Show us your bench vice(s)

[Arc Tourist]

To add to the vice, or in this case vise......, colour debate, here's an absolutely gorgeous little Parkinson Ball Base Vise I picked up recently in virtually unused condition.View attachment 208752 View attachment 208753 View attachment 208754

That is a awesome small ball vice. I missed acquiring one awhile back on the internet, and another at a boot sale where another guy just purchased it. I offered him his money back and a £10.oo note if he would sell it to me; maybe I should have offered him £20.oo ?

EDIT: Thanks for posting the photos, I'm drooling.

 

[dannysheff]

Or, if your vise is almost 4 foot tall, and you are almost 5 foot tall, you stand on a pallet.

quite right too - just make sure the pallet doesn't give way
(painfully trapped an ankle going through a rotten pallet a few weeks ago)
go for it mrs

Scots wha hae
Scots wham Bruce

 

[Barking Mat]

@mrsbruce I've been told if the bottom leg fits into a socket, it becomes pivotal.

I've one very similar, and the socket that fits into. Still lying on the floor in the barn.

 

[mrsbruce]

@mrsbruce I've been told if the bottom leg fits into a socket, it becomes pivotal.

I've one very similar, and the socket that fits into. Still lying on the floor in the barn.

I might investigate that, as I really don’t use it as a hitty thing, more as a grippy thing, so have wondered about moving it into my big hut. The floor in it is wooden, and iffy, so having a socket with a large back plate would make it more useful to me.

Why not get a big normal vise instead? Because a big blacksmith vise looks stunning, nay, a work of art.

 

[Barking Mat]

Yes there is something about a 4 foot vice.

I might have a spare socket, it's not a base plate, it's like a pivotal tube to concrete in.

 

[mrsbruce]

Yes there is something about a 4 foot vice.

I might have a spare socket, it's not a base plate, it's like a pivotal tube to concrete in.

Yes, but I fear I may have to adapt the concept. I genuinely have no idea what is holding the big hut’s floor from off the ground.

The sad, greying bones of lost pixies for all I know, or at least for what it feels like when walking on it.

 

[Barking Mat]

Cut a hole in the floor, dig a hole for the socket, and surround in concrete.

Would be my suggestion.

It at least will consolidate things.

 

[Dieselman 63]

Cut a hole in the floor, dig a hole for the socket, and surround in concrete.

Would be my suggestion.

It at least will consolidate things.

And of course how deep you dig extends how hard you can hit it! I visited a place with a Massey power hammer, the machine was sitting on a 6ft deep slab, had been there for half a century. The guy said if you don’t, they hammer themselves into the ground!

 

[mrsbruce]

Cut a hole in the floor, dig a hole for the socket, and surround in concrete.

Would be my suggestion.

It at least will consolidate things.

If I remember, footings are random lumps of brick/wood/paving slabs, on top of wet clay. The idea of cutting a hole in the floor, and pouring in concrete does appeal to me, but how much concrete would that take, or how practical, is beyond my knowledge.

Anyone salvaged a hut floor, even just a small area this way?

 

[AndyLandy]

My good old Record No22 that has taken a battering over the years.

 

[owas]

My main vice that's taken an absolute beating over the years says 'handy G3' on the side?

Looks old

 

[SteveB58]

Cut a hole in the floor, dig a hole for the socket, and surround in concrete.

Would be my suggestion.

It at least will consolidate things.

I've had my leg vice for a few years now and to resort to technical language I use it more as a 'grippy' thing than a 'hitty' thing too. My workshop, alright, shed, has a wooden floor and I have a large wooden block under the leg wedged so that it is rigid. Any impact from hitty type activity is absorbed more by the block that the floor. Cementing the leg to the ground I'd avoid as it limits quick removal from the bench or relocation of the vice.

And yes, its not the most practical of bench vices, but its way cooler and it looks fantastic.

 

[dannysheff]

My main vice that's taken an absolute beating over the years says 'handy G3' on the side?

Looks old

Handy was the name for Parkinsons non-quick-release range of vices -- I think they wanted to be so identified with quick release, that, unlike their Perfect and Samsonia ranges, they usually didn't cast their name into the side of the Handy vices, although they did make them from before 1900 to a few years after 1950, and they're in parkinsons catalogues - they even claim that they were the originator of this style of vice.
As a non QR, the fine Parkinsons ball vice a few posts above was part of the Handy range

 

[CwazyWabbit]

Oldest cast iron/steel bench vice??

I know that blacksmiths type leg/pin/staple vices were made by the tens of thousands from at least early eighteenth century (up until about 30 years ago?) - mostly from wrought iron (maybe mild steel later) with steel jaw faces and screw/box.
And that makers such as Peter Wright made wrought iron bench mount versions with similar style/function/material but no leg.

But who made the earliest cast iron bench vices?

Parkinson seem to have brought out a whole range of cast iron (then cast steel) engineering bench vices with the invention of their quick release in the 1880s, they also brought out the 'Handy' range (no QR) which were very much the model for the basic bench vice of many UK makes eg Record up to today nos 2, 3, 4 etc (but made where in 2020?)). Were these the first such in the UK? There were also a couple of cast iron woodwork types about 5 years before Parky.

I think some cast iron vices were being made in the USA in the 1860s.

Show us your v early cast iron bench vice.

Parkinson bought out the Handy vice before the Perfect range, it was the copying by others of the Handy range that led them to bring out the Perfect range.

 

[dannysheff]

Parkinson bought out the Handy vice before the Perfect range, it was the copying by others of the Handy range that led them to bring out the Perfect range.

thanks Wabbit
I think the Perfect QR type was invented in the early 1880s - do you know when the Handy range was started?

 

[CwazyWabbit]

thanks Wabbit
I think the Perfect QR type was invented in the early 1880s - do you know when the Handy range was started?

Have a read of this page https://www.northlincsweb.net/ParkinsonsShipley/html/expansion.html it implies the Handy was invented in the early 1880's and the QR's followed a few years later after the copying incident.

 

[dannysheff]

Have a read of this page https://www.northlincsweb.net/ParkinsonsShipley/html/expansion.html it implies the Handy was invented in the early 1880's and the QR's followed a few years later after the copying incident.

Thanks - interesting story on that site, but I wonder who the Sheff copiers were - I believe Woden were established much earlier, but not 'big' in vices (nor their offshoot, Record) until later - they both certainly brazenly copied every detail of the QR type after late 1890s when I suppose the patent had expired? And Rededa and Paramo were much later.

If I were Joseph Parkinson or his sons I'd be most annoyed at the QR copying.

Maybe the copiers were Marples and Ward, who both sold limited ranges of Handy-type vices, likewise London retailers such as Melhuish, Buck and Ryan and Governor which own-branded their Sheffield made tools - all these differed slightly and had their name cast-in.

All the bench-top vices in the 1889 exhibition photo are QR - the early type made from 3 castings, bolt-through, including a very big one (model 9A - 7" or even bigger??). the woodworking vice looks slightly different to earliest version I have seen.

 

[pondy]

Managed to get hold of a York 100a. Should have got a picture before i ripped it apart. With the swivel base, should there be a peg etc to locate the vice to the swivel base? when you undo the locking handles it does have a fair bit of sideways movement on the bolts

 

[Viceman]

My latest, cleaned up, came from a joblot, now off to a mate of mine

 

[Gragson]

More bling