We all have our vices...

[Farside]

Paramo 4-1/2" - lot of history there.
I was after a Record QR, but was let down and found this - just as good and decades of life in it yet. A rub down, bit of paint and a good greasing and it'll be good to go.

I just turned my back and the dirty old sod was trying it on...

 

[Wallace]

Nice find, looks like it's hardly been used.

 

[Farside]

It's had the jaws machined smooth and bears no marks of gorilla use, so at some point was likely looked after and treated right. The totally dry old oil /grease makes me suspect it's been stored for years, or left unused in a maintenance room somewhere. Likely taken out when a place closed.

 

[MattF]

Nice vice. Only recently found out that Record/Paramo were, (originally, not sure if they parted ways on designs at some point?), pretty much one and the same thing.

 

[Farside]

There are some on here who know more of the story, but I pieced some things together.
Paramo, it seems, was set up by the British govt to avoid supply problems if Record got flattened in the war.
Staffed, I suppose, by seconded Record or ex-Record personnel (probably the latter) and this would explain why Record regarded them as a rival, for when the war ended, Paramo didn't.
It looks as if the first Paramo vice was a direct copy of one of the Parkinson Perfect Vises, of which the copyright was long since expired, and there's a continuity of design there, as so were some of the Record line, ironically enough. So, while Record might have groused about 'copies' there was nothing they could do about it and in any case the Govt were behind the scheme.
That one of mine is almost a direct ringer for a Parkinson and the lineage from the early Perfect is plain.

Parkinson Model F 1880s

Parkinson Number 7

1951 Paramo advert

You can see the 1951 vice has done away with the through-bolts for the jaws and has a push-button QR, which I've never seen on anything before or since, so it probably didn't curry favour or was unreliable. It was an attempt to get away from the standard design that was becoming associated with Record and which Record had merely copied or filched for themselves, anyway.
Mine falls somewhere before that and since mine has no model number, nor any place one could have been, I wonder if mine was the only one Paramo made at that time - ie, the very first model, wartime product.

 

[MattF]

Never seen that type of quick release mechanism before. Damn you for showing something quirky. That'll be bugging me 'til I get to see one in the flesh now.

Definitely a lot of similarity to the Parkinson, although the styling is slight more angular, and the Parkinson's had no bevelled edges. The uprights are a lot chunkier at the bottom portion too. This is another shot of a No. 7.

 

[Farside]

There's little doubt they share a common root though, and detail differences are down to the desire of someone to improve, add lightness or strength or reduce cost. For instance; that bevelled slide on the Paramo gives a much greater wearing surface than a hard corner, but it surprises me it's on a wartime product, when everything should be quick, simple, cheap and effective. Still, plenty of other stuff was more complicated than it needed to be and perhaps the designer had a little hobby horse or bee in his bonnet about that. Might have been waiting his chance for years to improve a Record vice, for example Or perhaps it was enough of a difference for Paramo to say it wasn't a Parkinson or a Record copy.

<edit>
The Paramo fixed-jaw casting is shorter and the angled slide would be stronger in that casting (doing away with the stress riser of a 90deg corner), so it all uses less material - a result in wartime, even allowing for extra machining.

 

[breezer]

here's a few pictures of a 7" Samsonia Perfect vice I was GIVEN recently. Amazed at the quality of this and if I were to buy a new equivalent how much it would cost for something of similar build!

http://www.mig-welding.co.uk/forum/useralbums/breezers-album.748/view

 

[Farside]

here's a few pictures of a 7" Samsonia Perfect vice I was GIVEN recently. Amazed at the quality of this and if I were to buy a new equivalent how much it would cost for something of similar build!

http://www.mig-welding.co.uk/forum/useralbums/breezers-album.748/view

Oh, nice. I think my bench would collapse under that.

 

[MattF]

Oh, nice. I think my bench would collapse under that.

Mine would probably grunt a bit too. Must admit, I had been contemplating keeping an eye out for a really large vice, (I still think breezer is a jammy git with that appropriation ), but then I realised that I can't honestly think of a reason I'd need one. Even the Parkinson 7 I rarely use, and that's my largest vice currently. Most of the time I'm perfectly fine using just the little Record No. 1. The one drawback of the larger vices is the space they take up. Still wouldn't mind a large one, if it wasn't just for that fact.

 

[Benthosboy]

Howdo all.

Only just noticed this thread but it's made me a bit misty-eyed. Well over 40 years ago, my dear old Dad was a maintenance fitter at Parramore's Foundry in Chapeltown. He was there for quite a few years and he got me a job there when I left school in 1980. I have incredibly fond memories of sitting on the back step with him on summer mornings, having a pot of tea before he went to work, and even now whenever I walk into an engineering works, the smell of bright bar and grinding dust brings it all flooding back.

The foundry on Smith Street is long gone, replaced by houses, and my Dad sadly died just 2 years ago.

Sorry, can't write any more for tears.

 

[Wallace]

You're not alone with those thoughts, my Father, brother and I all worked at the same company that went years ago to an asset stripper.

 

[sardine]

We always used leg vices in the gun trade, why I don't know. We regularly cast new lead jaw covers for them, with a big iron ladle of roofing lead.you could squash little screws and bits and bobs between the lead to hold them.

 

[Farside]

We always used leg vices in the gun trade, why I don't know. We regularly cast new lead jaw covers for them, with a big iron ladle of roofing lead.you could squash little screws and bits and bobs between the lead to hold them.

That's an idea - I need to make soft jaws for mine. It would be a damn shame to mark the jaws at this stage, as someone's obviously looked after it for years.

 

[Rig Pig]

I have a couple of bits of aluminium angle to use as soft jaws.

 

[Farside]

Excellent idea - I have some 2" brass right angle.

 

[sardine]

If you make a mould with 2 peices of angle arranged with a half inch gap, you can cast the lead jaws. Unlike ally angle you just re cast them when they get chewed up.

 

[GrumpyOne]

Hi All

I picked up a Paramo No1 vice yesterday for £5, it's a nice little vice, looks like it has been hardly used in it's life. I wondered if anyone knew anything about them and if I got a reasonable deal?

 

[Farside]

Fiver? You jammy sod.

 

[CRB]

Two pervy vice threads.

?What is happening here?




I would show you mine but broke another camera and cannot justify getting a replacement.