coldironkilz Posted February 25, 2016 Author Share Posted February 25, 2016 Today I got the vise put back together. It's functioning well but as you can see there is a little problem with the jaws. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jim Coke Posted February 25, 2016 Share Posted February 25, 2016 Greetings Cold, Easy fix.. Just cut a shim out and put on the left side where the bolt goes through . About .020 normally works 2in square with a bolt hole.. No need to over tighten the bolt just snug.. It should align the vice jaws .. Give it a try. Forge on and make beautiful things, Jim Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
coldironkilz Posted February 25, 2016 Author Share Posted February 25, 2016 Thanks Jim, I will give that a try. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThomasPowers Posted February 25, 2016 Share Posted February 25, 2016 Or you can use it as it stands for probably 80%+ of the smithing I do. I tell students that just have to have perfection to drop blacksmithing and become a machinist there people will pay you for ten thousandths of an inch accuracy! "The Thickness of a worn shilling" was the tolerance quoted for old blacksmith made steam engine cylinders and that's good enough for most of my work. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jim Coke Posted February 26, 2016 Share Posted February 26, 2016 For some just OK just does not cut it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
seldom (dick renker) Posted February 26, 2016 Share Posted February 26, 2016 sometimes in the classes that i giver we will end up with a tool and die maker. they have fits when we tell them" about this big" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThomasPowers Posted February 26, 2016 Share Posted February 26, 2016 You learn a lot about "fitting" when you do blades; but I like the look better than the "milled exactly" stuff. There are some interesting discussions about the early days of interchangeable parts in print and how they were supposed to do away with the time spent fitting parts to an item.(but didn't in some of the earliest contracts let out by the US government) For me blacksmithing is more about hitting hot metal than about having a perfect set up and not hitting hot metal cause you are always trying to get your tools "just so". I had a friend who used to chide me about the state of my shop till I pointed out to him that he spent more hours cleaning his shop each week than I got to spend in my shop total and so I would skew my time towards forging and live with a shop far from spotless. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gote Posted February 26, 2016 Share Posted February 26, 2016 Even if the vise is OK 90% of the time the 10% can be very annoying. My own problem is that the moving jaw is slightly wobbly sideways and this means that a round piece will turn. I intend to shim it thight when I get the time. Plan B is to ream the holes and turn an oversize bolt. I do not trust my ability to heat and close the gap with sufficient precision. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
coldironkilz Posted February 26, 2016 Author Share Posted February 26, 2016 I certainly empathize with each of your responses. However, Jim's fix seems fairly straight forward, so to tolerate an imperfection when the resolution is right in front of your face seems illogical. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThomasPowers Posted February 26, 2016 Share Posted February 26, 2016 Well I have been known to heat a loose joint and use my screwpress to close things up and I have heat shrunk in a plug and re-drilled the pivot hole on the moving jaw leg for a bad vertical offset; but I have 11 postvises and so working one over does not impede my smithing on other things. One meeting we even forge welded a greenstick fractured lower leg and wrapped a strip of wrought iron around it and welded that on too as extra support. What I am trying to counteract is a growing tendency of people showing up here terribly worried about things that don't matter much---must be half a dozen lately wanting to weld up or mill their anvils' edges when Practical Blacksmithing by Richardson, published 125 years ago, says "is anyone dumb enough to still want sharp edges on their anvil". (And I certainly would not advise someone starting out to worry about their anvil edges until they have mastered hammer control!) Or to put it another way "Don't let the best be the enemy of the good!" Now at breakfast I was looking through an excerpt of Diderot's encyclopedia, (published in the late 1700's in France) and ran across 3 examples of postvises that basically looked just like "modern" ones save for a tendency to mount the spring coming up from the joint rather down from the mounting plate. Going to check them against Moxon tonight who is 100 years earlier and English. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JME1149 Posted February 26, 2016 Share Posted February 26, 2016 If the overhang on the jaw ends bothers you enough, you could also just grind the sides flush with each other. Your tools, your rules. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
coldironkilz Posted February 26, 2016 Author Share Posted February 26, 2016 From Wikipedia; A shim is a thin and often tapered or wedged piece of material, used to fill small gaps or spaces between objects.[1] Shims are typically used in order to support, adjust for better fit, or provide a level surface. Shims may also be used as spacers to fill gaps between parts subject to wear. I wouldn't want to "take lightly" a previously unknown "shop tip" from a more qualified/experienced craftsman. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThomasPowers Posted February 26, 2016 Share Posted February 26, 2016 Like with powerhammers sometimes the wear pattern on moving parts do not support use of a shim without refacing to a uniform surface, in which case heating and adjusting with the proverbial larger hammer may be called for. However the blacksmith's truism applies "There is only 1 correct way to do anything in smithing and that is: Any Way That Works!" My last postvise, bought at quad-state a couple of years ago, had a heavily rusted pivot area---which was kind of neat as you could see the multiple pieces of wrought iron the pivot area of the moving jaw had be forge welded up out of. It was a "robustus" version of the vise with the leg over 1" in diameter IIRC and is currently enjoying the sunlight and dryness of New Mexico bolted to a telephone pole holding up the carport of my rental house---which is rather a close parallel with the 6.5" jaw vise I bought at Quadstate a number of years ago that is bolted to the telephone pole holding up the roof on my shop up at the house I own... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jim Coke Posted February 26, 2016 Share Posted February 26, 2016 Interesting use of a vise that I have never seen before.. Pictures of your shop vices and screw press would clear things up. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThomasPowers Posted February 26, 2016 Share Posted February 26, 2016 The telephone poles hold up the roofs not the vises. As they are well seated in the ground they make a strong and stable thing to bolt a vise to for some heavy work. The one I did is 5' in the ground and then concreted around; we get a bit of wind in these parts in the spring... Screwpress is just a nice large H frame with a 42" diameter toroid on top with dependent handles---most excellent to thwop oneself with if you are concentrating on a set up and it's easing down on it's own...I slip some pipe insulation on the handles some times. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gote Posted February 27, 2016 Share Posted February 27, 2016 I wish I could visit your library Thomas. You gave me the idea that I could use my other vise to close the gap in a controlled way. Thank you. However, shimming will still be plan A. Besides, the more annoying thing about it is the jury-rigged leg that prevents me from using the pivot in the mounting. I wonder when I get the time to fix it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Burnttoast Posted March 10, 2016 Share Posted March 10, 2016 On 2/25/2016 at 2:55 PM, coldironkilz said: Mine 5" does the same thing yet i treat it like the Ugly Duckling, sitting in the corner......and have my 4" as the "go to". Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
caintuckrifle Posted March 11, 2016 Share Posted March 11, 2016 On February 25, 2016 at 2:55 PM, coldironkilz said: Today I got the vise put back together. It's functioning well but as you can see there is a little problem with the jaws. I have a vise that doesn't line up just like yours. I would actually recommend not fixing it as I find it comes in handy sometimes to have the jaws offset. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
coldironkilz Posted March 12, 2016 Author Share Posted March 12, 2016 I tried the shim suggested above....it didn't help and I mean, no change. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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