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Vise: What’s on Your Bench?

FleshEater

FleshEater

Ordinary Average Guy
Joined
May 21, 2020
Member Number
832
Messages
3,633
Loc
Pennsylvania
I need a bigger vise. Something that can handle a 6’ pipe on the end of a breaker bar vise. :grinpimp:

Any recommendations? I know there was a thread on the old site, but :flipoff2: that place.

Seems like everyone wants $250 for old, heavy vises. Gone are the days of cheap, big vises.
 
took me a few years of looking to find my $150? 7" one
boiler shop was closing down
Next day I saw another 8" for $100, but decided against it, looked back an hour later and it was gone.

pretty much, you're going to have to pay out the ass (bigger wiltons are a thousand plus new), or be in the right place at the right time
even then a 6' pipe will break almost any vise, bend the handle at least for sure
 
[486 said:
;n280216]took me a few years of looking to find my $150? 7" one
boiler shop was closing down
Next day I saw another 8" for $100, but decided against it, looked back an hour later and it was gone.

pretty much, you're going to have to pay out the ass (bigger wiltons are a thousand plus new), or be in the right place at the right time
even then a 6' pipe will break almost any vise, bend the handle at least for sure
Click to expand...

I saw that. I might keep looking for cheap used ones.

For the time being I’m going to add a 12”x12” steel plate under my bench where the vise bolts in to try and keep it from ripping out of the wood.
 
6 or 7 inch kurt angle lock.
 
FleshEater said:
I saw that. I might keep looking for cheap used ones.

For the time being I’m going to add a 12”x12” steel plate under my bench where the vise bolts in to try and keep it from ripping out of the wood.
Click to expand...

I've been meaning to make a couple concrete work benches
I was looking for a 2-3x8 or so piece of 3/4-1" plate to make a bench top outta but nothing's been available for less than prime steel prices, so... concrete is heavy and cheap
 
$250 will get you more on the used market than it will new. I paid $120 for my Rock Island 595 a few years ago. It was greasy and dirty, missing the jaws and had been used that way long enough that the body of the vise itself was pretty well worn. I found a guy that makes nice hardened jaws for older vises for another 100 bucks. I need to build a real bench to put it on. I have a china vise on my little roll around table and I had to take that one apart and fix it before I even bolted it down.

PXL_20210121_041458198.jpg
 
There's another video of him destructive testing it vs some other ones as well. does fairly well.

I'd like to try and build one, just come up with an easier way to build a swivel.

edit: found it

 
I have a 100 year old Reed Vice Company model 104 1/2. It came from a decommissioned battleship that was scrapped in the 1950's. It was gifted to me from the state highway dept mechanic shop when I left that job years ago. They had a bunch of cool old stuff that came off the battleships decommissioned in the decades following WW2. Lathes, milling machines, mechanical press brakes and mechanical shears, you name it. Everything was on a very large scale. the brake could bend like 1" mild steel plate 8 feet wide. The shear would cut 8' of 1/4" mild steel. Anyway, I ended up with an old vice that is a piece of history, even though I have no idea what ship it came from.
 
1207151957.jpg

Here's my lineup of 6" Wiltons. I did end up getting a swivel base for the one on the left so it matches the other two like it now. And the one on the right has an extra deep jaw on it. :flipoff2:
 
Record 3vs (actually made in England)

have been looking king for a deal on a larger vise for over a decade but haven’t had anything fall in my lap.
 
BustedCrank said:
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I have pretty much broke every vice I have ever owned. Built this guy and I love it. I will be building a modified version of it to increase jaw depth. This has been the best non precision vice I have ever had.
 
Not really on my workbench, but this is what I've got. Parker 6", parker tall jaw 4". Has proven very handy to have them on a movable, but sturdy, stand.

ACtC-3cHZ--ejAHYodJ0_BLPtpQ_ovvRlLLyEMISuqUX2rzrzDCH_8NJigz8UqLL_g3eirZrwUZS2uBVPQvPR576_ruTuHKHifYR6k_VldJa1LiHa0yR50Z7uCJrp5ukaDAGDFREzeP7pMVNqpjGBxi3fKctIQ=w2335-h1752-no
 
Record #6, built in England.

Cost me $50 from a buddy who rescued 2 of them from the scrap bin at his work.
 
I've got a Yost 465, 6.5" on my bench...price was right and it's held up decent. If I wanted something seriously heavy duty I'd want a forged rather than cast vise.
 
Weasel said:
Does anyone make a good "mechanics" vise? One that the jaws rotate not just around the base.
Click to expand...

you mean one of them that has the pipe jaws on the bottom?
all of them I've seen have been crappy cast iron, and usually they're already broken right where the moving jaw is turned round for the slidey bit

or do you mean one with a pivoting fixed jaw? Both of mine are like that, though I haven't put any effort into freeing the taper pin that holds them straight. Prentiss number 6, and a number 22.
AA0158.jpg
 
bgaidan said:
I bet nobody else has a Wilt-o-matic :grinpimp:
Click to expand...

One of those Wilton's I rebuilt had that cylinder on the back of it. I machined up a new back piece for it to make it into a standard style vise, but kept the cylinder in case I wanted to convert it back someday. I see you're using air for yours. Is it meant to run on air or hydraulics? I never looked into it a whole lot, but I figured the surface area of that cylinder wasn't really that much so air wouldn't have a whole lot of clamping force...
 
I got this one a while back from a friend's father who just happened to pass away two days ago. It's a polish made vise that is still in production today. It's and FPU which is Bison today and makes machinist stuff.

Haven't cleaned it up yet, but it's a neat design with the dovetail slide and the rear jaw being the moving jaw.

P5260256.jpg
P5260259.jpg
P5260260.jpg
P5260254.jpg


P5260254.jpg
 
billybob_81067 said:
One of those Wilton's I rebuilt had that cylinder on the back of it. I machined up a new back piece for it to make it into a standard style vise, but kept the cylinder in case I wanted to convert it back someday. I see you're using air for yours. Is it meant to run on air or hydraulics? I never looked into it a whole lot, but I figured the surface area of that cylinder wasn't really that much so air wouldn't have a whole lot of clamping force...
Click to expand...

I think we had this conversation on PBB a couple years ago! :laughing:

I've never found a clear catalog/diagram on how they work. Seems like they may have been hydraulic, air over hydraulic or just air.....maybe it was optional depending on size or clamping force or something. There aren't too many of them left out in the wild.

You could probably put yours back together and sell it for enough to be a new, big boy wilton. Vices are stupid collectible right now and I think people would pay big money for a rare one like these.


38373d1316316715-vise-squad-pics-lets-see-yours-wiltomatic-power-bench-vice-catalog-2.jpg
 
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