Show us your bench vice(s)

[Lugh Lámfada]

The 3 behind the leg vice will have to be for another day, nut going to dig them out now

 

[Vono]

Don’t suppose you two have done a colour match on those parkinsons, ie taken it to a paint shop and had a formula analysed would love to know the colour

No sorry.
To be honest i try to lift it as little as possible, it really is damned heavy for its jaw width !

 

[SteveB58]

Yes it is.
And it is MINE MINE MINE.

Had one a while, posted pictures a while back. One day I will use it to set and sharpen a saw blade. Think mine's a Disston (?),

 

[SteveB58]

Record imp. In all it's unrestored beauty.
View attachment 350189
One i never actually researched, a Dinky
View attachment 350190
A zyliss, lead screw is sightly bent unfortunately, so will need a little work at since stage.

View attachment 350191
And the pièce de résistance!
View attachment 350192
My main working vice, no name record knockoff I suspect, probably 40-50 years old, it's been beaten, weld splattered, drilled, pieces broken of, etc. But still going strong ish. Belonged to my grandfather, so it's staying on the bench.

Editing to say, please excuse the current state of my work bench, but really it nearly always looks like that!

Nobody with a tidy bench ever did anything.

 

[MattF]

Editing to say, please excuse the current state of my work bench, but really it nearly always looks like that!

You're in good company here.

 

[Arc Tourist]

Had one a while, posted pictures a while back. One day I will use it to set and sharpen a saw blade. Think mine's a Disston (?),

I remember my Dad had a Disston saw vice similar to yours, except it had a ball on the lower end which fitted into a bench clamp so you could adjust it to about any angle. Don't know what ever happened to it.

 

[Lugh Lámfada]

Had one a while, posted pictures a while back. One day I will use it to set and sharpen a saw blade. Think mine's a Disston (?),

Can send you my disston if you would like to sharpen it! ;-)

Was a recent project to clean it up and rehandle it.

No vice in this post, but the handles 'clamp' on.
Edited again, actually the record 00 is in the first pic :-)

 

[SteveB58]

I remember my Dad had a Disston saw vice similar to yours, except it had a ball on the lower end which fitted into a bench clamp so you could adjust it to about any angle. Don't know what ever happened to it.

I believe at the bottom of mine there is a 'thingy' which allows you to tilt the main vice. I can only compare it to the arrangement of a bicycle saddle. I'll dig it out tomorrow as long as I don't find anything too exciting at the car boot!

Steve

 

[SteveB58]

Can send you my disston if you would like to sharpen it! ;-)
View attachment 350200
Was a recent project to clean it up and rehandle it.
View attachment 350203
View attachment 350206
No vice in this post, but the handles 'clamp' on.
Edited again, actually the record 00 is in the first pic :-)

Believe I have a Disston in the shed somewhere, apparently they are excellent saws. Though being an ex spanner monkey I find it to long and unwieldly, I prefer a Japanese saw.

Steve

 

[25.4_mechanic]

One i never actually researched, a Dinky

Hi Lugh,

and welcome to THE vice/vise place.

One very similar to your Dinky I have presented HERE to the very end - yours has the °-scale which I miss, I have some interesting jaws.
We should find out something about them.

"West Of Ireland" .... hmmm, St.Pierre&Miquelon? Labrador? Newfoundland? I'm curious

Have a good time

Carsten

--

 

[Barking Mat]

Welcome @Lugh Lámfada , loving your vices, and piles of stock, and mess.

 

[Arc Tourist]

I believe at the bottom of mine there is a 'thingy' which allows you to tilt the main vice. I can only compare it to the arrangement of a bicycle saddle. I'll dig it out tomorrow as long as I don't find anything too exciting at the car boot!

Steve

I noticed that in your previous photo. Seen the same sort of thing before on an old branch trimming saw we had that was on a long pole. You could adjust the saw by unscrewing a wing nut then retightening it when a more efficient cutting angle was desired.

 

[ranger08]

Hi

Of course, right at the beginning, when you introduced this new acquisition, I felt called to say something about it.

Unfortunately, I have not been able to make a clear classification in the meantime, but I can share my observations:

- The design clearly points to a German manufacturer, whereby one must understand Germany in its largest extension, thus also including Poland, Kaliningrad, the Czech Republic, Austria and other areas, because large foundries are notoriously difficult to move and take with one when the enemy approaches;

- The "piggy nose" is more often seen on German vises and not a specific feature of GDR vises - you only need the outermost radius to drive the spindle, steel was always expensive and in the East they adopted all the material-cutting measures and in many cases pushed them further;

- This vice has strong similarities to Eikar, manufactured by Breitenfeld & Scholz in Bunzlau, now Bolesławiec in south-west Poland.
There, too, one could not save much more than one's naked skin when one fled, and so a successor company in Poland later had a good start.
View attachment 350130

View attachment 350131

- However, I also see differences, e.g. I haven't seen the captive nut in the cast on the underside anywhere;

- But what I think I can say for sure is that it is not from socialist production:
View attachment 350132

Obove is clearly a measure to "convince" the customer to continue buying all spare parts and accessories from me in the future.
Breitenfeld & Scholz had some patents to enshure exactly that.

This is the exact opposite of the "use of identical parts" as it was practised in the East and is also today in large companies.

(That's why today I sometimes like to work with equipment made in the East, for example: A watchmaker needs a timing machine, and the Swiss and German manufacturers have outdone themselves in making the paper strips smaller and the ink ribbons more and more exotic in order to secure follow-up orders.
The opposite was true in the Eastern Bloc: there was essentially only one timing machine,
the PPTsch-7m

View attachment 350137,
which everyone had and which had to run everywhere. Consequence still today: any ordinary typewriter ribbon and a normal cash register roll fits for working and recording).

- For me, it is also clear that the specimen is a pre-war vice from somewhere in the (former) German-speaking world; in the East, these extravagant jaws would have been an immediate thing of the past.

Keep us updated when you find out more,
will do the same.



Carsten

--

Thanks as always Carsten

the vice is cast steel, has the usual matching cast numbers, has EL stamped into the spindle nose
and at the front top of the anvil something was stamped, theres an f and p then at the end just make out -914, was thinking it may of been the date of manufacture, however it is very hard to read so couldnt be certain
yours has the same rear thread locating and the same spindle nose retaining plate, so i am now going down that road to try and place, thanks for the research
the jaw plate retaining is certainly a way of ensuring ongoing spare part sales, good luck trying to find spares from anyone else!

 

[25.4_mechanic]

has the usual matching cast numbers, has EL stamped into the spindle nose

Are the fonts of your casting stamp comparable to my copy?
Your EL seems to me to be from the same font family?!?!?

Carsten

--

 

[dannysheff]

Can send you my disston if you would like to sharpen it! ;-)
View attachment 350200
Was a recent project to clean it up and rehandle it.
View attachment 350203
View attachment 350206
No vice in this post, but the handles 'clamp' on.
Edited again, actually the record 00 is in the first pic :-)

very fine old two-person saw, good refurb - these big ol things often had the raker teeth swaged as well as the cutters filed, I believe. Do you use it?

 

[slim_boy_fat]

Belonged to my grandfather, so it's staying on the bench.

What better reason could there be? Love that Dinky one

 

[dannysheff]

On p337 I showed a "Peter Wright-type" parallel vice as everyone seems to call em, but my swivel jaw version is not name marked (just some numbers to match parts and a faint marking of the cast base segment. I had believed it most likely to come from a Birmingham maker such as Wright, Allday-Onions, or Lewis; or just poss Mousehole Forge to the N of Sheffield.

But in the window of a Sheffield shop I today saw as part of display an ad from C19th showing the Easterbrook and Allcard, Albert Works products including their own "patented parallel all wrought iron vice". So maybe those "Peter Wrights" not marked as such are actually E&A's - interestingly looks like their main brand became Albert Tools, then Presto (well known till recently for drill bits, cutting tools etc.)

Those are -- 1872 ad (love the 'portable vice'); 1867 ad, and recent RIBA award-winning conversion of Albert Works, incidentally located right behind the huge (closed) Neepsend/Pitsmoor works of Stanley UK - very trendy but not in a trendy (yet) part of town. (It's a workspace with coffee, not yet another bar).

I do wish that the maker had marked my vice with name, there are numbers/signs (for matching a set of forgings?) but no brand on the main body -- on the cast base (bought-in?) there are some marks which I could optimistically interpret as ----? - generally not a good idea to stamp-mark a casting. Could it be an E&A?

BTW what a skilful job to (usually hand hammer by a team of two or more) forge-weld and forge-shape wrought iron into anvils let alone the complexity of blacksmiths leg vices or 'parallel vices' of the E&A type and the steel jaws were usually forge welded on (the nut and screw were also steel). This forged wrought iron technique was also favoured for huge ship's anchors and chains - some of the most expensive Japanese chisels (and they are pricey) have their backs made from old salvaged 1900 British-made anchor chain (for a battleship just one link would be a difficult one person lift). Why use wrought iron? - toughness - not hard, but will not shatter, but not bend, wear or cut resistant, and cannot harden - thus the steel jaws, nut, screw. Like steel the wrought iron vice is usually significantly lighter than the equivalent size/duty cast iron (and was more expensive, even then).

 

[ranger08]

Are the fonts of your casting stamp comparable to my copy?
Your EL seems to me to be from the same font family?!?!?

View attachment 350304

Carsten

--

yes I believe they may be, mine have a clear “.” After the number

the position of the number is not on the dovetail as your seem to be

 

[The_Yellow_Ardvark]

Well.

I brought a Erwin 6" vice today for £45.

Was lugging it back to the van when another trader asked what I wanted for it.

I said £75.

I got £75.

But no pictures.

 

[Seadog]

That was a close shave...