I have an SX1LP which has the same size table as yours. I have an 80mm Arc Versatile Milling Vice, and a 70mm toolmakers vice (mine came from MSC when they had them on sale).

The ARC vice overhangs the table quite considerably front and rear, and 90% of the time I use the toolmakers vice unless I need the flexibility of the jaws on the versatile one. Anything long that needs dealing with gets clamped directly to the table.

I think a 100mm vice is going to be too big for the table. Rear overhang will probably cost you a lot of Y travel.

Here is a photo of my two side by side on the table to give you some ideas, the versatile on the left is not clamped down just placed.

Edit – Jason types faster than me!

On 28 September 2024 at 17:23 Vic Said:

On 28 September 2024 at 16:14 JasonB Said:

 

Though you don’t need the swive base 99.9% of the time

 

I think you mean You don’t need the swivel base 99.9% of the time.

You can’t possibly know how often someone else might need the feature!

Only repeating what many others here say when the “what vice” topic crops up every few months. Many say you don’t need one full stop but I have had occasions where it was worth using mine so that is why I left the 0.1% off.

If head room is an issue which it will be even more on an X2 then there is even more reason not to use the swivel, angles can always be set with the vice mounted to the table which saves height and is more solid.

It’s a pity that when the far eastern manufacturers copied this style of vice from Kurt they did not copy their practice of selling the swivel as an extra rather than including it.

Running a Bridgeport I have plenty of vertical space so leaving the swivel base on is a no-brainer simply because it’s so easy to get the vice dead-nuts to the travel on a job when it has to be right. Usually second or third ops when I have to match what has already been made.

Swivel base as a general purpose, set any angle, device is an oversold concept as setting up a precise angle isn’t a trivial task. But if you haven’t got a rotary table a swivel base can get the job done a darn sight cheaper. Unless it’s a very shallow angle or simple 90° rotation I generally figure it’s easier to dig out one of my rotary tables. Most of the things I see that need to be rotated want more than one angle anyway so resetting a swivel would likely be just too much trouble.

Generally the thou or two error over the four inch jaw with of the vice(s) I normally use resulting from simply putting on the table and pulling back against the slot before finally bolting down is near enough. So the swivel stays where it was when removing and re-fitting. If the whole job is done in that vice a bit of thought in pre planning can usually eliminate any errors due to flipping or rotating the job.

With more typical Model Engineers machines the inch or so of vertical space occupied by the swivel is often too valuable to waste. So dumping the base and adopting other tricks for accurate vice alignment is the way to go. Did I tell you how much I hate keyed vices, especially when they decide to get stuck!

Trouble with the Kurt system of selling vice and swivel separately is that both vice and swivel are rather deeper than they need be compared to a properly designed and integrated unit. Over the years I’ve done a few back of the envelope sketches of integrated systems that gained perhaps 1/4″ of height relative to a Kurt style. Never went anywhere because the effort always seemed too much just to show off. If I’d cottoned on to laser cutting and Chick vices a lot earlier a real design in real metal might have happened.

Clive

I have the 100mm kurt clone on my VMC, it’s pretty big even on that, and like Jason said, it kinda blocks the handwheel.

I bought a Warco DH1 to replace it but I haven’t had chance to test it yet.