My first leg vise

[whitewill1412]

This is the first leg vise I got.  It is a 4 inch and the only marking on it is 35 stamped on the one jaw.  I figured that to be the weight, but it actually weighs about 42 lbs.  It came to me without a mount or spring and it was covered in rust.  I cleaned it all up with strip discs.  It's messy, but they work great.  Here are some pics of before and after cleaning. 

I have gotten it all mounted up already.   More pics and stuff to come.

 

To be continued....

[Frosty]

How is the screw? The screw and screw box are the only real wear items on a leg vise and bear a look before spending a lot of time or money on one. From what I can see from here the screw looks pretty good, does it open and close smoothly?

The mounting bracket, plate and spring are usually lost for convenience sake. They make it MUCH harder to find a space in the corner of the old shed and come off with a tap of a hammer on the wedges. Making them is basic EZ PZ. Below is a pic of mine though the plate is maybe original, or at least off a similar sized leg vise. 

The stand I built for it doesn't work worth spit, it's a folding tripod for portability sake. Unfortunately it isn't solid enough to do real work, I can file, or do light hammer work but it was a though. Call it learned from. I have a 6" mounted to a steel table base maybe 2 steps farther from the forge and my forge rolls easy so this one will probably look like this at my estate sale.

Frosty The Lucky.

[whitewill1412]

The screw is good.  I got it all cleaned and oiled up.  I can open it with just the weight of the handle.  Very smooth

[Irondragon Forge ClayWorks]

Good job cleaning it up. Springs & mounting brackets are a piece of cake to forge.

I can't control the wind, all I can do is adjust my sail’s.
Semper Paratus

 

[BillyBones]

You actually do not have to even forge the mounting brackets. A piece of flat bar, 2 bolts with nuts and washers, and a large piece of angle iron, at least 3",  cut to fit under the screw box. You could also just use a squared off U-bolt through the angle iron as well. 

[whitewill1412]

I already mounted it.  I went totally out of the box, but it's a solid mount.  I'll get the pics up soon

[LeeJustice]

I forged a bracket to mount mine to a dolly for portability.  I also used a square U bolt like Billy mentioned.

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[JHCC]

Here's how I mounted my old Frankenvise to its stand with a pair of U-bolts. Note the little bracket holding the spring in place:

Which I later replaced with a forged bracket (shown here before I trimmed off the corners):

[whitewill1412]

Ok here we go.  This is the mount I made.  I didn't forge it.  I welded it.  It's made of railroad spikes and a steel plate.  I don't know what the plate is made of.  I found it laying somewhere.  It is very hard.  I tried drilling the holes and couldn't do it.  The holes would start and then the bit just spun.  I tried several different bits.  Since that didn't work I decided to heat it up and punch the holes.  This worked, but the plate cracked a couple times while punching.  Stick welded up the cracks and good as new.  When I tried tacking the spikes to the plate with flux core I had a heck of a time.  Wasn't getting penetration on the plate.  I had to hold the tack for more than a second to get it to stick.  Once I got it tacked I switched to stick and still was hard to weld on.  The welds look terrible, but it is definitely not coming apart.  My experience with the spring was quite disheartening.  It was the first thing that I actually made by forging.  I got it perfectly shaped with the ears at the bottom and everything.  I was proud of my spring job.  The problem is that when I closed the vise with the spring installed the spring didn't spring back.  It just stayed compressed.  The way I made the mount the spring is not gonna be easily replaced.  Right now the vise is mounted to an old piece of 4x6 that was laying around.   It's buried 2 feet down.  It's not a very beefy thing to mount on and will soon be dug up and replaced with a log.

[Frosty]

Did you tack weld your vise to the plate! That is not how to mount a leg vise Will, everything welded solid doesn't allow you to TIGHTEN the spring, there's no surprise it doesn't open the jaw.

You're having problems welding to that plate because it's some kind of specialty steel, the beads and your description sounds like grader edge but it isn't thick enough. Still, there are lots of places where high carbon steel is used. You couldn't drill a hole in it because your drill speed was too high, once you blunted the first bit the bottom of the hole had been hardened beyond the capacity of a HS drill bit to cut.

Mounting a leg vise is super simple, they were designed to be mounted on whatever was available. You can mount one directly to a wooden post with a pair of lag screws and a short bar between them across the spring. 

Muffler clamps or leaf spring clamps are common. Get yourself a piece of MILD or A36 STEEL plate anything above 3/8" is plenty and weld a piece of angle iron across the end the vise will bolt to. The bolt plate only needs to be a little wider than the immobile vise jaw's width by 2" and long enough to be stable and secure, say 6" Call it 3.5" x 6" with a piece of angle iron say 1/4" x 1.5" x 1.5" 3.5" long welded flange up and flush with the end of the plate. Looked at from the side you see a line with another line, upright at 90* on one end. Before you weld them drill the bolt holes the width of the vise leg with about 1/2 the diameter of the bolts added for wiggle room. Picking a number out of the air for example if the leg is 1.5" wide and you're using 1/2" bolts drill the holes 1.75" apart. That dimension is BETWEEN the bolts, NOT center to center of the bolt holes!! 

3 lag screws through the plate down into the post is plenty, putting in too many can risk splitting the post.

It will work much better for you, honest.

Frosty The Lucky.

[Irondragon Forge ClayWorks]

Here is my portable vise mount. Very simple and super strong all made from scrap mild steel wit the exception of the welded on all thread pieces. As can be seen my welds are not so pretty but they are strong.

I can't control the wind, all I can do is adjust my sail’s.
Semper Paratus

 

[Daswulf]

There are many ways to fix it Will. 

I prefer like many others to use a mount that isnt so permanent in a way and removable. 

With what you have now you could use a cut off wheel and just cut the bar off that holds the spring. Clean things up a bit and drill the bar and the weld mounted spikes to tap and use bolts to attach it. (If I seem unclear on that let me know and I will try to sketch a diagram later and attach it here.) Sometimes I'm not good at writing exactly what I am thinking. 

Also, tho it has been said that mild steel can work as a vise spring, I prefer to make them out of small leaf( as in trailer springs) or coil spring steel. No need to heat treat per say, just let it cool as forged. Your spring shape looks good but being mild steel you might have set it up to be tight and springy when with mild steel you would just want it to just bump it open and not a heavy push. Spring steel would be more forgiving.

 

 

[whitewill1412]

Yeah Daswulf I understand what you are saying about cutting, drilling, and bolting.  As far as the spring you are right.  I read all over that you can use mild steel for a spring.  It definitely failed this time.  I won't do that again.  I'm working on a spring for my other vise right now.  Using spring steel from a railroad anchor.

Frosty.  My vise isn't welded to anything.  The mount can slide up and down the leg.  The only problem I see is that the spring didn't work.  What else is wrong with it?

[Mike BR]

Work hardened mild steel springs can work well.  I've only made much smaller springs that way myself, but have had good luck with those.

[Frosty]

It must've been a reflection or something that looked like a tack weld to the bolt plate. If not good. 

Beyond the welded vise leg part you haven't done anything wrong. I didn't mean to sound like I was saying you had. I was trying to suggest other ways and means but I can get more involved in what I'm writing than how it reads.

Frosty The Lucky.

[whitewill1412]

Yeah I thought you were saying my mount was poo poo.  I think it's really good(aside from the spring).  I even have a chunk of steel under the leg to transfer blows to the ground and the plate can double as a quick striking surface so I don't have to turn around to make a quick swing here and there.  I was using the vise yesterday.  It is an awesome tool.  Everyone should have one