Show us your bench vice(s)

[Arc Tourist]

Maybe not obvious from earlier pic, how little this is .
I found some markings on it, it's by Marples.

View attachment 313829

Now that's a vice with some character. Bet it could tell a story.

 

[Mooreish]

Small or far away?

 

[Seadog]

 

[25.4_mechanic]

Hello everyone,
my first post and immediately a request for identification:

What is this specimen? The seller has known it for 60+ years, it doesn't carry any maker's identification, which is strange given the size and age ...

... but there was a time here when you didn't want to be seen in your workshop on a vise from certain countries and insted would take a file and a bucket of paint to help for safety's sake ... perhaps his father or grandfather ... just an idea ...

Any help in determining is highly appreciated, because I'm going to look at the vise today.

Later, of course, I will introduce myself properly.

Many thanks
Greetings

Carsten

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[MattF]

Appears to be an early Parkinson, (very good vices), but, I've never seen one with an anvil section before. It's also missing the QR lever, possibly more. Again, saying that, there have been some oddball ones appear, so it may have been fitted with a static nut.

 

[The_Yellow_Ardvark]

Hello everyone,
my first post and immediately a request for identification:

What is this specimen? The seller has known it for 60+ years, it doesn't carry any maker's identification, which is strange given the size and age ...

... but there was a time here when you didn't want to be seen in your workshop on a vise from certain countries and insted would take a file and a bucket of paint to help for safety's sake ... perhaps his father or grandfather ... just an idea ...

View attachment 314521

Any help in determining is highly appreciated, because I'm going to look at the vise today.

Later, of course, I will introduce myself properly.

Many thanks
Greetings

Carsten

--

Either a Lend lease, WW2 supplies to the Russians.
Made in bulk in the UK and shipped as filling weight in the convoys.
Or a post war copy.
If the threads which hold the missing QR are metric is a later copy. Also check the jaw size. If they are imperial they will be a full inch, 3,4 etc.
If they are not, they are metric.
It is a nice bit of kit.

 

[MattF]

Either a Lend lease, WW2 supplies to the Russians.

I believe they'd changed over to the single piece body type well before 1939, so probably pre WWII. @CwazyWabbit is more clued up on the dates & suchlike than I.

 

[25.4_mechanic]

Hi MattF and thanks for the quick reply.

I was thinking Parkinson's too, though just after the Victorian period, but then I found your answer in this post

Parkinson Vise i.d. ?

Hey Guys - i have had this vice offered to me but i am struggling to find any other models like it - does anyone know what model and approx age it would be ? Sorry don't have any sizes other than the can as a reference - also any thoughts on its condition would be appreciated. Many thanks Shane.

www.mig-welding.co.uk

... now I do not know exactly what to think ...

Yes, there is at least some of the QR missing, but I'm working on a slightly younger Woden 190/7A with a broken faceplate at the moment:

... and now I see this specimen with intact front plate but other missing parts.
This made me think ...

Any info highly welcome. Thanks!

Greets

Carsten

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[25.4_mechanic]

Yes, Parkinson dropped the two-piece-body long before WWII, even before WWI for that matter - but that doesn't mean that in a time of need no old forms were perhaps been given to the russians e.g. that's an interessting idea, anyway.

But it's more plausible for the eastern part of germany to find one of these, this one was in the very west for the last 60+ years, as far as I know ...

Greets

Carsten

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[Arc Tourist]

View attachment 314521

..........................................

The tapered rubber bumpers on the handle are a type I haven't seen before. Interesting.

 

[25.4_mechanic]

My guess is the owner just took a rubber gasket from one of these beer bottles:

I used them quite often before they became plastic instead of rubber and are now been glued to the lid

Greets

Carsten

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[The_Yellow_Ardvark]

I believe they'd changed over to the single piece body type well before 1939, so probably pre WWII. @CwazyWabbit is more clued up on the dates & suchlike than I.

During WW2 a lot old designs were re-used. As it was quicker to send old moulds to smaller places to make, than tie up the main production lines.

In Stalingrad, there is/was a museum/memorial to the people who stayed and defended the place. They then set up a factory to repair the equipment.
They have near dam copies of old style UK vices. The Line shafts did say Made in Eng............

It is a fantastic bit of history.

 

[25.4_mechanic]

It is a fantastic bit of history.

I think so too, Ardvark, I would like to know more and where to read about it.
I have also noticed similarities in devices in the GDR, you always come across details that you know so or very similar from pre-war devices.

So I'm off now with: Calipers for the jaws and screw hexagons, thread gauges for all conceivable systems, tools for loosening screws and a camera.
Thanks for your tips till now.

Since the seller still wants too much money for an unknown, incomplete vise, I assume that I will leave it there for today. So I see what ideas will come up here, can take them into account the second time and will definitely report what I found.

Until then

Carsten

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[Arc Tourist]

My guess is the owner just took a rubber gasket from one of these beer bottles:
View attachment 314534

I used them quite often before they became plastic instead of rubber and are now been glued to the lid

Greets

Carsten

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If it was hot out, those frosty bottles might encourage me to fall off the wagon, but I think instead I'll start looking for fat O-rings for some of my vice handles, as a couple of them have hammered sharp burrs on each side where they go through the screw head. Don't know if rubber washers or O-rings would help, but I have had a few pinched fingers due to vice handles over the years.

 

[MattF]

I believe I just used 2 or 3 o-rings under each knob on the swivel jaw.

 

[Arc Tourist]

The only problem I see @MattF, is that I don't have a test dummy to see if the O-ring solution would work ?

 

[Arc Tourist]

Dug out my O-ring kits but none are thick enough to last, so will have to find a fatter size; need to do some deburring first also.

 

[MattF]

You definitely want to get rid of those burrs.

 

[dannysheff]

I agree 25.4's vice has characteristics of the pre WWI Parkinson's, but never seen one quite like that, with a more 'modern' look to it. Looks well made.

Is there any sign of markings being filed off?
What width the jaws?

Of course, as well as Russian, Italian, Belgian and Polish makers, there were quality vices from Czech and an inventive Turkish vice maker, which sometimes had a look like this and their own patent quick release. Most of these marked their names.

Welcome 25.4, may we call you one inch? - don't let anyone half-inch your vices.

 

[25.4_mechanic]

Good evening to the round.

I'm back, but I'm not really any smarter.

The jaws are not an "even" size in any system I know of: 156.x_mm or 6⅛" and a bit.

Ok, the nuts have ⅞" wrench size, but already the threads I have not been able to clearly assign (well, kneeling on a garage floor to go through the whole program Metric, Withworth, UNC, UNF, BSW , BSF in the light of a flashlight was not exactly precision work, I might have missed it) ...

... but fear not, I can re-measure very easily at any time, because

the candidate lives with us now. (It is interesting that a vice of 6⅛" and a bit jaw size has an opening of a modest 6½" approx.)

The seller also had some drawers of old tools for sale at a price I couldn't make a mistake with anyway - I love old hand tools!

Finally, he also realised that his vice, although a neat and respectable piece, without the manufacturer's signet and without the actual unique selling point of quick adjustment present, could not be got rid of at his asking price.

At home we - "we" is today always my big son and I - then carried out a non-restoration: Dismantling, inspecting, cleaning, removing paint where it didn't belong, lubricating, assembling and finally mounting.

It is noticeable that the spindle is cut much, much tighter than on my smaller Woden. The pitch is made to exert much more force without being appreciably larger in diameter.

If this were a simple imitation, the first place to take shortcuts and save money would be here.

Presumably at some point in time the upper part of the spike/mandrel of the half nut broke off and the vice was perhaps discarded and so came to the father of the present seller and he was a toolmaker.
So he looked for solutions and came up with this, abandoning the quick adjustment:

What may look like a weld between the upper and lower parts of the "nut" is, in my current opinion, just dirt. I think that the two parts are held together by the improvised plates.

This is where I desperately need help: I don't see a two-piece half nut (or 2/3 to 1/3 nut for that matter) on the Woden.
So the Parkinson patent is different from Woden's solution at this point and I don't understand it.
Does anyone perhaps have a drawing or something similar for me, from which the difference between only a half nut and the two-piece nut of the Parkinson specific solution becomes clear?!?? Many thanks in advance!

By the way, the inside of the un-screwable top looks like this:

This vice now lives without QR for the time being on my quick-access workstation in the barn-workshop.

I've never had one that closed so cleanly:

Thanks a lot for your help so far, I still have a lot of questions, not only about this vice ...

Good night,
Greetings

Carsten

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