Re: google fail
Oh... please think about that a second first. I did that with one of my grandpas vises I inhereted when he passed away as I was just getting into vises and was excited to give it ago... After I was done, I realized I had wiped away his "fingerprints" on it forever... I was crushed and very upset at myself.
Completely up to you, but something to consider.
Inspired by you viseaholics at GJ, I'm going to try to restore my grandfather's old Craftsman vise.
It's a model 5249, but I haven't been able to find much info on it. From what I could find, I'm thinking it was probably made a bit after WWII.
The base seems to be missing a spacer of some sort-- if you tighten down the base bolt until it's snug, the vise no longer rotates on the base. I'm thinking some kind of sleeve (nylon or brass?) will remedy that. I think it also used to have a pipe clamp (I think I still have half of it somewhere and there's a spacer/washer still on the shaft).
The jaws are worn pretty smooth. I took a quick look at it and I think they are screwed in.
I figure I'll strip it myself and hit it with a few coats of heavy duty paint. I can't see any evidence that it's ever been repainted so I will probably try to use a similar color or maybe go with a blue-gray to fit in with the color scheme of my garage.
Looks like one other guy here had the same vise, but he made one post about it and left. If anybody has any other information that might help me, especially where I could source pipe jaws, replacement jaws or the aforementioned spacer or any ideas about what the original color might have been) please let me know. Thanks!!
Oh... please think about that a second first. I did that with one of my grandpas vises I inhereted when he passed away as I was just getting into vises and was excited to give it ago... After I was done, I realized I had wiped away his "fingerprints" on it forever... I was crushed and very upset at myself.
Completely up to you, but something to consider.
