Thanks Dan, I concur:
Meanwhile on an adjacent thread with the same complaint, I posted the following:
The damage shown in the photo was caused by the end of the jack screw galling the softer aluminum in the vise. Probably caused by a burr on the end of the screw. The design of the vise requires that the screw be turned under load – a premise which requires a flat end on the screw. I think that all that really needs to be done is to clean up the damage and flatten the end of the screw. I recommended a couple of years ago on this forum that users polish the ends of their jack screws and apply a little grease at the point of contact. And on the screw threads.
There’s a lot of users who’ve been tightening their vises for years without this problem. I think adding a stainless insert is overkill, trying to show that WE is living up to their rep as a first class service company. It should not be inferred that they’re admitting to a design flaw in their product. Come on, it was a crummy screw.
Whenever you have one metal part scraping against another, one of them will have to give. Designers make sure that one part is hard and the other part is soft. Didja ever notice that sleeve bearing are always brass or bronze or babbit? Either the two will slide against each other or the soft part will “smear” until it conforms to the shape of the hard part. Unless you solve the problem of the end of that bloody screw, stainless on stainless will still be a problem. One solution might be to put thrust washers under the insert so it can rotate. Or make the insert harder than Japanese arithmetic.
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