PeachParts Mercedes-Benz Forum - View Single Post

pj67coll · #1 01-07-2011, 12:17 PM

Any body tried to buy a vise lately? A man cave is useless without a vise So for a while now I've been figuring I'd get one from Home Depot. I like the big 6 inch workshop model they sell for 79.99. It's a "Stanly" or "Irwin" depending on what they have in stock. Exactly the same thing, even the same blue paint, just a different name on the box. Except the store by me is out. Has been for over a month. So's the one near where I work. So eventually I ask one of the employees when they will be getting them in again. He looks at the bar code thing and say's they were ordered last week so they should be in towards the end of the week. Cool says I, I shall return. This was two weeks ago. I've looke in occasionally, still no sign. I went to have a look at Lowes. They have nicer looking ones with a fine silver grey powder coating on them. "Bessy" brand and "Germany" on them. Damm I think. Pity my xmas gift card is for HD. In fact they only have one of the 6 inches left on the shelf and despite the different look and name it looks suspiciously like the other's at HD. I do some research online and find that Bessy is indeed a German company, but they diddn't traditionally build vises, which appear to be the same as the other stores, also made in China. Now I'm beginning to think there is only one vise factory in the planet, probably in Guandong and just finishing them differently for different "lables". So I look at the harbor freight catalog a colleague just brought in. No vises to be seen. Look at Harbor Freights' online catalogue. Hey the have vises, same as HD's. Same color and price, exactly. Except they dont! No availability, on back order...

What the hell is going on. I think there must literally be one vise factory on the planet. It's in China and for whatever reason we just can't get any into the states

- Peter.