Found a new vise

[Pistolero]

I have had smaller and cheaper vises forever, and they work OK, but a friend got a
Starrett at a machine shop closeout auction years ago and I have admired it for
years. His is the sheet metal type with narrow jaws, but I wanted a bit heavier duty
standard style.
I found this today and it is in my trunk now, will install on bench later today.


I think I will shoot some red paint on that base, unless it looks plated upon closer inspection.

It is a 5".

Bill

 

[KeithB]

Nice score Bill.

 

[Pistolero]

Thank you, I'm kinda tickled about it.
As usual, Starrett is good stuff, although I have read a few complaints about
newer production, not sure. All the Starrett stuff I have is old and very nicely made.

The most amazing thing about my friend's vise it that it will open to about 14"!!!

Really surprising, the only vise like that that I have ever seen is his. Look at this
monster!

Bill

 

[KeithB]

Bill, it looks like the pipe jaws down inside your vise are part of the main casting. I have a similar vise (not a Starret) and the jaws inside are loose-pinned in place and can be removed/swapped out fairly easily, I guess to prevent wear to the casting and be able to use different sized jaws for larger pipes. I rarely use them.

I saw a competitor's setup on "Forged in Fire" with one vise anchored to the top flange on one end of a horizontal I-beam. Another identical vise was anchored to a plate with some clamps so it could be located anywhere along the I-beam and secured in place. Easy way to hold long pieces. Thinking about making something like that.

One vise is always welcome to have around, two vises are good, two that can work together would be even better.

 

[Pistolero]

Interesting idea. Haven't often needed to clamp really long work like that. Will
keep it in mind if I run into it.

We watch Forged in Fire, too. Very interesting show, but I am amazed
at how often some knucklehead insists on using something weak and brittle for handle
scales and winds up a lot worse of than if he had chosen G10 or micarta which will never
give you any trouble. I love to see some of the crazy ideas on heat treating, too. Never,
ever show any tempering, seem to try to gauge the temperature and cooling rate to get
the final hardness right....crazy, if you ask me. I'd want to get it screaming hot, quench to
max hard (too brittle) and oven temper back to a known hardness/toughness condition
which I had previous evaluated with test samples. This is, of course, only when they are
back at their home forges and can select the alloy and have enough time to properly
heat treat. Seems like they treat it as purely a black art, not the science that it is.

As to pipe jaws, almost never use them, not a priority, didn't even notice them, actually.
I have a huge Chinese vise that has replaceable plate pipe jaws. Not actually too bad a
vise, especially considering the low price, but it literally has bondo on it for final finish
before paint. Scraped it and showed about 1/16th layer of bondo, had to laugh. Must
be one seriously ugly casting under there!

The vise is mounted on the bench now, replacing an OK quality old 3 5/8 Craftsman vise.

Bill

 

[smokeywolf]

Don't think you'll ever regret acquiring that Starrett vise Bill. Looks like something that might be passed along through many generations of heirs.

Don't know about today's Starrett vises, but the old Starretts, Columbians and Wiltons were all good vises. I wouldn't knock some of the old Craftsman tools. Some were of very decent quality.

I have a Wilton, Columbian and a cheap Harbor Freight.

 

[freebullet]

I like the wide jaw one. That's really handy.

Our old shop vise has authentic patina I'm not gunna disturb.
In other words I'm much to lazy, err..uhh..busy to paint it.

 

[Pistolero]

Yes, I oiled it and cleaned up the small anvil surface and oiled it, greased
the screw with synthetic grease. Should be good for a long time.

I htink I will keep the old smaller Craftsman, really not a bad little vise,
has done some good work over the years.

Bill

 

[Bret4207]

Nice vice! I have several Columbians and Craftsman. I also have 2 or 3 blacksmiths post or leg vices. The best of them all is a Cole vice, a massive monster of a vice that was marketed to industry back in the day. I also lucked onto a matching Cole drill, which is sort of a portable, manual, power feed affair. Again, was marketed to industry back in the days before magnetic drills and such. I seem to have a weakness for 30's and 40's era tech.

That shooting, another kid isolated by illness and perhaps personality, that slid through the cracks that seem to get wider everyday. No one has any faith anymore, so why live? Sad, sad state of affairs.

 

[Pistolero]

How about a photo of the drill, Bret? Sounds intriguing.

 

[RicinYakima]

Looked for a Cole drill for years and never found one.

 

[Ian]

I've broken two Harbor Freight vises, only good part was I was making money doing it. I'd love to find an old Wilton that rotates and has the pipe jaws on the bottom side, opposite the barrel. Best vise I have now is an old Craftsman 5" that I found in un-abused condition in an antique store for $45.

 

[Pistolero]

OK, here is a page on the Cole drill. Seems very cool.

http://www.rustyiron.com/Articles/drillingholes,co.html

 

[Intheshop]

Pistolero, the pipe jaws are handy to hold telescoping tube fixtures. The outer sleeve going into the Starrett,the inner has whatever holder welded to it's end.You have the swivel base axis,move it in and out,and pivot on end axis.Make one for a rifle? or welding fixture.Like a third arm around the bench.

 

[Bret4207]

Heres a Cole drill and vise download found. Not sure how to do this but here goes- file:///C:/Users/Bret/Downloads/ColeDrill.pdf

Okay, that didn't work, try this, same thing- http://www.rustyiron.com/literature/ColeDrill.pdf


That seemed to go. I had a great idea for hooking the Cole vise to a receiver hitch insert and being able to use it anywhere. Only problem is the Cole vise is set up to take a bolt about 1.5" in diameter, so I need to make a bushing. Haven't got around to it yet. I also have a roughly 4 foot square table made of 1" thick steel. FIL had it in the body shop, weighs a lot. If I could attach the Cole to that I'd also have a good base to use it off of. As of now the table has a 4" Williamston (?) vise on it that the swivel won't stay if you reef on it at all. Some day...

I still ahve to locate a decent handle for the drill. Mine was apparently wood or bakelite or something that either rotted or shattered away. Good excuse for the wood lathe I've always wanted but have no room for!

 

[Pistolero]

A very interesting device that I was entirely unfamiliar with. Seems like making up one
from scratch wouldn't be too difficult. The ratchet would be the hardest, probably best to
make a half inch square female connection on the top of the quill and drive it with a
1/2 standard ratchet handle.

Bill

 

[Bret4207]

The down feed is that great big nut just below the handle ratchet. You could probably use a strap wrench on it, but the little I've used it it feeds pretty good with just hand pressure. It's very fine threaded and I would imagine you've have to be up into a 1" plus drill on hard steel before you needed much more than hand pressure or maybe a set of Channel Locks. I have a Buffalo Forge (IIRC) Blacksmiths drill press with the power feed. The whole thing is manual and I've used drills up in the 1 1/2" range with it. It's quite a work out and despite the power feed a pilot hole sure makes life easier.

Used to be a shop in Newcomb NY run by a little frenchman named Rene. He worked on all sorts of logging and mining equipment and bought a mess of stuff from GE in Schenectady when they were shutting down one section. He got a power feed radial drill press. I was there the first time he tried it out. Drilled a 4" hole in 2" mild steel for a hinge joint with no pilot hole. You could just about stroll around the drill press and move faster than the rpm of the drill, but it was pulling a coiled chip off the workpiece like nothing I've ever seen. Very impressive.

 

[RicinYakima]

That is the advantage of the Cole press. When we had logging in the National Forests in WA, several shops here had Cole drills for taking to the woods to do repair work. The beauty of the drill is that it was portable, and not confined to a fix place and angle.

 

[Bret4207]

I agree, the Cole is surely portable and if you can clamp it to something, you can drill it. It's gonna take some time and effort, but it will get done. In a way it reminds me of the old beam drills they used to make for doing post and beam barns/buildings or on ship and wooden bridge work. You could basically sit on the frame of the drill and you got to use both hands to drive the gearing for the dill bit. You worked up a sweat turning the handles but it sure beat a 1/2 a turn at a time auger for drilling a lot of holes. I have one of those beam drills and I sometimes look at it (I've never really used it for real work) and wonder what stories it could tell!

 

[RicinYakima]

While I was in the Combat Engineers in the 1960's we had a lot of the 1920-1945 technology tools. Big bridges were Baily Bridges, but small stuff we made on the spot. All of our tools and equipment were able to be slung under helicopters since we were an Air-Mobile unit. While electronic stuff is very common now, if you want to move heavy things it takes roads, and they get build the old fashion way, with lots of labor.

If you search U Tube for: Battleground - Vietnam, The Combat Engineer and the duties they performed. Lots of old time tools and stuff we did.