Forward DT08125A 5 Inch Heavy Duty Bench Vise with 360°Swivel Base and Head

THIS IS A GREAT VISE for medium duty.It is fully featured, well made, and ductile iron, which should reduce the possibility of cracking or breaking.I bought it to replace a small Wilton bench vise that I wore out by using it for bigger jobs than it was designed for. I suspect the features this vise offers will seldom be used by the typical homeowner or handyman, but for the occasion where a bigger vise is called for, this is a great addition for the workbench.The Forward DT08125A 5-Inch Heavy Duty Bench Vise arrived well packaged. No damage to box or contents.I mounted it with appropriate hardware for my bench application. Everyone's installation, and hardware, will vary.From all the complaints I read about this model's operation and design, they were mostly unfounded, for a vise in this price range.The vise opens and closes smoothly, a full 5" between the jaws. The design allows the work piece to clear the edge of the work bench, if the vise is mounted correctly.The jaws were both parallel and perpendicular and tightly clamped a piece of paper with no gaps.Handle is 9" long and 0.558" diameter.The vise base rotates smoothy 360 degrees and locks down firmly, given that you find the index detent (provided by tooth-like index nubs internal to the base) while tightening the dual clamps, one on each side.The vise JAW rotates smoothly 360 degrees and locks down firmly. The jaw won't rotate when firmly tightened, but will rotate with some force when the jaws are not fully tightened. That is more a matter of mechanics than it is design.After installation, the vise was solid as a rock. I made a video to go with this review to provide some scale of size, and to demonstrate the features of its design. I added O'rings to the vise handle for more convenient configuration/ operation (see video).Reviews complaining about this or that (not counting shipping damage from improper handling in transit) will likely by remedied by experience and use. My vise was in OEM packaging, delivered by amazon, and arrived in perfect condition.I researched and reviewed vises for many, many hours. I found no "cons" except that it is BIG ( almost 17" long) for the allotted space once taken up by the little red Wilton vise (which I would not recommend except for very light duty). I'm very happy with this one, would buy it again, give it as a gift, and would recommend it to all my rowdy friends.

We ordered this vise on a Tuesday, and it showed up the next day. We opened the packaging which was well put together and found the vise to be in excellent condition, and it was well-coated to prevent rust in shipment. We were pleasantly surprised that it came with 4 mounting bolts, which we used to mount the vise to one of our roller cabinet toolboxes. The vise runs very smoothly.The unit looks great and works very well. Love the axis rotation, meaning you can rotate the jaws 360 degrees along the vertical axis. Never experienced that before. Great quality, nice unit, we are glad we made this purchase!

This is a really nice heavy duty vise. It’s not a Wilton but it is well made. It will serve more than my purpose. It’s not an el cheapo model.

I really like this bench vise, as the opening of the jaw is wide. Jaws seem to be of good quality. The anvil is flat and smooth. I have a similar bench vise that I purchased 20+ years ago from Costco, that I still use today. I needed another bench vise for a workbench I have outside of the garage.The bench vise main screw is a very coarse thread, so a single revolution of the handle will move the vise jaws quite a bit. The worst part is the swivel base. You have to really back out the pinch bolts to freely rotate the swivel base. Not sure why it's like that, or if my vise is defective.Vise is very light weight for it's size. I will update this review the more I use it.

I bought this vise for general purposes. Requirements were 360° base, swivel head, low to med price, heavy-duty construction. This achieved all of these requirements. How do they make these for such a low price?When it arrived, the box was not damaged, it was inside a styrofoam clam shell, yet the handle was bent. It also only came with 3 bolts and nuts in the hardware packaging for mounting, even though the base has 4 mounting holes.I emailed customer service immediately and was responded to the next day. They apologized and asked for pictures. I sent them and they said I had two options for the bent handle:1. Return it and wait for a replacement.2. Keep it and deal with the bend on my own, and they would refund 50% of its cost, which came to ~ $60.I chose option 2, which was refunded the same day. Awesome deal, even though getting damaged goods in the mail usually pisses me off to no end.As far as the mounting hardware goes, they said that is all that is provided by them. This doesn't make sense, but I chose to drop it.Great customer service is very uncommon nowadays. What ever happened to the Nordstrom's model? And why is a Chinese company out performing American companies when it comes to customer service?This vise is great. I'd buy it again and recommend it to family and friends.Forward's customer service is great. I really like it when my blood doesn't boil.Thank you Forward!

Fantastic clamping ability. Great

Came packaged well enough and had no damage. The vice is finished fairly well for the price and closes accurately and with the amount of hold expected. While this is not a professional vice, it def looks the part and has all the functionality a home user will ever need. I mounted it to the corner of a very stout workbench which allows a lot of flexibility with what you can hold and how you can hold it (just by rotating the base 90 degrees). The anvil portion has already served its purpose and is relatively hard. The only quibble I have with it is that the jaws for the pipe end are not replaceable, and that the design of that end is limited if you want to hold a pipe at 90 degrees since there is a piece blocking that orientation. Honestly, the fact that the entire thing rotates makes it a non-issue. Also, I'm still searching for 5 inch non-marring jaw pads as they only seem to be made in 4 or 6 inch.

Works good.

The vice does what it should I suppose. The swivel base is quite difficult to turn. Poor design but locks tight. The jaws started chipping as soon as I used them.

El producto llegó un poco retrasado pero está muy bien. Tiene buena calidad.

J'aurai donné 5 étoiles mais j'ai remarqué un point qui me dérangeais, quand vous tourné l'étau sur 360 horizontal, c'est pas trop fluide... ca bloque de temps en temps.... la conception pour manœuvrer le bas de l'étau est très basique, j'ai du rajouté des ressorts sur les boulons pour que la plaque garde une tension vers le haut car l'étau a tendance a sortir de sa base quand on tourne celle-ci sur l'horizontal.....par la suite et comme la photo j'ai fait des mords sur les boulons pour que la base ne sorte pas de son contour... pour le reste, le temps va le dire... mais je suis content quand même. I would have given 5 stars but I noticed a point that bothered me, when you turn the vice on 360 horizontal, it's not too fluid... it blocks from time to time.... the design to maneuver the bottom of the vise is very basic, I had to add springs on the bolts so that the plate keeps a tension upwards because the vise tends to come out of its base when you turn it on the horizontal..... afterwards and like the picture I made bites on the bolts so that the base does not come out of its contour ... for the rest, time will tell ... but I'm happy anyway

muy buena herramienta, el precio inmejorable