Wilton 5-Inch Cross-Slide Drill Press Vise (CS5)

I spent a lot of time reviewing cross slide vises and reading a lot of reviews. They all said the vise needed to be disassembled and cleaned. Several talked about quality control issues. Poor castings, bent or missing parts and machining marks left on the ways. NONE of the reviewers on this vise, mentioned quality control issues. That along with the brand name led me to purchase this vise. When I received the vise I looked the shipping box over closely. I found no damage. I opened the container and removed the vise looking for any imperfections. I found NO Casting Imperfections. I disassembled and cleaned the vise reassembled with small amounts of grease. It did take a few minutes to adjust the tension on the ways/tables. This I believe is a personal thing. I have used the vise and is works very smoothly and made drilling duplicate holes in 1/4" steel very easy. Another quality product by WILTON and AMAZON.

Update: 07/16/25 Ok I've abused this little vise and then some. Wood, metal you name it. It has held up nicely.So far, I'd highly recommend this little vise. Don't go near the W... E... N vise! That was the first one I tried. Broke 1st time I used it. Stick with this Wilton vise and if you are lucky and get a working one. You'll be a happy camper like me.Got lucky and received a working Wilton Vise. Had to install the handles and lube everything up.Easy smooth movement on both X and Y micro adjustment screws. The top clamp also works well so far.Have the Wood River drill press table with the replaceable wood insert. bolted one of my extra wood inserts to the bottom of this press. Works extremely well and change out is a snap. Not noticed any play while drilling small parts so far. Plan to abuse the snot out of this thing for a month or two. See how it holds up and report findings should anything fail. It is a heavy little thing so be wary when picking this up for the first time.

I thought I would save some money and bought the slightly larger HFT cross slide vise. That was terrible. I returned it and bought this Wilton.For one, this 4-inch size is reasonable for your typical garage size drill press. A larger size makes it unreasonable if you have anything smaller than an 18-inch table.The quality of the Wilton is so much better than any import vise. The knob design, finish, smoothness, and everything is better.You will need to adjust the gibs until this slides nicely with no play. It arrived a bit tight for me (too tight to rotate the handle with ease). After spraying some lithium grease on the dovetails and loosening up the gib screws a bit, it's like a dream. Smooth as butter.

It was a gift and the recipient was extremely pleased. said it was better than the one he has at work.

Not inexpensive but cheap junk. Had this for about a year but used infrequently. Went to use it the other day, gently bumped one of the hand cranks and the handle fell a part. Cast maybe but certainly cast from junk metal. Bad thing, you can’t get just the crank, you have to buy the entire piece, screw and all, about the same price as the whole vise. The only way that the vise can be adjusted I’d to tighten the screws so tightly that they will almost not move. I know this wasn’t a fine slide vice for highly accurate work and but a little care would have been nice. No, I would not purchase again.

I have just received my new Wilton 4" cross slide drill press vise, and I was a little disapointed in it right out of the box. First off it had been handled roughly and the box was damaged and left on my back porch long before I found it was there. So I could not just tell the UPS driver to take it back, as it was obvious the shipping container was torn up. I opened it and found that it all appeared to be there and then after closer examination found that one of the cross slide cast iron cranks was broken and laying in the bottom of the box with a couple of small nuts and washers for mounting the cranks. They had all fallen out of the plastic reclosable bag and one of them that holds the crank handle in the cast iron ball, had broken off cleanly. I considered just boxing it back up and sending it back, when I looked at the warranty card and decided to just call Wilton as the Amazon website suggested, to get a replacement part if availabale. No luck the lady in Wiltons customer service department informed me that it was a pretty "Low cost Item" and they did not show any repair parts for it, even though it is 100% lifetime guarenteed. This Low cost drill press vise cost me $119.00 and change, not too cheap in my book. I took a look at the broken part and because I have some skills as a machinist and mechanic, I will build a new crank assmbly for it myself from some scrap metal I have in my garage shop. I would not have ordered it if I didn't need to use it soon and waiting for a return was out of the question. I adjusted the gibbs and it will work for most anything I need but it will force me to use my Milling machine for more accurate and precise drilling, that I was trying to get away from. Wilton used to be a really well made vise, now I am not real sure it isn't just another cheap knock off from China. I don't think I would recommend it to any of my friends, as it is just an OK tool at best. If I had wanted a cheaply made Harbor Freight vise I would have bought one there.