MLMartin Posted September 24, 2013 Share Posted September 24, 2013 Hello everybody Here is a English colonial leg vise my Sweetheart was given by her hobby blacksmith guild shop in VA. I believe it is English colonial, 1750s. The shape of the box with the 4 rings and the plug and its brazed construction are the key points. Also the fact that this vise uses a tennon for the mounting bracket makes me think 1750s. Anyone have a closer date to place on this vise style? Well sadly at some point some one used it to hard and all the female threading in the box was torn out. Also the mounting bracket is destroyed. The box is made by rolling thin plate iron into a tube then pressing on the 4 welded rings and jamming a plug in the end. Then the two no turn lugs are riveted on to the box. Lastly a female screw is made by wrapping square bar around the male screw and inserting it into the screw box (Male screws were cut on a lathe at this point). Then the whole part is fluxed and generous amounts of bronze bits are placed in and one the screw to braze the entire part together in the forge. Since the screw box was mostly still intact I had no need to remake it. I first cleaned the box and lightly scraped the inside. Then I formed a new female screw around the old male screw. I inserted and brazed it up. I used 3 feet of square bar to form the female screw. Clean up was greatly sped up by placing the box into a liquid solution and using a electric current to break loose scale and flux. I will continue photos of the rebuilt A thanks to Mr Peter Ross and Mr James Melchor for there paper written about rebuilding such a vise Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frank Turley Posted September 24, 2013 Share Posted September 24, 2013 Good job. I have the twin to your vise, but thank goodness I didn't have to redo the box. I found mine at an antique mall in Kentucky. Dating these is tricky. I don't know whether they go back as far as 1750. Perhaps, but I guess at least to the 1770's through 1830's. Sayings and Cornpone About vises. "Ya' gotta' give up some of 'em, or ya' won't get good at any of 'em." Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThomasPowers Posted September 24, 2013 Share Posted September 24, 2013 Frank; was that supposed to be "vices" in About vises. "Ya' gotta' give up some of 'em, or ya' won't get good at any of 'em." Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frank Turley Posted September 24, 2013 Share Posted September 24, 2013 Yeah. I got kung foozed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MLMartin Posted September 25, 2013 Author Share Posted September 25, 2013 Here I have made a simple thread chaser. It is a piece of 1 rd that I have drilled a cross hole in at the end. I tried to match the angle of the threads with the hole. Then I drilled and tapped a set screw hole in the end. I have used some HSS for a cutting bit and ground it to the matching valley of the male screw. I just thread the scrapper in and out of the box and slowly extend the cutting bit out farther and farther each pass until the male screw would work with the box again. Still a little tight. I needed to replace the mounting bracket as the old one was destroyed. The new bracket is not the same shape as a original would be. But it is a tenon mount like it should be. I read the paper about repairing this vise a few years ago and could not remember the exact shape the bracket arms were originally. This one will work fine anyway. Lastly I made new wedge keys for the mounting bracket and for the pivot pin. Now I need a slick workbench for the vice! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Timothy Miller Posted September 25, 2013 Share Posted September 25, 2013 I recently restored a similar vise. I reset and dressed the jaws. I also straightened the leg, made a new handle, mounting bracket, spring and pivot bolt with a wedge. My photo shows the most common style of mount for this type of vise. Believe it or not the hardest part was getting the jaws to align it made me wonder if they ever did. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MLMartin Posted September 25, 2013 Author Share Posted September 25, 2013 Looks great Mr Miller. I have thought about heating and dressing the jaws on a large 6.5 vice from 1842-9 I have. It is marked "Goldie - 133 Attorney Street. When the vise is standing straight up the jaws both slant down maybe 5% to the left. I do not think it is something I could do alone though. The vise must be over 100lbs and I do not think I could hold a 50lb part and forge on it. I would guess you heat treated the jaws after forging? Is there much fear of a steel jaw wanting to delaminate during the quenching? Yes the jaws on mine are 1/16 off and the beams look very straight. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frank Turley Posted September 25, 2013 Share Posted September 25, 2013 The first picture is my old vise showing the original curved mounting bracket. I enclosed the other picture, FYI, to show an interesting "transitional vise." This one I assume is a Peter Wright with a solid, non-brazed box, but yet it has the tenoned mounting bracket. This is a clue that in England, the solid box preceded the U-shackle idea of fastening. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MLMartin Posted September 25, 2013 Author Share Posted September 25, 2013 Maybe the solid box came before the U shackle. But it seems also very plausible that the tenon mount vise you have simply had the screw and box replaced many years ago. The large "Goldie" I have that was made in New York has a shackle and a brazed box. I have seen 2 other "Goldies" that had identical brazed screw box's just like mine. This makes me think the box is original to the vice. So I will safely say at least in one instance in America a company was making brazed box's after the U shackle came along. I sure do like vises. I think it is time for me to start branching out into European vices though. German and French leg vices have a distinctly different style from English vises. Maybe a happy shop with a sampling of Vises from around the world is in order! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Timothy Miller Posted September 25, 2013 Share Posted September 25, 2013 Looks great Mr Miller. I have thought about heating and dressing the jaws on a large 6.5 vice from 1842-9 I have. It is marked "Goldie - 133 Attorney Street. When the vise is standing straight up the jaws both slant down maybe 5% to the left. I do not think it is something I could do alone though. The vise must be over 100lbs and I do not think I could hold a 50lb part and forge on it. I would guess you heat treated the jaws after forging? Is there much fear of a steel jaw wanting to delaminate during the quenching? Yes the jaws on mine are 1/16 off and the beams look very straight. The vise in question is quite small having 3.5" jaws. I don't think there was much carbon in the steel jaws they did not harden up very much, I did not have a problem with delamination. The older blister steel seems to weld quite tenaciously to wrought iron not like modern steel. This vise is strictly a wall hanger. I think some of the distortion in the jaws was original to the vise. It seemed to be roughly made and sort of made to work and passed off. I actually had to draw out the front leg to get the jaws to line up. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frank Turley Posted September 25, 2013 Share Posted September 25, 2013 Good thinking, Martin. The old catalogs sold separate "box & screw" assemblies, so replacements were common enough. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
doc Posted September 27, 2013 Share Posted September 27, 2013 Here is a link to repairing a vise box similar to Mr. Martin's repair with a few differences. It never hurts to know more than one way to skin a cat! http://www.iforgeiron.com/page/index.html/_/blueprints/original-series/bp0060-rebuilding-a-vise-r288 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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