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I Forge Iron

Vise ID


CT Grim

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Hello all! ....awesome to have found a place with so much collective knowledge!

 

I am looking to narrow down the age, and possible maker of my newly acquired post vise. Sorry I don't have pics, but here are the highlights:

75lbs

chamfered legs

hand-cut serrations on the jaws (still visible)

"F K" ...or that is what it looks like... on the closed screw box where it fits into the fixed leg.

square pin securing the pivot plates

mounting bracket is U-shaped and forged into a wishbone.

 

Will post pictures when I have some good ones.

 

Thanks!

-JC

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  • 3 weeks later...

So many post vises were hand made, identifying yours in the absence of a makers mark is likely impossible. Some of the characteristics the help date a post vise is the extra detail added during it's construction, like chamfered edges and the extra detail added to the screw box. This is not always an indicator as the person/firm that made it could have been feeling expansive for that tool and added extra detail. It is not easy to forge a post vise and once you are into it adding embellishments might seem like a good idea at the time.

Lets see some photos, it might help.

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I visited Vaughan's when they were still in their original Hope Works in the late seventies early eighties and although they had modernised leg vice production to two identical drop forged jaw and eye stampings and arc welded the back bar and front hinge bar they were still hand cutting the checkering.

Bob Sidaway who was the foreman then was very enthusiastic about his job and spent a lot of time giving me a guided tour.

I must sketch my memory of the hammer and punch one day. The handle was almost shorter than the head of the hammer which was all offset with about a 65 degree included angle, the head seemed to almost lie along the knuckles. The punch was almost as wide as it was high, very stubby. The action was almost just a turn of the wrist with the hammer and the punch holding wrist was rested on the jaw and the fingers just pulled the punch along every blow.

They probably still do it like that come to think of it!

Alan

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