Restoring old leg vise?

[bound201]

I was recently given a 4.5" leg vise, unable to locate a brand stamp on it anywhere. It is missing the mounting plate but overall it appears to be in decent but well used shape.

 

I'd like to restore this and clean it up for use, any advise? I'll post up some pics later.

[ThomasPowers]

Clean the screw/screwbox thoroughly---letting them soak apart in a bucket of diesel or kerosene for a week or more can help loosen up the petrified oil and grease. Clean, dry and regrease before re assembling.

Take apart the pivot and clean that area, address any issues (I've filed scored mating surfaces, tightened up the cheeks, drilled out pivot holes that had wallered out and replaced the pivot with a new grade 8 bolt and for one abused vise I heat shrunk and riveted a plug in the old hole on the moving leg and redrilled it to make the jaws mate up vertically.) Oil the pivot area when re-assembling.

One of my post vises required having the cracked leg forge welded back together and we wrapped it with a strip of wrought iron and welded that too to provide extra strength at the weak point.

Build the mounting system, the columbian vises have the easiest one to duplicate as it's basically a piece of angle iron with a U bolt around the vise shaft. But you could get as fancy as you feel like! Remember to allot space for the spring if you need to make a spring, mild steel will work; again look at columbians for a simple bent strap spring.

File off any burr around the hole for the handle your hands will thank you sometime! I like to find big rubber washers I than push over the handle ends to provide a softer impact when they slide.

I would venture to say that *most* postvises are not stamped by their manufacturers.

I do know of one fellow who totally cleaned and polished his postvise and then heat coloured it and clear coated it. Overkill, I wire brush any loose rust off mine and wax it and get to work...