Just finished restoring and fitting my vice - German made Leinen LE/125. Here it is with its identical brother at the new home, just after collection:
It was in fairly good condition, bar some surface rust and peeling, non-original paint. Here it is on the left:
I decided to have it powder coated and so the work began. Disassembling the vice was dead easy - there were no seized parts and everything came apart as it should. The vice has an interesting way of fitment to the bench: there is one through hole at the back of the vice and two vertical holes at the front. Since the top of my bench is filled with concrete, drilling was not an option - I simply didn't want to butcher the bench. In fact, if I could somehow reuse the original vice holes the bench came with, that would be perfect. After a few brainstorming sessions with a fellow member CanUK, a much more elegant solution has emerged:
I bought a 1/2" angle steel off ebay, aligned it with the centre hole in the bench, measure and marked all 5 now holes, bored them one by one remeasuring each time and cut off the excess. The vice would sit on top so the countersunk bolts are crucial:
In the meantime, my vice came from the paint shop and I finished polishing the handle, sleeve and screw:
As the choice of colours was somewhat limited without paying extra (it's an alloy wheels refurb shop), I've settled on anthracite as the new colour for the vice:
While at it, I changed all the screws for the new ones, regreased the moving parts, refitted the vice and this is how it looks now:
The work bench weighs some mighty 560lbs and is impossible to tip over:
I will get round to painting the bracket when I do some other projects needing paint.
Thanks for looking!
. Jaws are 13.5cm wide (about 5.3") and it opens up to 18cm (7"). Im thinking about giving it a full resto but when there's no brand on it and the jaws are non-replaceable its not really worth it right?
