Longterm Storage of a Post Vise

[tjdaggett]

Folks,

As a few of you know, I am not going to have my own forge for a good long while. My wife and I are likely still a few years out from a house of our own. However, I'm collecting the core of my forge gear now in preparation for the day when I'll actually get to light the fire. My most recent acquisitions are a pair of F150 brake drums that I'll use for my coal forge and, even better, a heavy iron post vise that was a gift from some folks at my church. I would love to post pictures, but that will have to wait.

Since I'm not going to be able to mount the post vise for a few years, I need to store it. It looks like it's pre-WWII, but it's in stellar condition. Next to no rust, perfect action, still got the paint/varnish on the majority of it. I live in Minnesota, where the humidity and temperature varies violently, sometimes within the space of a week. I have the option of storing the post vise in a relative's unheated, poorly insulated garage or their basement. They live on a hill, so there's next to no danger of flooding.

Therefore, two questions:

1. Should I store the post vise in the garage or the basement. Does it matter?

2. Should I wrap, clean, or treat the post vise in any particular way prior to or throughout storage?

 

Thanks as always for your input! I will try to post pictures on this thread soon.

 

--SDG, Timothy

[ThomasPowers]

Pack the screw box with a good grease and tighten the screw all the way.  Grease inside the cheeks and around the pivot bolt.

Wipe down the vise with boiled linseed oil.

When you go to use it; remove the grease and lube it with a light machine oil.

Store it in the place with the lowest humidity and fewest temperature swings to prevent condensation---but well greased it shouldn't matter over a short run---say 10 years.

[Tubalcain2]

what Thomas said. its been fine for over almost a hundred year, and i'm sure it wasn't kept in climate control that whole time. vises aren't picky as to were the live.

[Kozzy]

Cosmoline!  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmoline  That's actually a bit of snark because anyone over 50 has probably heard the last generation complain loudly about the nasty job of removing cosmoline from something (usually WW2 military stories).  It's actually great stuff but can be a sticky mess.

It shouldn't be a huge problem in storage if you take some very basic steps as highlighted above.  Even if the outside gets some surface rust, that's usually no big deal.  The part to protect is the screw box and grease should be fine for that.  Just make sure it's not stored where things can actually flood, touching other metals like an old copper pipe or hunk of stored aluminum, or where some random chemical/vapor might cause corrosion (like next to that bag of old ice-melter/water softener salt).

[G-ManBart]

On May 12, 2017 at 4:58 PM, ThomasPowers said:

Pack the screw box with a good grease and tighten the screw all the way.  Grease inside the cheeks and around the pivot bolt.

Wipe down the vise with boiled linseed oil.

When you go to use it; remove the grease and lube it with a light machine oil.

Store it in the place with the lowest humidity and fewest temperature swings to prevent condensation---but well greased it shouldn't matter over a short run---say.

10 years.

In your neck of the woods BLO works well to prevent corrosion (I lived in both AZ and NM in the past), but around here, I've found it doesn't work nearly as well.  I've used it to coat clean, bare metal and found rust developing within a few weeks.  This was metal I polished to a mirror, cleaned with acetone, wiped dry, then coated with a good layer of BLO.

A great alternative is Fluid Film....it's based on lanolin, so it's not toxic, doesn't hurt paint, doesn't smell bad, and you don't have to worry about soaked rags catching on fire like you do with BLO.  It's popular to use on tractor implements that sit out in the weather...and exposed hydraulic pistons on machinery as well.  When I get a vise in that I'm not going to get around to for a while I give it a light coat of FF before putting it on the shelf, and have yet to find any rust starting on them.  

It used to be harder to find, but now I think both Lowe's and Home Depot are carrying it.

[BIGGUNDOCTOR]

Fluid film works very well. You could also just paint it black, and the paint won't leave a sticky residue in case they have to move it for any reason.