beeswax as grease

[AAvK]

Fascinating (said Spock). Based on your post and a few others I will no doubt attempt mineral oil mixed with graphite, or buy the grease if I can find it. Thanks for all that TYPING!

[Silvan]

Ah, well, that's probably a good point. Mine is an old 7" non-quick-release type. I just re-did it a bit ago, and I removed the little plate on the back that keeps the screw from coming out. Pulled the screw out, wire brushed the grunk out of the pits on the threads, waxed it, then cycled the screw all the way a couple of times. It's realllly smooth now. Much better than it's been since I restored it.

That vise was an interesting find. It fell off the back of a waterbed store's delivery truck. Guy said it was on there when he bought the truck. He looked at it, looked at me, said "Here, you want a vise?"

I could tell it was some kind of face vise, and it looked old, but it was a complete rust bucket. It was and adventure spanning years getting that thing to work again, and it was well worth the effort. Even though there's some pretty serious pitting on all the threads that weren't inside the gigantic nut, it still works perfectly. That much more perfectly now. I finally even got the pop-up dog to where my son can pop it up. It used to be mighty stiff.

There's nothing like rescuing a gigantic hunk of cast iron from oblivion. This thing could have been made anywhere between the '20s and the '50s. I can't date it closer than that. One things for sure though: they don't make'em like *this* anymore. Those new ones for $100 look incredibly wussy next to this monster. I just wish it was a 10" quick-release version from the same company. Oh well, you can't get everything for free.

Sorry. I ramble about this thing from time to time. I sure am proud of it.

[Charlie Self]

AAvK responds:

What are you lubing? If you use ANY grease or oil on trunnions or other under table gears in a table saw, you are going to have impacted sawdust in short order. That's OK if you enjoy standing on your head to clean the gears on a bi-weekly basis, but I'm getting old enough that I want to reduce that to once every couple, three years.

Charlie Self "One of the common denominators I have found is that expectations rise above that which is expected." George W. Bush

[AAvK]

Doing the same here, it is an old 7x4" vise made by "American Scale Co. KS. MO." No. 204. Found it in a junk shop yard with a homemade aluminum spacer for $20, couldn't go wrong. I have done a ton of cleaning off the rust, there was never any damage because of the rust and it had been sitting outside for years. The jobs left to do are de-rusting the lead screw and painting it. It is an awesome find, 28 pounds of iron.

...some awesome pure dumb luck! See if your vise is like any of these, still being made: Milwaukee Tool & Equipment Company

comes extremely close. Did it literally "fall off" the truck? Soft maleable iron?

I was luckier, sliding dog was only a little stuck in there, wd-40 and wedged it out... needs a new screw-knob that can tighten down. It was missing one nut that holds a guide rod into the front jaw, 3/4-10 and still made but not inthat exact outer shape. I bought two new ones of grade 8. Soaked them in vinegar until the coating was gone and nut turned black. Then coated the nuts in 3-in-one oil and heated them on a the hook of a wire coat hanger, burned the oil on over a gas bbq flame.

What company made your vise? And, what metal is the 1/2-nut made of?

Not even the slightest problem man... RAMBLE! I am proud of my vise too! It is a triumph of a find over feeding the money-monging giants.

[AAvK]

The lead screw of my antique vise. It is made of maleable iron I believe, and the

1/2-nut is a super soft brass alloy. I don't want any abrasives to affect the into the lube and wear it down, such as sawdust and sandpaper grits... that 1/2-nut cannot be replaced unless it's copied. $$$$. The best suggestions I have heard is the use of a graphite lube, store bought graphite grease or powder mixed with wax or oil. Supposedly dusts will "fall off" of the screw when it's turned....?...if a thin layer of graphite lube is used.

[Silvan]

I didn't bother to paint mine. I forget what it weighs, but it's somewhere in that same ballpark.

It's a Morgan 7A, Morgan Vise Co. of Chicago. That's all I know. I've seen them on eBay before, but none recently. The ones I noticed went for about $70. They seem to be floating around, but there's no Morgan Vise Co. Historical Preservation Society or anything like that. It's not a Stanley hand plane. :) I think the 10A was a 10" model, and there's some model or other that had a quick release mechanism. I've seen several of them floating around, but all for rather more than I paid for mine. :)

Literally did, yeah, but it's fine. You could probably drop this thing out of an airplane without hurting it. One of the hardest parts was getting the bolts that had sheared off back out of it. That's why it fell off the truck. It had these weird, thick hunks of rectangular something (iron, steel) in little slots, and I couldn't get them out until I had gotten the headless bolts out of the sliding metal pieces. I don't quite remember how I solved that one.

Clever. I'm not sure what size mine are. Bigass. Fortunately they're both there.

Some kind of ferrous metal. :) I have no idea. Iron, steel. It's basically a 4" cube of solid something with threads cut through it. The rust sealed the outside, and the threads inside this cube, and on the part of the screw where it sat for countless years, are absolutely pristine. Pity the whole screw isn't that pristine, but it works anyway.

They don't build'em like they used to, that's for sure. And they want you to pay $100 for a vise that doesn't have 1/4 as much metal in it as either one of ours.

[AAvK]

Nope... Morgan are still made by the company of the link I gave, take a close look. The morgan name is on their vises as a brand name, not a company name. Something of a poor website.

That is better than mine. I absolutely must get a molding made from mine for a future copy, if that is how it is done.

[Andy Dingley]

Malleable iron isn't an old enough invention to be truly antique. If your vice really is old, don't abuse the castings.