Hi, I am hoping to get some more information about this huge vise that I bought at auction a few years ago.  I couldn't find any markings except for the #10 marked in two places.  As you can see, it takes up half of my truck bed! I had to load it with a forklift.  The length from the bottom of the post to the top of the jaw is 37".  The width of the jaws are 8".  The handle alone is 24" long.  

You have a Fisher chain vise. Rare and highly sought after! Great score.

Thanks!  Is fisher the only maker of the chain style vise?  Can you be certain this is a Fisher even without a makers mark?  Glen

Welcome to IFI, I always suggest reading this thread to get the best out of the forum. Fisher is the only maker of chain vises that I know of (could be wrong though).

https://www.iforgeiron.com/topic/53873-read-this-first/

 

Wow. That’s a beauty!  Great find.

It is a Fisher double screw vise. There is a Fisher Norris museum page on FB and NJanvilman on here is the owner.

 

How much did you get it for?

 

I paid $650 plus auction fees and then I had to pay a forklift operator $50 to load it for me so I probably have about $800 invested in it.  This came from the Hershey machine shop auction which took place in 2012 I believe.  The Hershey machine shop opened in 1912 and had a full blacksmith shop with a huge forge and blasting oven.  Hershey was making their own machines to make the chocolate when they opened and were hand casting many of the parts.  They were even casting their own tool such as hammers and tongs.  We found a bunch of tool casting molds in the shop.  Since this original posting I have since contacted the Fisher Norris museum page on FB and they said this vise is a #6 which was the largest that Fisher made and appears to date to the 1950's to the 1970's although being that the shop opened in 1912 I would have thought this vise to be older.  The number 10 (or 01) which is marked on both halves is most likely a mating number to keep the halves together during tooling since they had to be aligned together, according to the guys at Fisher Norris Museum.  There are no other markings on the vise.  I had a chance to upright the vise today and operate the jaws and I must say that it feels like a precision tool!  The chain works perfectly and the jaws move in and out so smoothly and with incredible power.  

Wonderful tool.

Don't forget that it is a parallel vice and not a post vice. If you want to forge on it, it will take some hammering due to it's size but i wouldn't feel right to go troppo on it. 

Right on.  I'm not planning to use it for blacksmithing.  I just want to put it in my shop and stare at it!

 

Ha ha, fair enough. 

I recently built a stand for a Peter Wright vice that is not a post vice but a parallel vice or bench vice and I do use it for forging smaller stuff no problems. 

In my case the hammering goes into the sliding part of the vice if you hit the moving jaw and not into the screw and the jaws being all forged can take a pounding. 

i would venture that you can forge on your vice if you use lighter hammers around one kilo and use common sense, no problem. 

 

I always wanted one of those.. Congrats..   That must have been a fun auction.. I love those old kind of places..  How big were the forging hammers?  Some pictures of the place and auction would be nice to see.. 

Here are some pics from the Hershey factory blacksmith shop opened in 1912 and closed around 2004.  This is where I got the big vise...