Any advantage to mounting a vise to the welding table? Any issues with mounting a use to your welding table? or is it best to keep it off? I would mount the vise for easy “take off” if I need the space. Thanks
No It’s not a problem. The bolt pattern on the Fireball vises fit out table holes.
thanks Jason. how useful is it being mounted to the table vs away? I’m new to the fixture table and excited! thanks
I personally don’t have my vise mounted to the fixture table. I use the entire surface quite often, so taking it on and off isn’t worth it for me. I also have vises on my workbench’s and I have the giant floor vise that gets used the most. If it was me I’d mount it off the table surface with the bottle/vise mount or on a pedestal or workbench.
I’ve got a small 4" vice bolted on a pedestal that sits on 3 surplus BFV rubber tank tread pads. This is moveable w/ one hand and is a nice place to clamp odd-shaped stuff I’m welding/grinding. I added a handy tab for the ground clamp as well.
I ordered the “Sidekick” vise: I think this will be great. I will keep my large vise elsewhere; I plan on keeping my whole table top usable! Thanks for the input!
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I mounted 2 sidekick vise on the ends of the 54in side of the dragon wagon, amazing! The side kick is an awesome vise. I can’t believe the holding power. For giggle clamped a 1 1/2 x 1 x 15 in of oak scra to the upper ledge of the vice. I lifed as hard as I could and could not rip that out of the small griping area. Most impressive was the oak wasn’t even damaged. The vises grip with really even pressure. I am very impressed with every single fireball tool I have purchased. Your tools are amazing, I love the creativity. I really think of the fireball system as “legos” when I was kid the grid layout was key and you can keep adding specialized tools. The possibilities are endless!
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@Fireball_Eli do you know if the Sidekick vises will be back in stock for the Dragon Wagon tables before the Christmas sale is over?
Hi Jason, Are you planning to sell the tilting vise plate for the Hardtail vise for your large welding table?
Yes, It’s on my list to develop and prototype more.
Please let me know when it’s available, thank you.
@mRhAnKbOt I think we sold out of the ones for the 4" sidewalls, they won’t be back in stock until February or March
It is looking more like end of march/early april for our next available side kick vise in both sizes. We really did not anticipate the product to be so popular and only order a small batch on the first production run. We were both excited and terrified on how fast they went and we are pushing production forward to get these in your hands asap. If you would like you can call in and place a pre-order because I honestly think they will go just as fast on this second run. You can also sign up to get notified when they are back in stock if you do not want to pre-order:
I’m a new owner (not even assembled yet) of a DIY table. I was thinking of trying to build a base for my existing 6" Wilton vice that uses the 3/4" pegs, and mirroring the pattern on the stand I already have. I’d just drill 2 holes in the stand I have now, not a grid. This would allow me to move the vise between my stand and the table without fasteners. In theory. Without experience with the table, is there something that makes this a bad idea I’m not seeing? I’d get a plate similar to the one you sell for your vise, and weld studs facing up to mate to the swivel base on the vise. 2 Pegs down towards the table on the diagonal should let put it almost anywhere. Is it going to be too loose to use effectively? I don’t mean use it like a blacksmith vise, just normal vise work. Thoughts?
I think that would cut down on the usefulness of the vise, precluding much in the way of lifting forces. I prefer to have a vise securely bolted down.
–Larry
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I agree with Larry having a vise bolted down is necessary. Just a heads up you might want to wait on a solution because I have an adapter block for the sidekick vise so you can mount it to a DIY table. That way you can leave the bench vise permanently mounted on your stand.
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That sounds great, the side mounted vise is a cool concept. I was under the impression that two pins would would be pretty secure against a lifting force, considering it wouldn’t ever be straight vertical in any scenario I can think of. I guess if I still wanted to experiment I could use bolts in the same manner. Have the 3/4" shoulder go through the table, with enough threads to fix a nut if needed.
My current table has a vise mounted on a receiver hitch type arrangement, so I can slide it off if It’s in the way. That vise is used as a holding clamp more than real vise stuff.
I finally got my table built, and I always had a cheap drill press vise loose on my old table as kind of a third hand for small stuff. I ended up using the take off parts from the clamps in my kit to make it dog onto the table, and it does seem to work pretty well. Unfortunately the spacing on the vise makes it only line up on one side, but it’s still really solid feeling. No real world testing, just thought of it while putting my accessories on the table.
Looks good to me. Great looking table. Looks pro. How was the assembly? Easy?
It was extremely easy. I watched your video a few times, and basically copied the order of operations. The only changes I made were placing the nuts on the top of the plate to accommodate the caster wheel stems I used, and some feature-creep add-ons. I added a second rail of angle to hold more clamps, and cut the drop pieces of legs to fashion into hooks to hold hammers and crescent hammers. I had expanded metal left over, so I used that for the shelf. All in all the only part that wasn’t ideal is that I don’t have the magnetic shims, so I had to use 3/8th flat bar. Which worked just fine, but I had seen how easy your shims made that in the video and was jealous. I can’t think of anything you guys could do to make it any easier for the DIY table.
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