In my weekends acquisitions there were 5 vises, 3- Colombian post vises, a 7 inch a 5 inch and a 4 inch as I recall, a Yost 34c nos and some goofy vise anvil bench grinder thing.

Anyhow I am thinking the post vises interesting but what is the advantage to a bench vise such as the Yost?

Post vise vs bench vise usefulness is all in the application. Post vice distributes vibration down to the floor, but generally the jaws do not open parallel. The bench vise transfers vibration to the item it is mounted on, but the jaws are parallel, it also has a set of pipe jaws in it which is nice.

The handy worker is pretty cool. Would be neat for demos.

A bench vise can not take the abuse of heavy pounding like a post vise.  The bench vise puts the stress on the screw and a post vise puts its stress on the leg going to the ground.

Ditto what Matto said .   other advantage is the other side of the bench not popping up in the air when you give it a good beating 

My bench is 1 1/2 thick steel, 2 feet by 12 feet with 6 - 5 inch pipe legs and is bolted to the concrete, it doesn't move much.

But I don't beat on the vise much anyhow, I think the post vises may be looking for a new home soon.

It's not the bench it's the vise. Machinist vises are NOT intended to take a beating, they're for bench work, filing, drilling, aligning, etc. etc. precision work. Hitting them with a big hammer damages them till they break.

Leg vises on the other hand are NOT precision vises they're built to take a couple muscly guys whaling on them with sledge hammers. The leg really has nothing to do with damping vibration it's to conduct the impact energy of sledge hammer blows into the ground, the mounting bracket on back is more to steady it than as the main mount. Oh sure the bracket is intended to take a whaling on too but most of the energy is directed into the ground after doing your bidding.

If you compare the physics of the device you'll see a bench vise's hook jaw is carried in and out on the screw, every movement is stopped by the screw, the screw box is IN the hook jaw. The castings on the guide section is hollow, the base is hollow. Any impact delivered to the jaws is carried by the screw and the rest of the structure is made to be rock solid, rigid NOT tough. It will only take impacts well below deflection forces without damage.

A leg vise on the other hand is engineered entirely differently, they're only superficially the same. The hook jaw is not attached to the screw at all, the connection is via a flat washer and the screw attaches to the heel jaw in a bearing race. Impacts can't stress the screw or the screw box, they float, the screw box isn't attached solidly. The heal jaw is one thick piece of forged iron or mild steel that carries straight down into the ground. The hook jaw is attached on a pivot bolt but impacts are pretty isolated from the pivot unless you were to strike straight down on the hook jaw itself then the bolt will shear. bolts are cheap. There's a reason leg vises have springs, the screw and box aren't attached so you have to force the jaw open with a spring or grab it and pull yourself.

Every shop should have both types, especially a blacksmith shop.

Frosty The Lucky.

 

Frosty thanks for going a little more in depth. 

Until I got my post vice I didn't know what the difference was either.  The first time I clamped something down it became clear.  Stuff that might move when tapped, twisted to tweaked in my 65lb machine vice doesn't move at all in the post vice.  There are a few tools in my shop I could live without, the post vice isn't one of them.

Perhaps I will give one a try and shed myself of the other 2. I have an acorn table that is 5 feet by 10 feet and it could mount on a corner and be out of the way most of the time.

Kustomizer,

What is the Jaw Width on the Post Vice, on the pallet? It looks like at least a 8".

I also have a large vice, like your Yost. I was given it by a good friend, whose Father was a Blacksmith. I know it will take a Lickin', but it is not going to perform like your Big Vice. You will learn the advantages of both, when you start working them.

Your 'Multi-Tool' is good for light work, Don't expect it to take Heavy Work. It is a keeper, better for when/if you do a Demonstration somewhere.

Neil

The one on the pallet is 7 inches wide, I think the multi-tool is looking for a new owner along with 2 of the post vises.

I have mine mounted to a metal table and welding a tap at the bottom of the table leg to catch the vices leg.  am I defeating the purpose of the vice as it is suppose to be mounted to a large wood post?

It's supposed to be mounted so that the forces on the vise get transferred to the leg and not to the benchtop. If your mount allows the vise to float and the forces get transferred to the leg then it's fine.

I'm only going to say this once. If you think for one minute that a bench vice cannot take abuse of a very heavy hammer you either need to discard the Fisher Price play toy and buy a real tool or you overheard someone's Uncle say that very same thing who had used a Toy bench vise and experienced poor results. 

Oh......by the way, I overheard someone say in the lawn mower shop all Polan chain saws are junk and I think all Interstate Batteries are junk. 

I have a 8" Wilton that can take a lot of abuse but compared to what a leg vise is designed to take. Not so much and the same model Wilton goes for $1200 at the industrial real hardware store. By take a beating I'm talking about two guys and sledge hammers team striking a piece in a 4" leg vise day in and day out.

Ever run Stihl or Huskvarna? Poulan aren't junk but . . . Not professional grade. I don't have a lawn mower, don't have a lawn I live in the forest.

No, that wasn't a gauntlet but I've used these things lots. Really I have.

Frosty The Lucky.

How did you know? Yes. Very Very costly. Malleable iron. Dent's, won't crack.

A can of soda next to the Wilton. And a Very stout four inch Colombian Shop Vise with a common household vise next to that.

I second what JMS said, that I also didn't really get the difference until I got a leg vise, used it for the first time and wanted to go kiss the guy that sold it to me.  Night and day difference in terms of ease of use, flexibility of uses, etc.   You'd have to take mine away at gunpoint now...even then I think I'd put up a fight. 

Not Sure how the larger bench vises are but another difference in my bench and post vise is how quickly the threading closes the jaws on the post vise compared to my bench vise. 

     Here in the next week or so I plan to get my big acorn type table out of storage and put it where I can use it again, I think I will mount the 7 inch post to that and give it a try. Is there a preferred method to support the leg? It has about a 7/8 diameter x 1 inch long peenie sticking out at the bottom that needs something substantial to go into I gather from what I am seeing here. I will try and get a couple of pics of the table later but it is basically 2 five foot square acorn tables about 7 inches thick in a single frame made of 1/2 x 6 angle with 6 legs of the same. I have shaped metal a lot of different ways but this is heading off in a bit of a tangent. I used to work for an old guy that liked to say " consider it a day lost that you didn't learn something worthwhile". and " you can't make a living working with junk tools"

                  Thanks guys for the insights

I find it interesting that most everyone here feels it's leg vises or nothing.  Isn't so!  I had a new Car Dealership for years and our repair shop  did a lot of light truck work.  We used "good quality bench vises" ( not HF) for changing U joints of all sizes, removing bearings from shafts, spring shackles on and on we seldom broke a vise and a lot of the work was done standing on something flailing away with a sledge hammer.  We pressed the new joints in with jaws.  My own blacksmith shop was many years till I found a good leg vice I could afford I used cast off bench vises until then.  They are nice to have and work great but not 100% required to start with, something like 25-30 tongs which will come in time.  You need a Hammer of some kind, an anvil like item and something to heat the metal with.  Shouldn't have to spend a million $ to get started. 

 Beginners will learn soon enough if this is a long term interest or a passing fancy and proceed accordingly.  It's like folks bragging about their Rolex watches I had a Frigidaire Watch for years, it got me where I needed to be on time and would end show and tell events at meetings.  Nobody else had one nor heard of one (was made by Timex).    

There sure are tough bench vises; the high end wiltons, old chipping vises, etc that will stand the impact of hammer work.  However they tend to be much more expensive than a post vise that will take the same abuse. The postvise also mounts so you can swing a 4' piece of stock all the way around it.  Harder to do that with a bench vise, not impossible, harder.

So back when I was vising up in Ohio I could buy a 4" postvise for US$20-25 or pay several times that for a bench vise that would take the same abuse.  I remember buying a 6.5" post vise at Quad-State one year for $50; needed a mount built for it but the vise and screw/screwbox were in good condition. (and this was since I moved out west...) I bought a heavy duty postvise, jaws 4.75" leg 1.25" in the shaft! for $40 at Quad-State 2 to 3 years ago.  These were not "hidden deals" these were for sale out in the open at an event with nearly 1000 smiths attending and I didn't sweep them up first day this was during Saturday as I recall!  Last "good" big machinist vise I saw locally they wanted $200 and it had been repaired once already.  I

I think that every blacksmith shop needs a machinist vise for certain things; but it better have a postvise for most everything!

I use a couple of posts but when I get them they are in real real poor condition in terms of the jaws. One seems to always be pushed to the left or right.I doubt a solid steel post would take the abuse I give the Wilton. I need tool steel jaws to hold up to the sledging of heavy truck U-Joint steel against the vise jaw. 

I collect Columbian vises (Cleveland OH) and advertisements. They are advertised as the only vise made from Malleable Iron. This was 100 years ago and into the 1950's and I would imagine that others are now made of Malleable Iron. Though I would guess many are cast iron?

I haven't see any post vise units with replaceable tool steel jaws.

So here is my fab table I would like to put the blue vise on, what is the best way to support the leg? The cute little vise just showed up today along with the pile of tong looking things and a couple of other goodies. The three smaller vises are going to go, does anybody here need them?

Hi Kustomizer, the one thing I really love about a post vice is that if you mount it, say .. to a post, very securely, (both to the post and to the ground)  you can walk all the way around it, 360 degrees, which isn't always necessary, but when it is, it's invaluable!! I have one post vice on the corner of my bench, an engineers vice on the other and another post vice on it's own stand... that's the go-to one. 

 

to mount just make a 'receptacle' for the leg that transfers the weight/support into the ground. For my one that was too short to reach the ground from the table I used an offcut of the same dimension round stock, welded a ring of flat to the top to socket the vice leg into and then sort of collared the extention bit onto the leg of the table.. 

The walk around thing is pretty darn handy scrolling on a big jig.

Most machinist vices are also cast leg vices forged - which breaks easiest?