York vise problems

Question:

Hi Paul,

Sorry to bother you on a Sunday. I'm using the record-style vise York 53ed since 4 years now. I keep it clean and oiled. Since a few days I can't apply a lot of or even enough pressure and everytime I try it jumps open. In the past I encountered this only when I was trying to hold very uneven workpieces but right now I am trying to plane some square pieces and they won't hold.

Thanks for your great work!

Best regards from Germany,

Florian

Answer:

Hello Florian,

Good to hear from you.

Yes I have experienced this issue with ten out of twenty such vises made by York in the recent past. I too expected these vises to last for a lifetime simply because the design is a good one and the metal parts seemed (at least at first) to be comparable to my Record versions. Unfortunately that was far from the case. It didn't take very long for me to regret installing them because after even only a few days the cast iron mechanism crumbled away inside. York vises are made in the Czech Republic We let York know and they replaced the parts but did not improve them so we don't really recommend them as good vises. Until I here back from York as to what they plan to do about them I would advise people not buy the York vises.The place to check is inside mechanisms. There you can see if you have powdery swarf inside from the casting and also if the threads are even still there.A second problem we found with the York vises was that when both bar aligners each side of the threaded mechanisms were fully tightened the vise no longer functioned as a QR vise. We had to leave one of the bars loose and this  then tended to rattle. We ended up using thread dope to stop them from loosening.I use old Woden and Old Record vises for my school workbenches and am about to replace many of them with larger vises. They seem never to go wrong although a nut or bolt can sometimes come loose. I doubt whether any one of them is less than 60-80 years old and they are still going strong.I have three new makes I am about to test out so we will see.Contact York direct and tell them the problem.Best for now,Paul