Fixing up a post vise as a gift for my blacksmith FIL

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I'm not into smithing but my father in law is. I stumbled across a post vise for cheap this summer, and I've been sitting on it to give to him for Christmas, since he doesn't have one in his shop. 

This vise was laying on the ground outside this guy's barn and is a little dirty and rusty. He was also using it as a welding vise and it has the odd bit of mig wire stuck to the jaws. I was going to (carefully) grind the mig wire off, disassemble the vise, wire wheel the rust off, oil it (linseet oil is common for this?), clean and grease the threads, and reassemble before gifting. 

Is this all the correct way to go about it? Would you rather do any of this yourself if you were getting it as a gift?

ALSO, there's a couple areas of the vise where you can see the forge welds from its construction (see pictures), and they looked a little suspect to me. While I have a welder and rods for cast iron, my understanding is that it's probably been like that for the last century or so and I SHOULD NOT attempt any sort of repair. Is this also correct? 

Thanks for any advice you have for me.

[Kozzy]

I would superficially clean it, lightly oil and gift it as it is.  I'd personally like to do the "fixits" myself so that I know the vise's story well.  

Fully restored (or to 90%) wouldn't hurt my feelings either but I'm just one who likes to know my tools.  If it pleases you to go that far, it's not a huge deal.

Do not re-weld.  Do remove bad MIG splatter but carefully.  Lightly wire brush but leave the aggressive version to him if that's your chosen path.  If things are binding, penetrating oil isn't going to hurt and gives your FIL a head start.  Let him grease or oil the screw after he gets a look at the state of the threads and screwbox (even if you do a re-hab to a fairly full extent).

It's a pretty good lookin' vise and I certainly wouldn't complain about getting it for Christmas. 

[ThomasPowers]

Disassemble it and wire brush it, till it's pretty.

Clean all the dirty gunk out of the screwbox and off the screw. I tend to immerse the separated screw and screwbox in a cheap grease cutter like diesel for a week and then clean them up.

Do not put boiled linseed oil on the, inside, bearing surfaces near the pivot bolt! Wiping down the outside is OK. (How much is also dependent on where you are at; on the sea shore I'd do a through coat, perhaps 2. Here in the desert I might not put BLO on it at all.)

As this vise is NOT made from Cast Iron what has cast iron rods have to do with it?   I would not weld especially as you probably don't have any experience welding real wrought iron rather than cast iron or mild steel or even alloy steels.

I check the pivot bolt and see if it or it's hole is worn out of round.  I like to fix that if it is; but that would certainly be an ASK FIrst as that looks to be the original one.

Actually I'd be happy with just a wire brushed vise and let me decide what else to do with it!

I was once doing the test drive on a used car we were thinking of buying and saw a 5.5" Columbian post vise leaning against a decaying barn---my wife wouldn't let me stop till we had bought the car....Anyway I went back and bought it and the 125#  Peter Wright anvil that was hiding in the barn...Old Fellow who had fallen on hard times and had a much better Christmas than he was expecting that year...(Sometimes I don't haggle if the deal is a decent one to start with...)

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51 minutes ago, Kozzy said:

I would superficially clean it, lightly oil and gift it as it is.  I'd personally like to do the "fixits" myself so that I know the vise's story well.  

I'm in the same camp personally, but as a machinist it's at least partly because I don't want anyone screwing up any precision surfaces or anything. Thought I'd check to see if blacksmiths are the same way about tools.

26 minutes ago, ThomasPowers said:

Do not put boiled linseed oil on the, inside, bearing surfaces near the pivot bolt! Wiping down the outside is OK. (How much is also dependent on where you are at; on the sea shore I'd do a through coat, perhaps 2. Here in the desert I might not put BLO on it at all.)

As this vise is NOT made from Cast Iron what has cast iron rods have to do with it?   I would not weld especially as you probably don't have any experience welding real wrought iron rather than cast iron or mild steel or even alloy steels.

We're in Colorado, so rust isn't a huge deal. Maybe I'll leave that to him.

And you got me, I forgot all the reading I did on post vises this summer. I had assumed it was cast iron at first, then learned it wasn't, but forgot myself as I waited til now to start on it.

 

I'll do enough cleaning that I won't get in trouble with my mother in law for bringing it into her house, that's for sure. I'll ask my wife if she has a clue how much of this work he'd like to do himself.

Thanks guys!

[Michael]

Sounds like a wonderful gift!  Your FIL will be thrilled I'm sure.  Not many precision surfaces on blacksmithing gear, the vise jaws will NOT be paralel, anvils are not flat references surfaces.  The vise was likely pieced together from wrought iron by a highly skilled team of workers going for a rough size based on experience, and it was weighed after finishing and sold by the pound.   Nice chamfers on that vise.

[ThomasPowers]

Powered wire brush to remove the rust before gifting is a great help with making the spouse of the giftee happier. OTOH it may do just  the opposite with your spouse.

My shop is in exile at the far back corner of our lot and so messy jobs have some time to "dissipate" between shop and house.  We also have a aggressive grill for cleaning our shoes on before going into the house.  Supposedly for the goatheads that abound out here; but keeping shop trackings  out of the house is a valued side effect.

Good that the cast iron was only a brain misfire;  I've seen quite a bit of equipment damaged by folks who don't know enough about it to be doing what they did to it!  (Never did understand the "I don't know anything about this so I will make major irreversible changes to it to improve it" mindset. Or the "Now that I've severely damaged it I'll research what I should have done!")

The most extreme repair I have done to a post vise was where the moving jaw was seriously lower than the stationary jaw. No easy to repair bend in the jaw shaft;  but the pivot bolt and holes were seriously worn/wallered out. So I heat shrunk and bradded a plug into it the hole in the moving jaw and then drilled out the stationary cheeks to the next higher bolt size that would take care of the damage and then redrilled the hole in the moving jaw to make it meet on top.  Did that about a decade ago and it's seeing HARD use by college students as the only post vise at the Fine Arts Metals shop. Probably need to be repeated in another generation...

[Irondragon Forge ClayWorks]

I used to say to my brother, if it's not broke, you will fix it till it is.

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On 12/3/2019 at 4:47 PM, Michael said:

Not many precision surfaces on blacksmithing gear, the vise jaws will NOT be paralel, anvils are not flat references surfaces.

Yeah. I do have another buddy who is a blacksmith, but he didn't know much about post vises when I asked him, so I ended up here. Anyway, it's real interesting to see how differently we're each inclined to solve the same problem based on our background as machinist or blacksmith.

On 12/3/2019 at 5:10 PM, ThomasPowers said:

Powered wire brush to remove the rust before gifting is a great help with making the spouse of the giftee happier. OTOH it may do just  the opposite with your spouse.

We actually already have a system in place - I use the utility room as a 'mud room', and the downstairs shower is 'mine'. It started because I was so covered in coolant and chips from work but has transitioned nicely as I've got my own shop up and running in the garage.

[JHCC]

Now I have a new criterion for judging potential spouses for my children: will they give me smithing equipment!

[ThomasPowers]

Chemists and Machinists; the people who wash their hands thoroughly before going to the bathroom.

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7 hours ago, ThomasPowers said:

Chemists and Machinists; the people who wash their hands thoroughly before going to the bathroom.

True story.

[ADHD-forge]

9 hours ago, ThomasPowers said:

Chemists and Machinists; the people who wash their hands thoroughly before going to the bathroom.

you should add mechanics as well

[ThomasPowers]

Well sometimes...

[Kozzy]

There's a special little dance one learns to do when that cold water hits your dirty hands and you pushed the timing a bit further than you should have....Pretty similar to the dance we old geezers get as things change so that "now" means "NOW!" with regards to plumbing.  

[ThomasPowers]

Ah, the Stand Up and Run dance.

[Anachronist58]

This is hitting a bit too close to home.

[ThomasPowers]

I had the rotor router done, helped a lot and would help even more if I would give up excessive tea drinking. OTOH we're supposed to get up and move around on a regular basis if you have a desk job.   Tall weeds near the shop help too.