mathis Posted August 8, 2012 Share Posted August 8, 2012 Howdy all, I bought a post vice with the letters V W & W H Co. incased within a long triangle with a date stamped below the triangle of 1894 and has 5" jaws with a weight stamp of 65 . Anyways I looked under the jaws and the movable leg jaw is cracked a 1/4" back from the jaw face that runs with the face for 3" long. Did they forge faces on the the jaws? How do I fix this so the whole face don't pop off? Sorry no pics yet. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mathis Posted August 8, 2012 Author Share Posted August 8, 2012 heres the crack Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pkrankow Posted August 8, 2012 Share Posted August 8, 2012 The jaws may be steeled and that is the line where the weld was done, and it is just a visual artifact. If it is an actual crack I am unsure how to proceed best. Phil Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThomasPowers Posted August 8, 2012 Share Posted August 8, 2012 Yes the jaws were often steeled, you should be able to weld it up with an arc welder, v out the crack and go to town. The base metal may be real wrought iron which is a bit more fun to weld as the slag in it comes into play and you will need to use more filler than you expected. If this worries you V it out and braze it! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Timothy Miller Posted August 8, 2012 Share Posted August 8, 2012 Many vises have seems under the jaw. The bottom of the jaws were not finished nicely because no one was going to look at it. Repeated vibration and thermal shock can cause these seems to open into a crack. If the crack extends up to the top of the jaws it may fail some time soon or not. My main forging vise one of the jaws has the steel starting to come off. It has been like that for years and it has not effected the use of my vise at all. On the other hand I had a vise that I fixed up. It was missing a spring and the jaws were tweaked. I heated up the one of the jaws to forge it back to proper shape. It took a bit of fiddling about 3 heats to get it into the right shape. By that time I was done the steel face had come loose. It was 4 1/2" vise the steel was about 3/4" thick 1 1/4 wide. I took a chance and forge welded the steel back on. It worked well I took two welding heats to make sure it was solid. It was an old wrought iron vise and the steel was most likely blister steel or some other variation of a wrought steel type. The hardest part was filing the jaw back to flat. The other jaw looks like it will need some work as well. I have yet to heat treat the jaw but it is square and straight and should function like new. I will post pics when I get home tonight. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mathis Posted August 8, 2012 Author Share Posted August 8, 2012 Thanks for the advise, I figured the jaw faces were forged welded with steel of that day. It is cracked all the way to the top on one end. I have a TIG welder and will open up the crack with a die grinder to get good penatration and refuse the faces. TIG will be better that Arc weld. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Timothy Miller Posted August 8, 2012 Share Posted August 8, 2012 This is a picture of the rewelded vise jaw. The only thing close to a forge weld on wrought iron is a full penetration arc or mig weld wrought iron does not weld well using the tig process in my experience. The welds come out full of porosity because the tig arc vaporizes the the slag in the iron. With mig and arc the you are dumping in so much filler that the heat build up is less. Even so forge welding is best for wrought iron the material is best suited to forging processes not modern fab methods. I think all of the grinding involved will take more time than doing a forge weld plus you will be expanding skills, forging skills, instead of getting showered by steel dust and chips. I know what I prefer. Also you will not have any problems with heat affected zone on the steel jaws. Though you will have to reheat-treat them after the job is done but they are most likely made from a simple water hardening steel. Its as simple as heat to nonmagnetic and quench in water then reheat to blue for your temper. Either way you will probally have to reheatreat because welding is bound to soften the jaws unless you are very careful. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peacock Posted August 8, 2012 Share Posted August 8, 2012 Tells us how the TIG works on wrought iron please. I have tried that and had trouble with the slag in the wrought boiling out and with no flux to float it out I was not successful. I went with the arc and fixed it. You may know how to deal with the slag and I would like to know if you can share that info. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peacock Posted August 8, 2012 Share Posted August 8, 2012 Tells us how the TIG works on wrought iron please. I have tried that and had trouble with the slag in the wrought boiling out and with no flux to float it out I was not successful. I went with the arc and fixed it. You may know how to deal with the slag and I would like to know if you can share that info. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mathis Posted August 8, 2012 Author Share Posted August 8, 2012 I have not welded wroght iron with a tig yet, I was going to try a test on the end of the post to see what happenes when I weld a 1/4: tab of cold rolled steel. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mathis Posted August 9, 2012 Author Share Posted August 9, 2012 I had pondered reforge welding the jaw, thats how it was made anyways. But when it's that hot the jaw will distort with even the lightest blows, ya no like missing the nail and denting the woodwork, LOL. I was thinking of using my flating head and my 2lb hammer lightly on the first blow, just enouph to get the two metals to stick then reheat to complete the forgeweld. I'll have to teach my wife to be a striker, :(- Would wrought iron fileings mixed with borax sub for welding compound? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Timothy Miller Posted August 9, 2012 Share Posted August 9, 2012 I used just a 2.5lb cross pein I welded the jaw by taking an even welding heat and striking on the steel jaw face. I used antiborax welding compound with iron filings but I could have used any flux. I took two welding heats making sure I hammered evenly from end to end with square blows so as the keep the jaw as smooth as possible. I did not hit it super hard i used soft and medium blows. The part resting on my anvil was not as hot so it did not distort as much. I then need to forge the jaws back to shape so forged on the top and bottom to draw it back out a bit. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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