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How do you keep your post vise stand from walking or spinning?


99ls1ss

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24 minutes ago, Frosty said:

No Marc, I think you need to explain how you can turn something you're standing on without an outside influence. Newton's 1st. law of motion isn't just Dave's law of physics.

Frosty The Lucky.

Thank you Frosty, my concern is not turning but tipping or like I said, making the vice "walk". The answer is rather obvious, the platform idea is based on a small platform at the front of the anvil. if you stand on the front plattform, you will be able to do some work if you stand still in the same spot and providing you don't pull too hard back on a large long bar.

Now clamp the same long bar horizontal and try walking around the vice with the bar in your hand to bend it and tell me what happened. :) 

As far as turning something you are standing on, it is rather simple. It is called inertia and action and reaction. Something I was well aware in my times as a gimnast. My daughter knows about it too when she skates.

obviously the platform idea would be possible to use for me if I made a round platform say ... 7' diameter and may be 1/2" thick. of course it would make the idea of movable or portable rather moot. I could motorise this platform with tracks i suppose ... :P 

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3 hours ago, Marc1 said:

Come on guys, gravity in the US can not be that much different from gravity in Australia.

  Oh,I've been to Australia a few years back. I have a brother-in-law that lives in the ACT. Only thing I noticed different was the way the toilets flushed.......ha. Anyway, sure if you lean passed the end of said lever, you sure can lift yer self. But I have had no luck lifting or twisting a sheet of plywood while standing in the middle of it.  YRMV........thanks           Dave  

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Forgive me for not engaging in more semantic games with you Marc. I shouldn't have last time but there are people reading the forum who don't know what you think of as good "discussion."

The platform with the hand truck wheels isn't suitable for applying force from 360* around it. By mounting your vise to a large round plate you can apply force from all sides without moving it. It's easily mobile by tipping it on edge and rolling it like a 55 gl. drum. It's even surprisingly easy to load into a pickup truck by tipping it flat on the gate and rolling it up from inside the bed. I know that sounds a lot harder than it really is. And NO, not thick steel plate, 1/4" is more than enough. 

For smaller plates on concrete tip it on it's side, clean the bottom and squirt some silicon calking on and spread it thin with a putty knife, etc. When it's dry it won't skid. This is an old timey trick used on boats to keep dishes from sliding on tables, counters, etc. the new non skid mats have replaced the trick as far as I know. 

Frosty The Lucky.

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Interesting as usual Frosty. 

I think I made it clear that when suitable for some, the little round platform you stand on is not suitable if you want to apply lateral force even moderate. The reason is that your own weight is not a good idea because it forces you to to be stationary in one point. I don't see the controversy nor how this contradicts Newton, Vulcan or Mandragora's law. Swing at the little platform hard enough and even if you weight 20 stones you will tip it, turn it, rattle and shake it so bad that you will not like it one bit. Work at the vice standing in front of it, or just using your hammer with down blows and forge happy away no problems. It all depends of what you do and how you do it. THere is no one answer and not one right answer. 

The large platform i mentioned is an absurdity to illustrate a point and I doubt anyone is thinking in building it just now, caulking compound or not. It can be built of course. Just for you to know a 7' round plate at 1/2" thick will weight in at 660 lb give or take. I don't see myself rolling that in any way short of using a forklift. 

Much easier to anchor it from below with a steel cable to a bolt in the concrete. or ... why not just bolt it to a post as a leg vice is supposed to be?

Having said that, I don't see why anyone should follow my advice. It seems that post vice on feeble shaky platforms are popular and make Newton happy, and my idea of a tripod anchored down with a cable is a total furphy worthy of disdain and scorn. 

So be it, I am easily pleased. :)

 

 

 

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Just a thought. Put the stand on plate to the rear/back side of the vise and then drive the pickup truck tire onto the plate. Or instead of the plate, a couple of pieces of tubing into receivers on the vice and drive a tire onto those. 

When moving a vise, clamp something into the vise jaws to use as a handle to tip and then guide the vise. 2x4 will do.

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So instead of using your own weight you use the car's ... not a bad idea if  you have the room to do that. The car qualifies as a fixed point of sorts. You could weld a square tube up the leg of the stand and slide it in the towing hitch. it can have a gose neck so you don't trip as bad over it. 

Many solutions to a simple problem that has a simple solution ... :)

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Just spitballing here, but your setup looks like you could ratchet strap a drum to the back side and fill it with water.  If you do go that route, you might opt for a lid of some kind.  I've noticed that hot steel never seems to land in my quench bucket unless doing so would ruin whatever I'm working on.  

The real question is how does the steel know where the bucket is?

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Mm ... why not indeed. One could make a stand that is a water tank, a bit more solid than a 44 gallon drum and with the opening in the back of the vice to double up as a quench tank ... why not? Not less than 30 gallons though or you end up with the same problem of rocky vice ... :P . (pun intended)

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You going to carry the water to the site in your vehicle, or hope you can locate water on site? 

That is 7 trips using a 5 gallon bucket.  The math is correct as by the time you actually get the bucket to the barrel, you will have spilled a gallon of the water out of the bucket. The 4 gallons of water in the bucket you are carrying weighs 32 pounds. May want to bring a dolly to haul that water. (grin)

When your finished you just plan on tipping the barrel over to spill the water? What about those down hill from you when you turn that flash flood loose?

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Always carry two buckets even if you have to just partially fill them---better for the back to have the load balanced side to side.

Generally I was close enough to run a hose or had help to fill the barrel.  As I mentioned in my description my barrel has a bung low on the side so easy to unscrew it partially and let it seep out while everything else is being handled. Also as I stated I was on grass or gravel and so a reasonable flow gets absorbed especially as they tend not to stick the forge in a tightly packed area due to noise and fumes.

My barrel had an open top with a inset piece of 2x12" (water bed frame) that I has scribed along the inside of the barrel, cut to fit and mounted inside the lip using lag bolts. It was the correct height for my travel vise's mount to bolt onto. /I used a RR plate with a hole drilled for the vise's acorn held in place with a couple of RR spikes.

The ability for high carbon steel to throw itself into water would make lemmings look like a risk adverse species. A cover flap is suggested. More than once I had to fish steel or tools out of the bottom of the barrel with a set of tongs and a very wet arm---not so bad in summer but a bit brisk  when the temp's in the 40's or lower degF.

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Plastic water jugs don't slosh on you while you walk.  I used a road stripe paint drum the couple times I used a 55 gl. drum for a vise stand. The striping crew used to crush them with a dozer so they didn't take up too much room in the scrap pile. No problem taking as many as I wanted. It really sucked when they started getting paint in supers rather than drums. 

Paint drums have clamp on lids that make a handy bench and I didn't have to go fishing. I hauled water in the pickup, the closest hose bib was a couple hundred yards away. I made a band to wrap & clamp around a 55 gl. drum with a vertical leg down to a foot that made the leg socket and slipped under the drum.  At better than 350 lbs. on packed soil it made a seriously solid vise stand. 

I had another drum to haul fill water and siphoned to fill and empty it. 

Frosty The Lucky.

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Hello All;

 

Back to the question at hand, I kept mine from moving at all. And if I want it to be even heavier, I can add more weight.

check the last pics in this thread : https://www.iforgeiron.com/topic/60779-two-leg-vise/

The goal of this setup is to have it outside in the summer (less dust inside) and inside in the winter (too moist & cold).

Works well for twisting and even heavy hammering. 

 

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  • 3 weeks later...

First and foremost: 

A post or leg vise is designed for hammering ( downward and against the back leg whenever possible.) They are specifically NOT designed for twisting.

Twisting is the job for a heavy machinists vice (which conversely should not be hammered upon[ except very lightly or upon a very heavy vise {at least 100 pounds }]).

This is not to say the light stock can't be twisted in a leg vise, of course it can, but it is a bad habit,  IMHO

My number one post vise is mounted to a plate welded to the top of a 5 inch pipe, 8 feet long. 5 feet of said pipe is sunk into a 5 foot deep pit filled with concrete and the pipe is filled as well, to the top. Ridiculous overkill you say?

I can still flex it. 6 inch pipe would have been much better. 

I also have a massive machinists vise on a shelf welded to the same pipe.

Here I twist as much as 2" square solid steel.

In the almost 25 years since I mounted these vises they have never been in each other's way, nor have I wished the post were elsewhere.

Key: The key to mounting things to a slab is as follows. 

Drill all the way through the slab.

If you ever wish to be rid of the bolts drive them through the slab and plug the holes with hydraulic cement.

Note that a tool which doesn't work is useless. 

A final aside, even a small (2 inch) pipe vise is better for twisting than a post vise.

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One can twist light or heavy stock of any size in a post vice of appropriate dimensions anytime, providing it is fitted correctly and not to some wobbly contraption that needs to be stepped on to stay put, or filled with water or any other absurdity, worthy of Tom and Jerry mousetrap. A post vice needs to be mounted to a post and be able to walk around it to work on all angles and by the way you can hammer at your heart content on both jaws. That is what they are made for. (Within reason of course, a 10 kg sledgehammer on a 3" vice may be inappropriate) 

 A parallel bench vice is usually fitted to a bench ... (obviously) and therefore precludes walking around it. Not necessary for a machinist but surely important for the blacksmith that makes larger objects. 

Sure, a hobby workshop that needs to be mobile to drag out on the driveway in the morning and packed up for the next weekend at night, needs some lateral thinking, nothing wrong with that.

If I had fitted a post vice to a pipe welded to a round plate in our workshop in the sixties, the oldtimers would have laughed me out of the shop after forcing me to dismantle it.

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I have more confidence in my post vises than in my machinist vices, but to me the answer to your question on how to prevent it from walking is just add more weight. In my case that would mean add a couple of steel 60 pound disks :D

Also; I'm not sure yet if I prefer twisting horizontally or vertically ... Jury is still out on that one.

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Twist in what ever position feels feels natural and safe. 

Make the first twist and figure out if it is counter clockwise or anti clockwise. Make a mental note, in ink. 

There may be reason to have the twist in the other direction. If so, mark a arrow on something you can see so you KNOW what you are doing, and which direction you are going for that project. (Don't ask how we know these things)

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  • 2 years later...
On 1/9/2019 at 2:39 PM, Buzzkill said:

I have a section of square tubing which nests into a slightly larger piece of square tubing that I use to attach my vise stand to my anvil stand for a little added stability.

I'm thinking about doing this.. Having a mobile post vise stand, that I can then "attach" to the anvil stand if I need "a little more ass" to stabilize it..

I just picked up my first post vise this weekend.. a 4-7/8" model that has what looks like a completely unused acme screw..  (needs a set of taper pins and a spring, though)

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  • 1 month later...

I have a peter wright mounted low to use for bending and hammering.  I cut off the bottom third of a 55 gallon drum.  welded a little angle iron fram to a 3" piece of schedule 40 pipe with a plate welded on top for the vise mounting bracket. then I set a piece off EMT for the vice leg to slide in and poured it full of concrete.  weighs more than 400 lbs, but I can grab the vise, tip it and roll around the shop (Im pretty small).  But when it sets down it just doesn't move.  Been using it that way for more than 30 years.  Probably cost me $10 or less to build.

20210823_122340.jpg

Edited by Mod44
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