philip in china Posted November 21, 2010 Share Posted November 21, 2010 I make quite a few coat hooks here. I have found that an easy way is just to form them by forging them round the shape of the vice. It gives a nice curve to them and enables me to make them fairly consistent. It did occur to me that if the two sides of the vice were different shapes it might be useful. It might look odd- an asymetrical vice- but could be better. Does anybody have any thoughts on this? BTW my vice is a Vaughans- see www.anvils.co.uk for a picture. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fciron Posted November 21, 2010 Share Posted November 21, 2010 I've used vice jaw 'pads' of various thicknesses to form different radius bends at the jaw. (clamp a small piece of plate in the jaw and bend it over, while hot, with a sledge.) I am sure that you could make different bending forms and clamp them in the vise with your hook. That would be my approach, trying to grind those curves into a big chunk of steel like a vise seems like a lot of work and is a more permanent commitment than I would like to make to any particular shape. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pkrankow Posted November 21, 2010 Share Posted November 21, 2010 Making jaws by welding a piece cylinder onto angle iron, and possibly using a clamp to keep it on the jaw may be a choice. If you are into modifying your vise, then drilling and tapping to bolt the angle iron on would probably work better. Phil Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maddog Posted November 21, 2010 Share Posted November 21, 2010 That looks like a nice vise but not cheap! It must cost quite a bit to ship it to China. IMO the vise's potential as a forging swage is generally underused. But since it is such a versatile general purpose tool I would be reluctant to permanently specialize it for one application. Especially if I had just one and it was very expensive. I would be inclined to go with some kind of false jaw or clampable fixture like the suggestions above. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
philip in china Posted November 23, 2010 Author Share Posted November 23, 2010 I was thinking if a manufacturer was making vices why make both sides the same? Other than it looks right and that is how it has always been done. Yes the price is very high although I got a very big discount but the shipping costs weren't funny! I had little choice, though, as there are no leg vices here at all. I suppose eventually somebody will start making them here but I can't wait that long. I use the vice a lot so the actual cost per item forged is very low. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pkrankow Posted November 23, 2010 Share Posted November 23, 2010 That is COMPLETELY different. I think my vise is slightly different in that area between the moving half and the fixed half. I will look tomorrow. Phil Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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