Harbor Freight 5in Bench Vise Good Enough?
If you’re looking for a low cost reliable bench vise, then this may be the perfect fit.
Harbor Freight 5in Bench Vise Side View
We’ve started doing more and more sheet metalworking while working on our BMW e30 project car.
Usually, we use small clamps to hold things down to our welding tabletop. Small clamps are OK for keeping tiny things in place, but as soon as you need to cut something much larger they just won’t do.
So we ran to Harbor Freight and headed down the vise isle. To my surprise, the selection for bench vises at Harbor Freigth was huge.
Harbor Freight had bench vises/clamps ranging from $30 up to $230 bucks. We didn’t need anything fancy and had a budget of $80.
The five-inch CENTRAL MACHINERY Swivel Vise fit the bill and it was on sale for $50, normally $60.
5” BENCH VISE USES
The 5-inch swivel vise from Harbor Freight is a beast. It’s cast iron and weighs in at a hefty 21 pounds. It also swivels 360 degrees and has screw locking mechanisms to hold its position in place.
The Vise is pretty easy to use and has an anvil base at the rear section. It also has 6,600 pounds of clamping force and the jaws are replaceable.
Harbor Freight Central Machinery Swivel Vise
We put the Vise right to use. Unfortunately only three out of the four bolts could be mounted into our welding table, but the vise held just fine. We clamped some Unistrut to the vice which needed some cutting.
5 inch Swivel Vise Clamping Unistrut
We also mounted a few pieces of 16 gauge metal into the vise and we could bend the metal it with no problem.
The next thing we used the vice for was clamping our 20 inch Eastwood Versa Sheet Metal Brake to. Once the metal brake was locked into the Vise it didn’t move at all.
The welding table and Vise started moving when trying to move the brake, but the brake never budged out of the Vise clamps.
Swivel Vise With Eastwood Versa Brake
The other cool thing about this vise is you can clamp round pipe with it as well. We also laid some 20 gauge sheet metal onto the rear anvil for shaping it nice and flat.
The anvil is pretty solid and doesn’t seem to have any issues taking blows from an auto body hammer.
Harbor Freight Central Machinery Vise Anvil Hammering
From a maintenance perspective, its best to keep your vise in a dry area. The paint coating on the primary parts of the Vise seems to hold well. We also recommend using WD40 Dry Lube to keep all the moving parts in good condition.
So far, we’ve been using this Vise a lot, so its definitely a good investment if you plan to start doing more DIY or work on your ride.
ALTERNATIVES
If you don’t have a Harbor Freight nearby, you can get something very similar online such as the 6” bench vise from Vevor. We have quite a few products from Vevor and they work great.
