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Wineman

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Hi, I'm trying to identify a blacksmith vice that I inherited from my Father. He was born in 1905 and worked most of his youth with my grandfather on a farm in Penfield IL. He died in 1998. The vice may have been my grandfathers. It weighs 35 lbs, has a 4 inch jaw and a triangle 3 hole mounting bracket stamped WT.&R.Co. Any information you can provide will be greatly appreciated. 

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Welcome aboard, glad to have you. You need to give us more information, pics at least.

Posting the SAME question in different sections of the forum wont do you any good at all. It's more likely to irritate people from one of the 150 countries around the world who have to pay for dial up connection so seeing the same picture repeatedly costs them money they shouldn't have to spend. Worse it might annoy the Admin staff.

Frosty The Lucky.

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12 hours ago, Irondragon Forge & Clay said:

 Have you read this yet? READ THIS FIRST That will help you get the best out of the forum.

Yes I did read that and said I live in Illinois. If I need to be more specific I'm in Hickory Hill's.

12 hours ago, Frosty said:

Posting the SAME question in different sections of the forum wont do you any good at all.

Sorry about posting in 2 areas, most of forums I belong to have told me the introduction thread isn't the place to search for answer. Here's some more pictures. If this isn't the place to post them please let me know where I should.

 

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Mr. Wineman,

Your vise is called a post vise  or a leg vise.  It is the preferred vise of the majority of blacksmiths.

The long leg contacts the floor of the smithy.

Use it in good health, and welcome to the site.

SLAG.

p.s.   I suggest that you add Hickory Hills, Ill. to your profile

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10 hours ago, SLAG said:

p.s.   I suggest that you add Hickory Hills, Ill. to your profile situated just below your name and "newbie".

Thanks, will do. Any idea who WT&R Co is or when they were in business?

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15 hours ago, Frosty said:

Worse it might annoy the Admin staff.

Frosty The Lucky.

You were right. I received my first, in 15 years of belonging to 9 different Forums, moderator "warning" for not trimming quotes and surprisingly  too many pictures. Apparently I read the "Read this first" too fast so now I'm watching my P's and Qs. (Pictures and Quotes) :)

 

Because you just quoted another post then added the same photo as your first post in this thread, only much larger. wasting bandwidth

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I'm going to take a stab at the ID. When researching another vise, I ran across the Warren Tool Co. from Ohio. They produced post vises under the Colombian label and for other retailers like Sears & Roebuck in the early 1900s. If you do a web search for the Warren Tool Co. there is a lot of info on the history of the company. Most of the links can't be included here due to TOS. An interesting one is from The Blade Forums.

https://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/search/object/SILNMAHTL_27478

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10 minutes ago, Irondragon Forge & Clay said:

I'm going to take a stab at the ID. When researching another vise, I ran across the Warren Tool Co. from Ohio.

I think you nailed it. Viewed from different angles, what I thought was and odd looking R appears to be an F. So WT.&F. Co. would be the Warren Tool and Forge Co. Can't thank you enough for that. This should help when I sell it. I'm seeing prices from $60 to $600 for this type of vice, any suggestions on what would be a fair price?

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Not sure about prices in your area. Around here if the screw & screw box are in good working condition that vise would sell for around $150 U.S.

BTW this forum has members from all over the world and many of them have to depend upon dial up internet or pay additional for excessive band width. That is one reason the moderators are pretty stringent about trying to keep pictures and quotes to a minimum. Every member here can act as a moderator by clicking on the report post which will alert that something needs correcting.

Are you interested in doing some Blacksmithing work? If so I would hang on to that vise, it looks like a good one.

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15 minutes ago, Irondragon Forge & Clay said:

Around here if the screw & screw box are in good working condition that vise would sell for around $150 U.S.

BTW this forum has members from all over the world and many of them have to depend upon dial up internet or pay additional for excessive band width.

Thanks for the $ information, that will help when I sell it. I'm not planning on taking up a new hobby but Blacksmithing looks like it would be a lot of fun.

Regarding world wide membership, I belong to the Arboristsite (dot) com forum and communicate with people from New Zealand, Canada, England and follow one guy in Japan. They can't get enough pictures and we frequently quote the entire message. So I was kind of shocked when I received my first Moderator warning this morning. But, no problem it's not that restrictive and I'll be happy to follow the rules.

Thanks again for your help.   

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Note that it is a 4" vise weighing 35#.  So fairly small and gracile and from an area that is known for the abundance of smithing stuff.  I would expect it to go lower than US$150.  You might check with the local ABANA affiliate to find what the current going rate in you area is.  I bought my 4" gracile one(s) for $20-$25 in central Ohio in the 1990's. I bought a 5" robustus postvise at Quad-State for $45 around 2010 (but I thought I got a great deal as $75 was more common.) Of course I didn't buy much of anything last Q-S I went to, 2017? as the asking prices were crazy...

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53 minutes ago, ThomasPowers said:

 I would expect it to go lower than US$150.  

Thanks, prices on ebay are all over the place. I did some more cleaning and found this. Hope I won't get another warning for posting a picture. The moderator said something about large pictures, is there a way to make them smaller?

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Yeah, Iforge works different than others, when I hung on other fora I don't think any had the same rules or conventions but I had to reduce how many I participated on in 09 after the accident. 

The Admin and mods try to keep things running and we all slip up, I get corrected now and then. The "warnings" are more notices of what you did wrong and what they did to straighten things out. Admin and the Mods are all volunteers except the owner Glenn who is out of pocket. There are more than 50,000 members in 150 countries, the guys trying to keep it running smoothly have paycheck jobs and this giant cat herd is their "off time". 

I think the must be off to take on this job but what the hey.

Don't worry about it, take it slow and easy, it's not that hard to get along here and we'll help. ;) You can gripe about how weird we are, we know but if you need to go ahead. Won't do you any good but suit yourself. Comparing how IFI functions as a forum with other fora is a total nonstarter. 

Frosty The Lucky.

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Frosty, it certainly wasn't my intent to degrade this forum in any way as I've already benefited from the knowledge of a few members here. My only point in bringing up the Arborist site was to to explain what I'm used to on other forums. In hindsight I can now see the need to thoroughly read the rules carefully and not assume that all forums follow the same format as I did when I skimmed through the "read this first" portion of IFI. I think forums like this are invaluable for people like me with practically no knowledge of certain trades like blacksmithing. And I'm fine with any suggestions or criticism others may offer to keep the site running smoothly. Thanks for the background information about what it takes to to do that here.

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Ah, I didn't express myself clearly, you missed my point, my bad. My intent was for you to relax and not sweat it. Comparing blacksmiths to other folk and how they do things certainly doesn't degrade us. Seriously we're blacksmiths, you can't degrade a blacksmith. Silly new guy ideas. :rolleyes:

Joking aside just relax, we ALL get the occasional warning it's no big deal. Unless a person makes a habit of breaking the rules they're actually just notices not real warnings. Habitual offenders get moderated some for a while, some permanently. It takes an almost deliberate effort to get banned though some yahoos are naturals. 

Some mods can be pretty direct but none are out to get anybody.  

The forum is usually pretty self correcting and often a member will PM and let you know you've crossed a line or maybe skating too close. I'm a TBI survivor and can get carried away or post when I'm having a bad day. I depend on my friends giving me a heads up. It's good to have friends.

Relax buddy, we're all good. Yes?

Frosty The Lucky.

 

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I started at rec.crafts.metalworking---before they had the RFP for a blacksmithing adjunct.  Still a few of my posts out there from the early 1990's (Using a modem and a smart terminal that I could read faster than it could write a page.) Been a moderator for a Neotribal forum, on a slow  rural dialup---local central office didn't even have full T1 to it! Was on the original Keenjunk. Been a sub-guru over at anvilfire and have way too many posts here... What I've learned is that every forum has a different flavour and different manners---especially back when there wasn't a lot of premade software to run a forum!

I've watched forums crumble from flame wars and decided I liked actively moderated forums that still allow for diverse viewpoints---even if I get moderated for a typo every now and then. (Folks don't hold being moderated against people that I have seen here. Just suggest you watch out and try to follow the rules---I find it very handy that I can refer a new smith to a site and not worry that they will get burned at the stake anvil or that their parents will take one look and ban them from using a computer for Life + 20 years.)

I also feel that a forum should not try to be everything for everyone---I send folks wanting to do strictly casting over to alloyavenue for instance; or folks interested in chainmail to go see what the hot sites are for it over at the armourarchive---yup English spelling...

So Welcome and what smithing stuff interests you?  (Sorry if you already have posted it; a couple of us have had TBI and so our memories can be a bit wonky...)

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I still remember my first warning as a newbie. I copied and pasted a funny bit about how to deal with telemarketers. Next thing I know Glenn was on the horn with a warning about unacceptable naughty language it contained (which was edited out). Since that time I made sure if I copied & pasted anything it was proof read several times before hitting submit.:wub:

It should be noted that cops, sailors & blacksmith's (all of which I was before retiring) are known for rather colorful language so warnings are very common.

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Frosty, yep, we're all good, as I said im open to any suggestions or criticism that make forums a better place for everyone. No problems here.

ThomasPowers, I enjoyed your experiences with forum's. To answer your question, I don't really have any "smithing" interests at this time. But as I wander around the site I can see how it would be easy to get hooked.

Irondragon Forge & Clay, I've been a member of numerous forums for over 20 years and never received a warning for anything so you can see my surprise at getting one in less than 24 hours after joining IFI. But it's really no big deal, more educational than anything. My wife says I'll probably survive. :)

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Okay then, your new guy slack period is over, I'll fun on you like anybody else. Like puns?

I hated the BBS days of the net, flame wars were the norm. I liked the old Email lists though but the few still up are fading through disuse. FB is where those denizens went. 

Frosty The Lucky.

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