Picked up an estate sale vise half price from $80 to $40. I'd not normally bother but that half price discount made me pull the trigger. For $40, any big ol' vise is a deal, right?
Maybe.
This appears to be a Yost 750 at first look- blue paint, rotating assembly, pipe jaws on the bottom, four mounting lugs, and jaws at 5 1/8". But it's missing the normal name on the casting, with only "I" appearing on the base, and "122" on the rear rotational jaw. It was coated in what looked like some pale yellowish body filler that was poorly applied and was flaking off. I thought it was the previous owner that did it since the paint was pretty poor as well. A needle scaler took care of all that stuff and took it back to bare metal where I was able to take care of any surface rust. The inside of the assembly was full of dirt and fine metal dust.
It did clean up well though. Prepped for paint.
Paint makes a big difference. The rough castings look so much nicer when clean and painted. I considered painting it blue like Yost vises, but fact is I don't like blue for tools, and I'm not convinced this is a Yost at all. I have been using this red for my other shop tools so red it would be.
Cleaned, painted, ready for reassembly.
Don't know about this "I" in the base casting. Can't find anything online about it.
"122" is stamped on the end of the fixed jaw, but the numbers are not centered on the slide, and are slightly misaligned making me think this is a hand stamp. That may not mean anything really. That's the only other mark on the vise except for the "I".
Assembled, it looks pretty decent.
On the last photo, you can see where the holes for the jaw face mounting screws go through the casting and exit. That's not something I've seen before, and I'm not sure if that is because this is a cheap knockoff, or if these holes are filled from the outside on other vises. Doesn't really bother me either way.
No clue what this one is. Yost knockoff? But that would be interesting- a knockoff of an import vise. Who would bother? What it does mean to me is that I have $45 for the vise and paint to have another big vise in the garage and I don't have to worry about beating on this one too much. I am curious what it is though.
it went way out of my price range . i think the winner would have paid what ever it took. it went for 825.00 you don't see the big ones like that often.
Waiting for the "Hey check out my new Rock Island vise" post. 
