Vices from a Skip

[sardine]

I was clearing out a skip with a mate and we were diving up the finds , I found a huge vintage engineering vice with no acme thread bar with it, I told my mate he could have it for an ornament, of course right in the bottom of the skip was the bar !

 

[Dr.Al]

You can also turn down the shank of the drill bit to the nearest collet size. The shanks are not hardened (a hard shank in hard drill chuck jaws is not good).

That's worth knowing, although I don't think I would have done anything different with the knowledge this time. Apart from anything else (like the lack of collets that were slightly smaller than the drill bit), I like having the size etched into the shank so if it goes blunt I can quickly figure out what size to buy to replace it!

I was clearing out a skip with a mate and we were diving up the finds , I found a huge vintage engineering vice with no acme thread bar with it, I told my mate he could have it for an ornament, of course right in the bottom of the skip was the bar !

D'Oh! I bet you kicked yourself...

 

[sardine]

The same skip I completely emptied to get to an Oxford oil cooled welder right at the bottom only to find out it was only the empty metal box .

 

[Dr.Al]

I finished work a bit late today so didn't have much time in the workshop. I managed to do a few little jobs though.

First of all I put the biggest leg vice in for a citric soak:

Not a lot of activity yet, but the water is fresh from the tap so will be quite cool. Hopefully it will warm up a bit (I've got a new aquarium heater on order to help it along but it hasn't arrived yet). No great rush anyway - it can stay then and react very slowly. The side of the box bowed out quite a lot under the weight of the water, but it seemed to be much better with the lid loosely fitted.

Hope I don't need to get into that cupboard or the bottom drawer anytime soon!

Next was onto the last threaded component of the bench vice:

It's got a countersunk hole on one side and a tiny bit of thread left on the other side. Not sure what the thread originally was (3/16" maybe), a 3.9 mm drill bit passed through easily.

Given the size and condition, it didn't seem to need a v-coil, so I drilled it out 4.2 mm, drilled the top part out 5.1 mm and gave it a new 90° countersink. I then tapped it M5. The hole in the quick release bar was a bit tight for an M5 screw so I also drilled that out 5 mm.

Apart from making the new jaw screws and painting it, that meant the vice is basically complete, so I couldn't resist a test assembly:

It works! The quick release mechanism does it's job nicely. It definitely needs some oil in there (once painted) but I think this is going to be a really good vice. Maximum gap between the jaws will be 205 mm, which is about 50 mm more than my next biggest vice so that'll definitely come in handy.

I guess the next job is to strip off any remaining paint, give it a thorough clean and then paint it. Anyone who's seen the results of my painting skills on other threads will probably be thinking that this is the last time they will see the vice looking vaguely respectable! Oh well, might be better this time? Maybe?

 

[Arc Tourist]

…………………… Anyone who's seen the results of my painting skills on other threads will probably be thinking that this is the last time they will see the vice looking vaguely respectable! Oh well, might be better this time? Maybe?

Reminds me of my Wife's cousin, who was a precision machinist but couldn't paint a straight line.

 

[magnet]

The same skip I completely emptied to get to an Oxford oil cooled welder right at the bottom only to find out it was only the empty metal box .

You're like me. If it wasn't for bad luck you'd have no luck at all

 

[Dr.Al]

Small update today: I made the screws for the bench vice.

 

[slim_boy_fat]

Small update today: I made the screws for the bench vice.

View attachment 224038

How did you do the hexes?

 

[Dr.Al]

How did you do the hexes?

With a home-made rotary broach: https://www.mig-welding.co.uk/forum/threads/stuff-you-have-made-today.67127/page-489#post-1542951

 

[slim_boy_fat]

With a home-made rotary broach: https://www.mig-welding.co.uk/forum/threads/stuff-you-have-made-today.67127/page-489#post-1542951

Ooops! I'd forgotten that post.

Might to have a go at that myself. Yet another project.....

 

[Dr.Al]

The first leg vice is out of the citric bath and looking pretty good to me. Still needs the welding / brazing to clean up the cracks, but progress nonetheless.

Time for the second one:

Close-up of the screw (mainly taken so I remember which way round the washer goes):

It came apart even more easily than the first one, so this is now in pieces and has been put into the citric bath with a new aquarium heater warming it up. I'll leave it in there for a day or two with maybe a wire brushing part way through and then hopefully it'll be looking like the first leg vice. It's a LOT easier to move round than the big one!

Now that the first one was out of the citric bath I couldn't resist putting it together to see how it looked.

The leg is balanced on a 180 mm length of scaffolding bar and a couple of bits of plate from the scrap bin to get it up to the right sort of height for the mounting plate to fit on my bench. It's not going to stay there (in fact I've already taken it off and taken it apart again - it takes up less space in pieces).

I had expected to need to do something with the spring. As I was undoing the jaw screw the first time, the jaws only opened about an inch and then the spring wouldn't push any further. I'd been imagining that I'd have to (somehow) bend the spring beyond the elastic limit to get it to have a more extreme angle and hence apply more force. When I got it together I found this was completely unnecessary: the spring works fine - I guess it just didn't have enough strength to overcome the corrosion stickiness.

It looks a lot better than it did in post #1 though, doesn't it?

Now a question. It's fairly obvious that the bench vice was originally painted, so the corrosion protection for that will be to repaint it (and oil the moving bits). The leg vice doesn't appear to be have been painted and I've never seen photos of them with paint on. What would usually be done to them to stop them rusting and ending up looking like the original photo? Or was it just sprayed with light oil and/or accepted that the rust wouldn't go too deep and it'd be fine?

 

[Arc Tourist]

I had a leg vise many years ago, an after cleaning it up I just sprayed it with Barbeque black and wiped the handle over with motor oil; didn't have a problem with rusting after, but then, I lived in a dry climate.

 

[Dr.Al]

I took the second leg vice out of its bath and it looked a lot better but there are still some patches that need attention.

Gave it a thorough wire brush until my arm was aching (after that photo), then put it back in the bath.

While that's soaking, I turned my attention to the final leg vice.

This one is missing the spring (and the yoke / mounting plate is at 90° to where it should be!). The hinge bolt is also not keyed like the other ones, so I suspect that isn't original.

This is as far as it came apart:

I couldn't get the wedge out, nor could I undo the hinge bolt. I'll probably chuck it into the citric bath like that and see what it's like after a soak. I'm not sure how much effort I'm going to put into restoring this one given that it's final destination is likely to be the "Freebies" section of this forum!

 

[sardine]

We used to use leg vices when I was an apprentice, we made cork jaws for them to hold gun stocks without damaging them, something like this...

 

[Mick Annick]

The first leg vice is out of the citric bath and looking pretty good to me. Still needs the welding / brazing to clean up the cracks, but progress nonetheless.

Now a question. It's fairly obvious that the bench vice was originally painted, so the corrosion protection for that will be to repaint it (and oil the moving bits). The leg vice doesn't appear to be have been painted and I've never seen photos of them with paint on. What would usually be done to them to stop them rusting and ending up looking like the original photo? Or was it just sprayed with light oil and/or accepted that the rust wouldn't go too deep and it'd be fine?

I give mine an occasional squirt with 3in1 oil from an aerosol, and that lives in a very damp barn but is fine.

 

[Dr.Al]

I wanted to get into the blocked cupboards and felt like the citric bath had gone on long enough, so everything came out and the bath was drained today.

The second vice (the better condition small one) got a thorough wire brushing with the angle grinder wire brush. It looks quite smart now:

The third vice (the one that was thoroughly jammed up) looks a bit better but is still jammed up. I suspect it needs the "aftermarket" nut/bolt cutting off with an angle grinder and the wedge either being driven out more aggressively or drilled out. Given I'm going to give it away for free once the lockdown is over, I decided I'll leave it as is for now (yes, I know, I'm a quitter).

When one of the legs of the first vice came out of the bath it was chucking it down with rain so I lay it in the garage rather than out in the sun. As a result there's a very light dusting of rust on the outside now! When I can face moving it again, I'll give it a wire brush - I'm sure that will shift it as it won't be deep.

Still psyching myself up to the task of painting the bench vice...

 

[Dr.Al]

Yesterday I started having a go at restoring my grandfather's woodworking vice.

Some close-ups:

Dismantled it:

The slide bars look a LOT better in this picture than they did in the "flesh":

Into the citric acid bath:

and a light rub with a kitchen scourer made everything look better:

 

[Dr.Al]

More woodworking vice post-citric photos:

Today was the day for starting painting it and the big bench vice, but when I came to dismantle the big bench vice (again) I found that the main castings had started rusting again (serves me right for putting off painting for so long). So they're back in the citric acid bath (which thankfully I hadn't emptied after de-rusting the woodworking vice), but in the meantime I put the primer on the woodworking vice bits and also primed some of the non-rusty big vice bits:

So... this leads to the big question.

Do I:

1. Try to source the original Record pale blue coloured paint and paint both vices (or at least one vice) in that colour.
2. Paint them British Racing Green (I already have this paint)
3. Paint them Claret Violet (I already have this paint)
4. Paint them Black (I already have this paint)

I reserve the right to ignore any answers posted here, but I'd be interested in your thoughts...

 

[Seadog]

Roundel blue, for me.

Also, I believe, the head of the screw, where the tommy bar slides, should be bare metal

 

[Dr.Al]

Also, I believe, the head of the screw, where the tommy bar slides, should be bare metal

I'm slightly surprised by that as there was already signs paint on both of them (that I removed). Of course it might not be original. Not really that bothered either way though to be honest (at the risk of being pilloried on this forum): if I was trying to restore them completely true-to-original I wouldn't be re-tapping all the threads metric to bring them out of the 19th century. I'm restoring them to be good useful tools that last a long time, not to be exactly as intended by the maker.