Reviewing precision engineered eye candy is always a smidgen difficult for me. Those of you who have read my review of Metmo’s overbuilt mini screwdriver know that I am a sucker for precision machining and the Metmo Fractal Vise isn’t changing this anytime soon.
I suspect, most of you reading this are the sort of fellas who spend hundreds of dollars on a sharpened slab of CPM steel and thus understand the dilemma.
On one hand, its a great tool. On the other – it’s expensive.
Unlike knives however, the level of precision directly impacts performance.
The real question is, is it worth the cost? On a practical level I don’t see a mass produced version meeting those tolerances. If it was mass produced it would have a lower price point and lower quality.
When I reviewed the Metmo screwdriver thingy, I pointed out it was built by deranged mad British people who liked to make practical tools in a small form factor with little to no flaws, and you know what? The fractal vise actually exceeds this. Unlike the screwdriver, however, here – there is no inexpensive alternative.
The closest I can find is the MorphJaw/MorphVise, which is 2.5K in American paper so…yeah. At the end of the day folks, it’s a lot of CNC’d steel with a lot of precision moving parts, and thus here we are.
Is 700GBP/1K USD a lot of money? Sure. But the price actually adds up relative to competition & performance.
Do you know of an inexpensive precision fractal vise with drop in jaws based on hardness (more on this later)? Didn’t think so.
So now that we got the sticker price out of the way, we can move on and chit chat about the benefits of the fractal vise, it’s quirks, and why it’s a legit, useful tool to have.
A fractal vise is, you guessed it, a vise, but unlike your standard 2 jaw versions, this has 6 jaws that shift and move (adjust) depending on the object’s shape, by itself.
This allows you to securely conform to oddly shaped objects – spherical, angular, and everything in between.
It is a smidgen weird to see the jaws adjust naturally. I played around a lot with positions, angles etc. and to be honest – don’t worry about it is my advise.
I clamped down hard regardless and I never felt a smidgen of wiggling regardless of how odd the angle was. The Metmo Fractal Vise will chomp down securely regardless of shape.
And that’s the thing boys, in the real world, tinkerers know that objects are rarely uniform, especially most post production widgets. So if you are finishing up a piece or working on, lets say… a watch, then it’s pretty awesome to be able to throw it in, clamp it down and not worry about it sliding around.
The photograph above shows the two other vises I use all the time – the shitty regular vise and my K22 electronic vise (fucking awesome btw). The thing is, with the fractal vise I basically don’t need a regular vise and honestly, the fractal could basically do what the K22 does, just use the nylon jaws.
On another note, I will say that regarding the potential clamping force – it’s absurd and complete overkill. But it’s there if you want it (I read somewhere its ~3,000 Nm torque and ~1,965 PSI… wtf…).
You won’t every really need that kind of zip, but it’s Metmo and their gang of merry engineers, so it’s expected that they will go a bit crazy with this.
On that note, be advised that the stainless steel is properly hardened, I would guess in the 55HRC range (this is pure guesswork) and with the extreme potential clamping power… especially taking into consideration its size, it’s worth noting that when cranking down, the jaws will bite and if the object you’re biting down on is softer… yikes.
Thankfully metmo offers brass & nylon inserts as options and I strongly strongly recommend them.
In fact, after playing around with all 3 options, I suspect I will stick to brass and nylon exclusively because in my real world use, I just don’t need to clamp down that hard on anything and marring the finish is a very real risk if using the steel jaw inserts (you have been warned).
When the shinies first landed, obviously I assembled it and played around with all the shiny options, but as you would expect from this level of machining – the fit is tight. What that means is that tightening and loosening the vise is actually quite a lot of work.
Very thick, very chunky monkey teeth, very tight precision, very small increments when tightening. It can be a lot of work especially when you keep adjusting it for the purposes of a review.
I did discover later that the best way is to use a powertool (I use an Amazon Basics Mini Powered Screwdriver – awesome lil thing) and it makes the whole thing a breeze.
I strongly recommend using it this way. It will save you a lot of money in arthritis medication and honestly Metmo should advertise this feature way more.
This is an awesome feature and all vises should have this as standard. I have no idea why no one else does this, but it’s bloody brilliant.
Literally, I cannot fathom why this isn’t a common thing.
I have a legit workshop with a 2×72, a legit end mill, a 3D printer (Flashforge), a lathe, a professional soldering station etc. – the list goes on and on.
I suspect when buying a Metmo product you are subsidizing the wanton fantasy of a bunch of middle age Guinness drinking deranged engineers who just want to make fun, expensive, over-engineered tools, but in the case of the fractal vise, it actually makes sense.
When discussing purpose behind purchases, if we are to be frank – 90% of the shinies in my possession are not actually needed or practical – I literally own hundreds and hundreds of extremely expensive knives, and yet I EDC a mere handful of them habitually.
Tools are fun to review because they have a real world metric of “is this actually viable/useful,” and the Metmo Vise for sure is. It’s trivial to change the jaws, it can handle almost anything (dimensions allowing) and it’s better than most vises by virtue of its flexibility, and I don’t mean just the jaws –
See that beautifully machined ball?
I can adjust the desk clamp any angle, any direction (physics allowing) which opens up a whole world of – if I can clamp it, I can tinker with it.
It’s bloody magnificent and as a mediocre watchsmith (and I really do mean mediocre), this has been super useful when it comes to changing dials, hands, and even movements.
Without the Metmo, the movement holder is a slab of brass sitting stationary (some might say flaccid) and insecure, but with the fractal vise, I can change the angle and position to suit my comfort. This is awesome and frankly, I think precision work is what this vise was made for.
This isn’t a desktoy, it’s legit and completely viable for real world work. I am not an expert on this stuff, as this is my first fractal vise, but if I didn’t have it, I would miss that over engineered slab of steel.
Before I forget – see above. It comes with regular vise jaws. I don’t know why, they are beautifully machined and look badass, but to be honest, the fractal vise can do (in this form factor) everything a regular vise can do so… yeah.
It’s cool but I don’t really see what I would ever use it for.
But you can have them.
I didn’t expect to love the nylon jaws as much as I do, but on a practical level, they are awesome and constitute 95% of vise playtime.
The rest has been the brass jaws. I really don’t see the sort of pressure that would require a harder material in this size factor and frankly, nylon is cheaper to replace than brass or steel so… to me it just makes sense to keep using nylon and get more if they ever wear down.
Summary time.
Folks, we live in a privileged bubble. I can honestly say that I could lose 99% of my possessions and be completely fine. In fact, in many respects, I’m not sure I would even notice much change.
I spend my life in a 4k browser window. It’s fun to think about potentials and I could do x or y, but realistically it’s a want not a need. Surely this is what makes our species so awesome, the ability to craft and create beauty, the marriage between performance and aesthetics, etc.
I love Alfa Romeo, not because they are practical cars, but because they are quirky and have soul. I want to hold something in my hands that embodies the human desire for greatness – no one picks the ones they love for practicality. Our people are those that stir emotion and pretending otherwise is moronic.
I see a lot of people criticizing the pursuit of excellence once they see the sticker price, but at the end of the day, this is a practical tool, albeit niche and expensive, but it makes you proud to have opposable thumbs.
Precision is art and Metmo have perfected it.
We love steel, we love fit and finish, we love holding perfection, above are two examples that I think (in my opinion) that meet the mark. The Mikov List (stupid name) and the Metmo Fractal Vise.
They are cool as fuck, they both work as intended, and owning them makes me happy.
At the end of the day, very few people get to work a job that is genuinely cool and I suspect the Metmo lads are pretty chuffed to wake up everyday designing ridiculous tools for people like us to drool over.
Now make me overbuilt wirecutters with removable carbon steel blades and some kind of design that allows stupid amounts of torque to be generated.
Thanks.
Leave a Reply