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I Forge Iron

Show me your vise


Glenn

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Ok this is the main vice I will be using I had to repair it it had been welded to a bench and cut off with a torch and the spring was missing so the mount and the spring I made along with the table in the shop I am working on. the rest of the vice is there I just had to clean the threads and re oil them.

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Well it's been set up a bit odd. Usually the spring is fitted between the mounting bracket and the fixed leg and held tight by wedges crisscrossing in a slot in the mounting bracketjust behind the fixed leg.

In your case it looks like someone made a mounting bracket to hold the fixed leg against the bench and so didn't have it set up to hold the spring in place and flipped the spring and used another bracket.

If you want it back the way it originally was you need to make another mounting bracket which can be as simple as a piece of angle iron and a U bolt (UNPLATED!) forged to fit around the fixed leg and spring---Columbian Vises used this method commercially. Or as fancy as curlicue mounting brackets and the traditional wedge system.

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I have been looking for a good leg vise for a while and finally found one. It's a Columbian. Picked it up at a farm auction in South Carolina. Those collectors sure can run up the price ($120.00). Had to use a lot of elbow grease to get it all cleaned up and pretty. Looks like the auctioneer used some type of grinder to cut it from the mounting post. It weighs around 37 lbs and has 5 inch jaws. The screw looks to be in great shape. Now the only thing left to do is get it mounted.

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Will see if I can post a pic. Failed again.

OK on edit I got it done. This vise is my primary shop vise. The table is built from scrapped tubing. The table is attached ( with a piece of 1" tubing in the back ) to the main welding table. The ground loop complete I can weld in this vise if necessary.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Here is a pic of my 606 Columbian 6" vise with swivel base it is huge and heavy, I am currently cleaning it, and it is all taken apart for repainting.

Also a pic of an oldie I picked up a few days back it is a Champion forge and blower, some special type of vise, really neat!!

Thanks Jeff

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Back in 24 Oct 2011, I talked about my "transitional vise," an unusual one with a solid box, yet a tenoned mount. At that time, I couldn't post my photos, but today I think I'll be able to do so. I think it's a Peter Wright. I made the mount, spring, and wedge.

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 3 weeks later...

Well it's been set up a bit odd. Usually the spring is fitted between the mounting bracket and the fixed leg and held tight by wedges crisscrossing in a slot in the mounting bracketjust behind the fixed leg.

In your case it looks like someone made a mounting bracket to hold the fixed leg against the bench and so didn't have it set up to hold the spring in place and flipped the spring and used another bracket.

If you want it back the way it originally was you need to make another mounting bracket which can be as simple as a piece of angle iron and a U bolt (UNPLATED!) forged to fit around the fixed leg and spring---Columbian Vises used this method commercially. Or as fancy as curlicue mounting brackets and the traditional wedge system.


The reason that the spring wants to be active at the bottom nearer the pivot is because there is less throw (movement) there. The old timers had that one figured out.
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Your going to run your hand into the wall when you file in that vise. Other than that it looks like a good one.


Yeah I understand it's not the best mounting location and I may very well change it at a later date, but it kind of makes sense with the rest of my shop layout right now and I'll mostly be working with very short/small pieces of steel. So hopefully it will work out for me as is, but point taken.

Thanks.
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  • 1 month later...

picked up a few vises over the last few months. i got the 2 1/2" columbian along with a welding helmet for 2 whole dollars at auction. the 4" morgan i picked up at a neighbors yard sale for 8$. i thought it was the columbian's big brother 'til i flipped it over.
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stopped at a barn sale last weekend and picked up this 5 1/2" indian chief. i haven't pulled it apart to check the screwbox, but it feels o.k.. the price started at $50, but i talked them down to $40....'til i opened my wallet and was a couple of dollars short. for 38$ i couldn't pass it up.

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the jaws are parallel, but offset 1/2".


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mark

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This is kept for more than 1 year still in the garage now I have a new bench, with a sheet of 4 cm. (weight of the bench over 100 kg.)

Now I have another color to blue I do not know what to do, but I do not want to sell it (I have 2 more on another bench).

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GiFerro, I like the bright colours. I should paint my vises---but they are all old and oily and I'd rather spend time using them than paining them....

BTW "Bank" originally came from the term Bench as the money changers worked out in the open at Benches in Renaissance Italy; so every time you see "bank" just change to Bench and blame translation software for the confusion. (In English Bank is where you store money and get loans; bench is the piece of shop furniture you put tools on.)

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