Another visit to my parents house, and another look around their garage. I should mention here, without being too specific online, that a confluence of events over the last year has made it imprudent to throw too much money at hobby purchases. So this kind of "shopping"is ideal. My Dad (a child of the Depression) is tickled that someone will be getting some use out of his old tools too.
I finally found the lever cap to the Stanley #3 I mentioned in some earlier posts, but only after two hours of rooting around and gabbing with the neighbors. In the process I happened on a number of other interesting items, one of which was a woodworking vise, marked "Columbian 6CM2".
I don't have it in front of me right now, but the jaws are maybe 6" wide, and the maximum opening is probably 9 inches. With a little fiddling, I should be able to mount it into my workbench.
It had some surface rust on the inside of the jaws and on the two guide rods. (I don't know what they are really called, I'm referring the non-threaded rods). I managed to remove the rust pretty easily with some Scotch-Brite and a wire wheel. The threaded rod was not rusted. The nuts that fasten the guide rods are quite rusted and I may replace tham, although they were not seized andlossened easily enough.
The vise is now disassembled, cleaned of rust and coated with some
3-in-1 oil. I have a few questions.I intend to mount some wood on the jaws to make them non-marring. Any advice as to what sort of wood to use? Would you use nuts and bolts to attach them, countersinking the bolt-head below the surface of the wood?Or would you use wood crews from the outside?
The jaws were originally painted a machine gray-blue. I'm thinking that painting them again would be a good idea, to prevent further rusting. I imagine that the type of paint wouldn't affect the functionality, as they won't touch any of my work directly. I figure some kind of Rustoleum would be a good choice.
The vise has mounting holes on the top and on the back. I can see that using both would make for a more solid connection to the bench. My bench does have an overhang, but the profile doesn't exactly fit the vise's dimensions. I'm going to have to add maybe 7/16 thickness of wood in two dimensions to properly affix it and have it have the jaws end up flush with the bench top. I'm figuring that the more robust the wood, the better.
I also think that I should make the holes in the "filler" wood alightly oversized, so the screws don't engage the wood. They'll screw into the bench proper. Or would you use bolts and nuts (and washers) instead? That would be easy enough for the back mounting holes; the bolts would go through the bench's horizontal support and stick out where no one would see them. But what about the top mounting holes? If I used bolts there they would protrude through the bench top. I could drill some flat-bottomed holes to set them in flush, but that still seems wrong. Would you use bolts for the back and (big) wood screws for the top?
As always, any advice would be much appreciated.
Greg Guarino