Show us your bench vice(s)

[GraemeVW]

Has this been posted here before?

View attachment 403489

Tins of Record Blue being used to paint their products in 1977.

All big 'uns but more than 2 models for you to ID.

I'm not convinced they are being painted.
Painted while assembled?
All the ones I've had apart were painted in areas that wouldn't be accessible when assembled.

Could they be applying some kind of protective coating?

 

[GraemeVW]

On eBay.
Nice, and id like to own it, but £400 seems steep even if the rear of the dynamic jaw hadn't been repaired.

 

[dannysheff]

I'm not convinced they are being painted.
Painted while assembled?
All the ones I've had apart were painted in areas that wouldn't be accessible when assembled.

Could they be applying some kind of protective coating?

good questions - dunno, pic wasn't taken by me - maybe it's a touch-up that's going on, but they do look like pots of paint and paint brushes and the vices closer to the camera do have something of a raw, unpainted look; did cross my mind that there might be lubeing going on but the woman on the right looks like she's working with her brush on one of the areas that would be painted, not greased, and the other could be 'painting' either. I also wondered why no splashes, but skilled brush painter with right consistency paint wouldn't splash much

I don't think there was a protective coating on the paint, but could have been on the 'bright' areas, but then they don't seem to be 'painting' those.

could be the 'inaccesible' areas are painted before assembly, then the outer surfaces after - I've done that on a refurb job

 

[ranger08]

an original engineers vice with original blue paint over grey primer

 

[Primer]

Morning all,

I'm in the process of acquiring tools for when I build my workshop later this year and picked up a couple of vices from Facebook market place:
a Samsonia Perfect 37J & a Record 34P, apparently there was a leak in the garage roof above where the vices were (explains why yhe record is so rusty), the lady was selling her late husbands stuff off, she wanted £45 for the Record and £65 for the Samsonia, however I scored both for £60 as I found the Samsonia wasn't working right as it wasn't consistently winding in and out on the handle, sometimes it jumped, others it did nothing, it slid in and out ok on the QR.
I suspected there was something wrong with the QR spring engagement not forcing the mechanism onto the screw but wasn't sure as never worked on one before but she said her husband only ever used the Record and was happy to just get rid of them.
I've stripped the Samsonia down and found that the QR spring was very loose, it looks like it's been stripped down before as it had a couple of mis-sized bolts in a size of M6 with a pitch of 1.25, holding the QR mechanism inplace, one has a slightly different size to the other and ones thread is really chewed up, on talking to Wentin fastners they said the 1.25 pitch is too coarse for an M6 bolt so I'm thinking they are home made and just forced in, I will try later to see if an M6 tap with a 1.0 pitch goes in easily otherwise I might just retap to an M8 x 1.25.

So I will be stripping both down, give them a degrease, de rust, some new paint and lubricant and I guess When I put the QR back on the Samsonia I just need to tension the spring up a bit more with the castle nut (not sure of the proper name for it but similar to a castle nut) and hope that fixes it.

On the Record I can see that it's chewed up a washer on the back end of the screw, should I replace that (or leave as is?), I'm guessing I just grind off the rivet pin holding the endcap on to remove the screw, then either stick a nut & bolt through it or make up a new rivet pin and heat and hammer it?

 

[Arc Tourist]

Hello, and welcome to the forum.

 

[Seadog]

The holes are more likely 1/4" x 20tpi which is 1/4" Whitworth.

 

[The_Yellow_Ardvark]

1/4 unc was what I found.

 

[Seadog]

What's 5°, between friends?

 

[The_Yellow_Ardvark]

In rum?
Nowt.

On a vice, wellllllllll then.................................................

 

[Primer]

The holes are more likely 1/4" x 20tpi which is 1/4" Whitworth.

I'm thinking they are homemade, they are pretty soft, Wentin fastners in Yeovil said to take the anvil down to them and they will see if they can sort something out for me but I'm wondering if it will just be easier to drill and retap to M10 x1.0.

 

[Seadog]

Noooooooo

 

[dannysheff]

Morning all,

I'm in the process of acquiring tools for when I build my workshop later this year and picked up a couple of vices from Facebook market place:
a Samsonia Perfect 37J & a Record 34P, apparently there was a leak in the garage roof above where the vices were (explains why yhe record is so rusty), the lady was selling her late husbands stuff off, she wanted £45 for the Record and £65 for the Samsonia, however I scored both for £60 as I found the Samsonia wasn't working right as it wasn't consistently winding in and out on the handle, sometimes it jumped, others it did nothing, it slid in and out ok on the QR.
I suspected there was something wrong with the QR spring engagement not forcing the mechanism onto the screw but wasn't sure as never worked on one before but she said her husband only ever used the Record and was happy to just get rid of them.
I've stripped the Samsonia down and found that the QR spring was very loose, it looks like it's been stripped down before as it had a couple of mis-sized bolts in a size of M6 with a pitch of 1.25, holding the QR mechanism inplace, one has a slightly different size to the other and ones thread is really chewed up, on talking to Wentin fastners they said the 1.25 pitch is too coarse for an M6 bolt so I'm thinking they are home made and just forced in, I will try later to see if an M6 tap with a 1.0 pitch goes in easily otherwise I might just retap to an M8 x 1.25.

So I will be stripping both down, give them a degrease, de rust, some new paint and lubricant and I guess When I put the QR back on the Samsonia I just need to tension the spring up a bit more with the castle nut (not sure of the proper name for it but similar to a castle nut) and hope that fixes it.

On the Record I can see that it's chewed up a washer on the back end of the screw, should I replace that (or leave as is?), I'm guessing I just grind off the rivet pin holding the endcap on to remove the screw, then either stick a nut & bolt through it or make up a new rivet pin and heat and hammer it?

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nice vices - nice project

both vices are cast steel, and look in pretty good nick (past the rust) and well worth your rehabbing 'em

the pix show that nib on the static part of the casting - characteristic of Parky -- anyone know what it's for? datum point for machining?

 

[MattF]

1/4 unc was what I found.

On a Parkinson? UNC would fit if the thread in the hole was a bit sloppy, but it'll have been BSW.

 

[Primer]

Noooooooo

Ha ha

So you got me thinking and I realised these old vices were made in imperial times, so my metric tools are no good and I started looking at imperial tap & die sets on Amazon, then I remembered that in the back of one of the sheds is a load of old tools left behind by the previous owners ( my wife's nan and she died 4yrs ago at the ripe old age of 104, and had lived here for 80+ yrs), so just been digging through the tools and I found an imperial tap & die set and imperial sockets and spanners

So indeed it is a 1/4 x 20 bolt, so I've chased out the threads on the anvil and managed to clean up the threads on the bolts, I will see how they holdup but get some spares as backup.

 

[StevieO]

Morning all,

I'm in the process of acquiring tools for when I build my workshop later this year and picked up a couple of vices from Facebook market place:
a Samsonia Perfect 37J & a Record 34P, apparently there was a leak in the garage roof above where the vices were (explains why yhe record is so rusty), the lady was selling her late husbands stuff off, she wanted £45 for the Record and £65 for the Samsonia, however I scored both for £60 as I found the Samsonia wasn't working right as it wasn't consistently winding in and out on the handle, sometimes it jumped, others it did nothing, it slid in and out ok on the QR.
I suspected there was something wrong with the QR spring engagement not forcing the mechanism onto the screw but wasn't sure as never worked on one before but she said her husband only ever used the Record and was happy to just get rid of them.
I've stripped the Samsonia down and found that the QR spring was very loose, it looks like it's been stripped down before as it had a couple of mis-sized bolts in a size of M6 with a pitch of 1.25, holding the QR mechanism inplace, one has a slightly different size to the other and ones thread is really chewed up, on talking to Wentin fastners they said the 1.25 pitch is too coarse for an M6 bolt so I'm thinking they are home made and just forced in, I will try later to see if an M6 tap with a 1.0 pitch goes in easily otherwise I might just retap to an M8 x 1.25.

So I will be stripping both down, give them a degrease, de rust, some new paint and lubricant and I guess When I put the QR back on the Samsonia I just need to tension the spring up a bit more with the castle nut (not sure of the proper name for it but similar to a castle nut) and hope that fixes it.

On the Record I can see that it's chewed up a washer on the back end of the screw, should I replace that (or leave as is?), I'm guessing I just grind off the rivet pin holding the endcap on to remove the screw, then either stick a nut & bolt through it or make up a new rivet pin and heat and hammer it?

View attachment 404083View attachment 404084View attachment 404088View attachment 404091View attachment 404092View attachment 404096 View attachment 404093 View attachment 404094 View attachment 404095

Welcome to the forum.
Whitworth - per other answers, but note you can replace the Record washer either as a bought kit including new spring and pin, or by sourcing separates. I've found the washers do get mangled a bit with the loading against the pin. The Record RD number was established in 1920 so yours is after this date. Perhaps someone knows when they dropped the RD number on their castings which would give a latter date.

The Parkinson Samsonia is post 1884 (Patent date for Perfect Vise) and were still shown in J Buck/Buck and Hickman catalogues from 1912 until 1964, but not in their 1971 catalogue. All with the Tulip (or meatball) hub and QR a la Parkinson Perfect patent.

Nice tap and die set BTW.

 

[Primer]

Welcome to the forum.
Whitworth - per other answers, but note you can replace the Record washer either as a bought kit including new spring and pin, or by sourcing separates. I've found the washers do get mangled a bit with the loading against the pin. The Record RD number was established in 1920 so yours is after this date. Perhaps someone knows when they dropped the RD number on their castings which would give a latter date.

The Parkinson Samsonia is post 1884 (Patent date for Perfect Vise) and were still shown in J Buck/Buck and Hickman catalogues from 1912 until 1964, but not in their 1971 catalogue. All with the Tulip (or meatball) hub and QR a la Parkinson Perfect patent.

Nice tap and die set BTW.

Thanks for the reply, could you point me in the direction of where to purchase the Record 34P washers as I can't seem to find anything on a Google search?

 

[SteveB58]

Ha ha

So you got me thinking and I realised these old vices were made in imperial times, so my metric tools are no good and I started looking at imperial tap & die sets on Amazon, then I remembered that in the back of one of the sheds is a load of old tools left behind by the previous owners ( my wife's nan and she died 4yrs ago at the ripe old age of 104, and had lived here for 80+ yrs), so just been digging through the tools and I found an imperial tap & die set and imperial sockets and spanners

So indeed it is a 1/4 x 20 bolt, so I've chased out the threads on the anvil and managed to clean up the threads on the bolts, I will see how they holdup but get some spares as backup.View attachment 404229View attachment 404230

Welcome indeed, fine pair of vices that will give you hours of happiness banging away. If I can add my two penneth worth, I would replace the bolts at some point. While you've chaised down the thread the lose of metal, especially the top one, (or is it the bottom one in the second picture), will not hold as well as it should - even with a dab of Locktight. Looks like someone has cross threaded at some point. If the internal threads are ok, all well and good, otherwise I'd drill out to next size up, tap holes and make appropriate sized bolts.

Steve

 

[CRS51]

Could anyone identify this vice please, it’s currently in transit to me.
Thanks, Chris.

 

[GraemeVW]

Could anyone identify this vice please, it’s currently in transit to me.
Thanks, Chris.
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I can't, but i saw it for sale and thought it looked interesting.

Update us when it arrives.