The Stanley Quick Vise (STHT83179) is a clamp-on vise that’s – as the name suggests – quick and easy to use. It can be clamped or screwed down to a work table, or any flat and sturdy surface.
Instead of opening and closing with a lead screw, one jaw is fixed and the other can slide along the length of the vise. Clamping is achieved by pulling down on a T-shaped handle.
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The steel jaws are 4.5″ wide and come with removable non-marring pads. Stanley says that the vise offers 4.5″ of jaw capacity, but it looks to me like the movable jaw can travel a little more than that.
While you probably won’t get the same level of clamping pressure as with other portable vises, the Quick Vise should be strong enough for light duty work-holding tasks.
It’s currently priced at about $35-$40, but the price come down when the vise starts shipping in a couple of weeks.
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mike
Interesting !
I have been selling this in Europe/Germany for more than 7 months;
A nice gadget; works well with 2″x 4″
2) here is a nice picture of a good Stanley clamp which sells in USA; not Europe
http://www.toolbarn.com/stanley-stht83166.html
cheers
Stuart
The Stanley 2×4 clamp has been available here for a while as well. It’s decent, but can only be used with 2×4 lumber.
mikeh
this is pretty cool – odd that it doesn’t come in varying bar sizes?
Steven
I think it would be nice to have it in two pieces. That way you can make it what ever length you need.
Steven
Gary Tsubota
Stuart,
A quick question. If this is a new Stanley vise, why does it have the old Stanley logo?
Stuart
Old pictures? This vise was slated for release over a year ago, but hasn’t hit the US market until now.
L Murray
Mine, bought in Europe in June 2015, has no Stanley logo on the metal rails as shown in the photos here. It has only the yellow embossed plastic older Stanley logo on the fixed jaw. The copyright on the box is 2013 Stanley Black & Decker. Hence, the older logo.
fred
This looks to be oriented for homeowner use to clamp on a simple bench top. For jobsite use it might also be handy clamped onto a plank or vertically to some open framing. But if I am correct in that it can only clamp onto the “2 inch” side of the lumber, that would make it possible to clamp only to the side of a typical sawhorse 2×4 top beam .
DanRRZ
Slick idea for the workspace challenged like myself.
Invariably, I end up cutting a lot of lumber off my tailgate. I’d love something like this that with the capacity to clamp onto the tailgate (and not wreck the paint). Wider jaws would be a plus too.
Dennis
It looks handy, but it also looks as though it can be a whole lot more. In the close up picture it looks like the “L” bracket things on the end don’t have holes, which would be nice if I wanted to screw it down (perhaps on a saw horse). I know I can clamp it down, but if I’m going to be using it someplace for a while, it’s just as easy to drop a couple screws in and affix it in place?
That leads me to my next question, can you take the retention clamps off or fold them up for transport? If not, it seems like a unwieldy piece to carry around.
It would also be a lot nicer if it was split down the middle and you could make as wide a clamp as you wanted. Maybe that will be version 2.0 and beyond.
Stuart
It doesn’t look like there are holes, but Stanley says there are holes for screwing the vise down. That’s where I would assume the holes would be.
Looks to me like the hold-down clamps are fixed to the sides of the clamping rail.
Josh
It looks like the screw down holes are on the front and back of the vise, in the plastic endcaps.
That looks pretty cool overall. It looks like the frame is slotted aluminum extrusion, which suggests some neat mounting potential if it accepts semi-standard hardware.
L Murray
You can read my longer post, but to answer your questions:
1. The black ‘L brackets’ have two 5 mm DIA screwholes spaced 1.5 cm c/c.
2. The ‘retention clamps’ slide completely off the metal tracks for storage and for moving from one side to the other of the vise. They have a 7 to 7.5 clearance and the foot reaches about 25 mm (1″) under the work surface. The biting part has a 1.5 cm DIA floating head of black rigid plastic that wouldn’t easily scratch car metal, but might dent it to give a solid enough hold.
caleb ramsey
we always get all the cool tools last.
Steven K
The only concern I would have is the the clamps are plastic. How thick is the plastic? How durable would the be to being dropped a couple of times?
Stuart
It looks like plastic, but according to Stanley they’re metal.
L Murray
They’re very tough all metal constuction clamps, except the circular head which is rigid plastic; all painted smooth matt black. They’re actually one of the best parts of the whole vice – except the weak rivets that hold the feet that track into the rails. They would have been better welded on. [Alhough, if you screw down your vice, it’s easier to take off the tracking feet and modify the clamps for other uses in your shop.]
L Murray
I recently bought one in Europe from a major chain hardware store for about €23. It takes a little while to understand how the handle to lock and unlock works. With the jaws roughly tight to a workpiece, you pump down on the handle two or three times to lock the vise. The handle doesn’t actually snap, click or lock in the down position. If the whole vise is clamped or screwed down, it is a little tricky to see at first, but you can use one hand to pull up and back to open the jaws – but you have to keep holding up and need to hook one or two fingers over the yellow tab thingy that sits up vertically to keep it sliding on the rails. Not so intuitive – but effective when you get the hang of it. There are two screw holes at each end – 4 total – to screw the vise down to your work surface. The two sturdy metal C-clamps supplied can be mounted on either side of the vise or even opposing each other and fit and slide easily in the aluminium tracks. IF you can find a similar patterned track and the centre rail in metal, you can remove the two jaws and make a much longer device. That’s if you can find a similar track and centre rail! The jaws have each an easily removal and replaceable piece of foam rubber for handling delicate pieces. The jaws at the biting position are 80 mm wide and the jaws seperate to a maximum 110 mm gap between them. The yellow part of the jaws seem to be a plastic similar to ABS, as well as the black end-pieces for the mounting screws. The yellow plastic looks like it could stand-up to a drop off a workbench, but the black plastic looks like it could crack toward the screw-holes if you really gave your workpiece a lateral whack and it had leverage. BUT, the black plastic is a solid triple-webbed L-angle design able to withstand more daily uses. The two C-clamps (provided) have a 7 to 7.7 cm clearance vertically and about 2.5 cm reach horizontally under the work surface. It’s a bit heavy to lug around in a standard toolbox at about 1.6 kg. But not terribly bulky – about the size of a medium block plane. I’d recommend it to woodworkers who have a small temporary indoor worksite set-up and need a versatile multi-use wood holder. I’d also recommend buying two, for the work I see it best used for. If you screw yours down more permanently, the C-clamps are kind of redundant if you don’t have the same type of track – double T-slots spaced at 2 cm c/c – to use them with. For me, the price, durability and large opening of 11 cm make this ideal on a standard sized waist-height workbench for woodworking, home repairs and some pipe fitting work- although I wouldn’t recommend it for use arount open flames or grinders. There are NO screws supplied for fixing the vise in place. I wish the locking mechanism handle operation were smoother or more intuitive. I wish it was easier to buy longer tracks and centrerails so it could be used while sliding both jaws to position without having to juggle a longer workpiece. It maybe needs some minor cleaning on the open bottom where the clamping mechanism could pick up debris once in a while. It might benefit from a little grease as well every other year. Overall, I’d rate it about 8.5/10 based on its target market applications.
L Murray
One correction. I said the plastic seems like ABS, but I meant PVC.