot of play in the worm drives, particularly when changing direction, and both of my acme screws are warped which makes them hang up more in certain areas of the revolution, and move free the rest of the time. It isn't terrible, but it isn't smooth either. My vice will travel from stop to stop in both axis. The only real issues with the vice is that it will not directly mount to the Wen drill press, and will not cycle enough on the (left to right) axis to get the edge of the vice under the bit. In essence, you could not machine a part from end to end, because there is no way to get the vice to travel enough that the part would pass entirely past the bit. Both are unforgivable oversights. I will make a mounting plate that both mounts directly to the drill press and indexes the vice base to the right enough to machine to the edge of a part.

Exactly as stated by several people who bought it. I spent a few hours after disassembling it (watching carefully, for reassembly). I cleaned off all the factory oil film. I polished all the friction areas using 600 grit sandpaper. This removed some small roughness and burrs. After thoroughly cleaning the threads of the worm screws (Longitudinal Feed, Cross Feed and Leadscrew) I observed if there were any imperfections. I don't know if I was lucky, the CV413 unit I received came with very well-defined threads. After all the above process, I lubricated the rails, bearings, worm screws, and even the handles, all with a layer of WD-40 Specialist White Lithium Grease Spray. I reassembled the vise, readjusted the screws that define the longitudinal and transverse displacement pressure and the result was excellent and surprising, showing that the WEN is a good quality tool, needing only a little rework after leaving the box. Smooth movements without play, except in the crank handles when reversing the direction of movement. Yes, that was the only downside... It is a small deficiency mentioned by others, however, it does not compromise the tool in my humble opinion. Anyway, great cost-benefit! With this procedure, I would recommend its purchase without any hesitation.

I bought this vise to mount to my benchtop drill press so that I could do some milling in addition to drilling. I had not previously purchased any Wen brand products. I found the quality level of this vise to be better than I expected for the price. I think a lot of the people who buy these things need to temper their expectations a little. For under $60 you're not going to get a production-grade piece that's accurate to a thousandth of an inch. What you do get is a decent quality vise that can position your work with reasonable precision. I found that drill press vises tend to fall in to 4 categories: 1) poorly machined cheap junk; 2) better quality at a reasonable price (this product fits here); 3) the same quality but with a different name brand at twice the price; and 4) high precision manufacture for hundreds of dollars. My vise arrived in perfect shape. It was easy to assemble. With a little lubrication and some fine tuning to the tension adjustment screws I quickly had it set up to my preferences. The only problem was... my drill press was too small to mount it! Long story short, after a bit of research I actually ended up buying a new drill press from Wen also. I got the Wen 4212 benchtop drill press and I couldn't be happier. That's a separate review, but suffice to say that nothing near that price point came even close to the features or quality and I'm very satisfied.