Mill vise

Last year a friend gave me a harbor freight milling machine 33686.He passed a few months later.
Today I purchased a vise off craigslist for $80. It was once owned by a U.S.gov agency but liquidated it when they upgraded to CNC machines
Anyone know what brand? Seems it wasn't used a lot. Looks ok to me but I have no clue. I still need to buy tooling for the mill.

Kurt or chinese knockoff of a Kurt.

Typical of government stuff !!

whatever you do, please, don't run into the vice with any tooling when using your mill !
that is one of my pet peeves, and it bugs me to this day.

Says the Canadian ...

I can post some pictures of our machines that would make your blood curdle

IMO, in order not to waste your time, it's best to first ask what their drill press table looks like before making suggestions on proper mill vise protocol.

John, i can only imagine !
as i'm retired now, and only have my own machines to play with, i take great care not to do things that would cause damage to them.
however, post a few pictures if you could. i know my hair will stand on end, [wait, what hair ? oh, maybe the hair down my back will stick straight out ! ] but they might give others an idea what can happen to expensive items when someone doesn't pay attention to the process being done.
sometimes, these "crash divots" can be funny after the fact, [at work when something could be heard happening, we called it "that expensive sound !"] it can have the possibility of causing a person harm by uncontrollable flying tooling or parts.

that, in it's self, is a good idea.

I bought my Bridgeport clone mill brand new and vowed to never to put a "divot" in the table, even covered the table on both sides of the vise to prevent dinging it. Predictably, one time I forgot to lock the quill before milling a slot in a piece clamped to the table with the power feed engaged and the spiral end mill broke through the part and milled a slot in the virgin table AAARGH. I guess it was inevitable.

💩 Happens

EDIT: Noting your shop vac on the floor, Have you tried a bag vs. the filter? OMG what a difference, No more clogging filters just FULL suction all the time

One of the “new skills” that the latest 3D printers have is that their nozzle can now apply a thin paste that is then sintered into a layer of metal by the heat of a laser.

This brings up the skill of resurfacing old machinery surfaces without the warping that conventional welding would do.

It also would enable “one off” custom tables for old equipment.

How many times has a home shop owner said to himself: “if only this table or lathe was a little longer! “