Columbian Vise Help

[Maddog10]

So I've picked up an old Columbian Vice that appears to be in pretty good shape but is filthy. Old grease has accumulated dirt and dust over the years and gummed the whole thing up. I think with a good bath and some restoration it will make a nice vise, but I have to get the damn thing apart first.

It's a steel slide vice with the lead screw accessible from underneath, but most of the Columbian's I've seen online have a split ring on the screw. This one has a collar with a flat head screw, and you can also see on the right of this picture where there appears to be a pin recessed into the screw. The pin doesn't go all the way through, but I don't see a reason it would need to be removed anyway. However, i can't for the life of me get that flathead screw out.

Any advice, or has anyone worked on this style before? I will try to clean it up enough to get you guys a model number and can take additional pics if necessary.

 

[Maddog10]

It is a Columbian 604-3... Also has the number 109 stamped on the the side of the vice.

 

[kwoswalt99]

I would try impact driver, or brace and bit.

 

[Maddog10]

I would try impact driver, or brace and bit.

Tried the impact a few times but couldn't keep from spinning off the screw so I stopped before I ruined it. I'll give it another shot with a little more sturdy setup and maybe some type of penetrating oil... Sure wish it wasn't a flathead.

 

[kwoswalt99]

Hand impact driver, I meant to say.

 

[matt_i]

When all is nearly lost, the blue wrench always offers hope.

Oxyacetylene heat is hard to resist.

 

[G-ManBart]

When all is nearly lost, the blue wrench always offers hope.

Oxyacetylene heat is hard to resist.

Yep....heat all the way.

 

[dumper]

If I am looking at what you are calling a pin, I believe that may be the tip of the set screw that you are trying to remove. I've had several Columbians (they're my favorites), and the tip of the set screw rests in the shallow hole in the lead screw to keep the collar in the correct place. So, if this is the case, you might as well bust out the drill and easy out to remove that screw. The replacement screw is probably less than a dollar at Ace hardware. Get one with a pointed tip to rest in the hole...after you clear the hole of the busted tip.

 

[Maddog10]

If I am looking at what you are calling a pin, I believe that may be the tip of the set screw that you are trying to remove. I've had several Columbians (they're my favorites), and the tip of the set screw rests in the shallow hole in the lead screw to keep the collar in the correct place. So, if this is the case, you might as well bust out the drill and easy out to remove that screw. The replacement screw is probably less than a dollar at Ace hardware. Get one with a pointed tip to rest in the hole...after you clear the hole of the busted tip.

I agree. I believe that screw is supposed to be positioned over the pin and operate as a set screw, but the vice has been over-torqued outward at some point and the collar has moved. You can see a few marks where it looks like the point of the removable screw has dug into the lead screw from sliding, and all of those marks lead right to that pin. Once I can back that screw out, I think I should be able to remove the slide, I hope.

 

[zkling]

Try custom grinding a hollow ground screwdriver that perfectly fits. Soak in penetrating oil, little heat and then the good fitting screwdriver. Put a flat on the shaft of aforementioned screwdriver to put a wrench on for more turning power. Worst case sacrifice the collar but use caution to avoid harming the main vise screw.

 

[Maddog10]

Well I was wrong and dumper was right. It is a set screw, but what I thought was the "pin" is actually the bottom half of the screw. At some point the vice was overtorqued backwards to the point that the screw broke, leaving the bottom half in the recessed hole and the top half in the collar. Once I figured out what was going on, I was able to back the lead screw out and disassemble the whole thing.

The last third of the slide didn't want to come out very well either, and I'm hoping it was a combination of gunk/misplaced spray paint that was sticking instead of a slight bend. There is a bit of pitting in a single area on top of the slide, and it looks as if at one point someone may have tried to use it as an anvil instead of a vice. Anyways, I ultimately was able to fit a small jack between the jaws and use it to force the slide the rest of the way out. There's no visual bend, but I'm hoping after a good cleaning I'm able to slide it back in there easily. Now that it's apart it will get a good cleaning and sandblasting. Then we'll see how things look after that. Thanks for the help guys.

 

[dumper]

any chance you have a "before" picture of your entire vise you can post, or even pictures of the pieces? Also, be careful not to go nuts on cleaning the slide- wd40, steel wool, wire brush, but no power tools until you see how much room you have to spare. Ask me how I know! You don't want to end up with a sloppy fitting slide.

 

[Maddog10]

any chance you have a "before" picture of your entire vise you can post, or even pictures of the pieces? Also, be careful not to go nuts on cleaning the slide- wd40, steel wool, wire brush, but no power tools until you see how much room you have to spare. Ask me how I know! You don't want to end up with a sloppy fitting slide.

Don't have a before of the entire vise, but I can get you a picture of the parts. I haven't really done any cleaning yet except for a little bit on the slide when trying to disassemble. Will post it up tomorrow.

 

[EOC_Jason]

Anyways, I ultimately was able to fit a small jack between the jaws and use it to force the slide the rest of the way out. There's no visual bend, but I'm hoping after a good cleaning I'm able to slide it back in there easily. Now that it's apart it will get a good cleaning and sandblasting. Then we'll see how things look after that. Thanks for the help guys.

I had to do that once. I was able to remove the screw but the dynamic didn't want to slide out so I used a small bottle jack to pry it past the point of resistance. I think it took a combination of cleaning off all the paint on the touching surfaces that should be bare metal and maybe a *little* grinding where some metal mushroomed out from beating on the slide.

 

[Shiftless]

Mad Dog:
Great work so far.
You might want to post and start following projects on the vise repair thread...

http://www.garagejournal.com/forum/showthread.php?p=6240182#post6240182

 

[metalmagpie]

Suggest you toss those parts into a bucket of degreaser for a day or two and then pressure wash them. That will remove 95+% of the gunk.

metalmagpie

 

[Maddog10]

Suggest you toss those parts into a bucket of degreaser for a day or two and then pressure wash them. That will remove 95+% of the gunk.

metalmagpie

My father owns a motorcycle dealership which has a sandblaster and ultrasonic parts washer that I'm going to put to good use.

I think my plan for now is to clean as much grease/grime off by hand as I can, then soak it in mineral spirits for a while to break down the remaining stuff. Then I'm going to put it through the ultrasonic washer which should eliminate anything else that remains on there. By then, the spray paint should also be pretty broken down and I would think sandblasting it off would be a breeze. Perhaps a final run through the parts washer and it should be ready for paint.

 

[Maddog10]

Pictures, as promised. This is after disassembly with essentially no cleaning.



Dynamic jaw and slide... You can see the impression/pitting I was referring to at the back of the slide.


Static jaw... and grime.


Set screw location.


Bottom of broken screw inside collar.

 

[EOC_Jason]

I wouldn't spend too much time trying to extract that screw out. Maybe just fill it with solder or lead and file it smooth with the screw. As the face wears anyhow you can adjust the collar in to keep things tight. I've never seen one that had a hole drilled & tapped, they always just held by friction so you could adjust them.

Looks like possibly a little mushrooming on the top back of the slide where it was probably used as an anvil. If it is you can try to file it back flat and get a square corner.

 

[Maddog10]

I wouldn't spend too much time trying to extract that screw out. Maybe just fill it with solder or lead and file it smooth with the screw. As the face wears anyhow you can adjust the collar in to keep things tight. I've never seen one that had a hole drilled & tapped, they always just held by friction so you could adjust them.

Looks like possibly a little mushrooming on the top back of the slide where it was probably used as an anvil. If it is you can try to file it back flat and get a square corner.

I'm hoping a simple easy out will remove the screw, and I'm going to replace it with either a Phillips head or a screw that I can get a small socket on should I ever need to remove it again. It's going to have to be replaced though, or a new hole tapped in order to hold the collar in place, which in turn moves the dynamic jaw. Or am I misunderstanding how this vise operates? I think that collar has to be held in place for the jaws to operate properly.

 

[kwoswalt99]

I wouldn't bother with the easy out, just drill it and crush in the sides with a punch.

 

[EOC_Jason]

Usually it's a small set screw with an allen head so it sits kind of flush with the shaft.

The collar should be threaded, isn't it?

My point was you don't need to have the screw go in that hole, just tightening down anywhere on the shaft is sufficient (and allows you to fine-tune how much play is in the handle).

The collar is there so when you open the vise it pushes the dynamic out, there's not a lot of force unless the slide is rusted or jammed...

 

[Maddog10]

I wouldn't bother with the easy out, just drill it and crush in the sides with a punch.

... Will do. Thanks.

Usually it's a small set screw with an allen head so it sits kind of flush with the shaft.

The collar should be threaded, isn't it?

My point was you don't need to have the screw go in that hole, just tightening down anywhere on the shaft is sufficient (and allows you to fine-tune how much play is in the handle).

The collar is there so when you open the vise it pushes the dynamic out, there's not a lot of force unless the slide is rusted or jammed...

Ahh, I gotcha. No, the collar is not threaded. I misunderstood what you were saying. I thought you meant no set screw at all, in which case the collar would slide freely and wouldn't push the dynamic out as you mentioned. I agree that tightening down anywhere on the shaft would probably be sufficient. It may not be in the current condition of the vice (filthy with possible mushrooming), but after cleaning I'm expecting things to operate much more smoothly.

That said, I think the only positioning to avoid play in the handle is to have it where the hole is located. That way the handle butts up tightly against the back of the dynamic jaw to push it inward, and the collar butts up tightly against the inside of the dynamic jaw to move it outward. Granted, the screw doesn't have to physically be in the hole but it needs to be on that same tangent. Using a separate location would result in having to crank the handle a little bit without the jaws actually moving, I think.

 

[matt_i]

Depending on your capabilities and the people you know, my 3 cent tour into machine repair is to put the collar in a milling machine vise and use a "120 deg solid carbide spot drill" to core a pocket down into the body of the screw, as best as you can eyeball it.

Then there are two choices, sometimes if you hog down medium-hard with a drill bit the heat and torque will just spin the screw out of its tapped hole. This one has the advantage of not having to use a LH drill bit, and the damage to the threadform is probably in the bottom of the tapped hole.

If this doesn't work, I recommend going back to the oxyacet heat and a "4 flute" ez out made by Irwin, avoiding the twisted LH-reverse-helix ones at all costs. The 4 fluters will usually slip and machine out some chips before they break out into an undrillable hard spot like the dreaded reverse helixers.

If this doesn't work, then you can make your best guess at the thread size by measuring, its almost 100% a SAE coarse thread, and drill a pilot hole on that same centerline for a tap. Ideally the thread crest should just wind out as a little coil spring but some careful work with the tap to get the feel of the threadform and get it started without "splitting the lead" will clean things up. Its hard to describe in words but basically the path of least resistance with the tap is usually the best one because its just cleaning then and not trying to cut new threads.

 

[EOC_Jason]

That said, I think the only positioning to avoid play in the handle is to have it where the hole is located. That way the handle butts up tightly against the back of the dynamic jaw to push it inward, and the collar butts up tightly against the inside of the dynamic jaw to move it outward. Granted, the screw doesn't have to physically be in the hole but it needs to be on that same tangent. Using a separate location would result in having to crank the handle a little bit without the jaws actually moving, I think.

As a vise gets used, the spinning of the handle as you tighten stuff will wear into the face of the vise. So when before you could swing the handle say a 1/4" or less to get the vise jaw to move open/close, it now takes 3/4" of a turn. So to tighten things back up you move the inside collar forward more to reduce the gap, and thus the open/close play.

That's why I would suggest just fill the hole in, maybe even if you could get the screw out then place some other screw in with loctite and grind it smooth. Then thread the hole in the collar and get a screw to fit that. Then you have an adjustable collar like most vises have.

On a couple old vises I have I've had to mill the outer face flat again because like I said it will wear the surface down. Besides keeping things well greased I also got some bronze thrust washers (From McMaster Carr) to let those wear first. I put them on both the inside & outside when possible.

Here's some picture.

 

[Maddog10]

As a vise gets used, the spinning of the handle as you tighten stuff will wear into the face of the vise. So when before you could swing the handle say a 1/4" or less to get the vise jaw to move open/close, it now takes 3/4" of a turn. So to tighten things back up you move the inside collar forward more to reduce the gap, and thus the open/close play.

That's why I would suggest just fill the hole in, maybe even if you could get the screw out then place some other screw in with loctite and grind it smooth. Then thread the hole in the collar and get a screw to fit that. Then you have an adjustable collar like most vises have.

On a couple old vises I have I've had to mill the outer face flat again because like I said it will wear the surface down. Besides keeping things well greased I also got some bronze thrust washers (From McMaster Carr) to let those wear first. I put them on both the inside & outside when possible.

Here's some picture.

I gotcha now. If the broken screw will remove easily I will just find another screw to replace it and use the existing hole in the collar since it's ready to go. If I have a hard time getting the broken screw out though I will do as you say and just create a new hole through the collar. As for placement, I'll have to see how the inward/outward play looks once the restoration is complete and ready for reassembly. If things still look pretty tight I will just use the existing hole in the shaft. If there is more play than I would like though, I'll push the collar up flush with the dynamic jaw and just tighten down on the shaft as we discussed. I greatly appreciate your help. Lots of good info.

Nice idea on the washer as well. It currently has a washer on the outside by the handle that you can see in one of the pictures, but it's pretty busted up so I figured I would just replace it. There currently is no washer on the inside. Only the collar. I'll consider adding one inside there as well.

Hoping to work on cleanup tonight, then do the sandblasting and such on Thursday. Worst case is it will have to wait till the weekend. I'll be sure to post an update once it's complete.

 

[metalmagpie]

Just a caution, an old vise without removable jaws will never be worth very much since the jaws aren't renewable without a ton of work. Doesn't mean you shouldn't do it, or that the work won't be satisfying. Just sayin'.

metalmagpie

 

[Maddog10]

Just a caution, an old vise without removable jaws will never be worth very much since the jaws aren't renewable without a ton of work. Doesn't mean you shouldn't do it, or that the work won't be satisfying. Just sayin'.

metalmagpie

I understand and truth be told, I'm not really looking for value as much as functionality and nostalgia. I have zero intention of ever selling it. I don't currently have a vise, and this one was laying in the floor of my grandfather's shop where it has probably sit for 40 years or more. When I was a kid and my grandfather was still alive, he bought me a small vise at the trader's mall that he mounted in his shop so I could "work on stuff" with him. It's too small for most of my uses now, but when I found this one it reminded me of those days, so I want to restore it and have it in a shop of my own. Based on my minimal research, it seems like the vice was made pre-WWII, so that alone is pretty cool to me. Accompany that with the fact that it's my grandfather's, and whatever small monetary value it might have isn't worth the sentimental value it has to me.

As for jaw condition, it's hard to predict right now. They appear to be in pretty decent shape but the grooves also seem a little shallow. I'm hoping that's just multiple coats of spray paint built up in there. If you look at this pictures you can see white, silver, and red spray paint all on the jaws so there are remnants of at least 3 coats stuck in there. It's hard to know how things are going to look once it's stripped down to bare metal really.

 

[EOC_Jason]

Only reason I put a washer on the inside was the casting was real rough and would catch weird on the collar. Adding that washer smoothed things out.

Personally I'm not big on serrated jaws, they have their uses but 95% of the time I like my smooth jaw vises (or ones with copper caps) as they don't leave a mark when clamping stuff.

 

[kwoswalt99]

Just a caution, an old vise without removable jaws will never be worth very much since the jaws aren't renewable without a ton of work. Doesn't mean you shouldn't do it, or that the work won't be satisfying. Just sayin'.

metalmagpie

I know what you mean, I've got this 109 with the damn forged in jaws, and I can't get anyone on CL to take it. At this point I should probably just take it to the scrapyard.

 

[metalmagpie]

109?

 

[kwoswalt99]

Reed 109. All kidding aside, as long as they're not totally worn out, I don't think it really affects the value.

 

[va.grouseman]

Well looks like Demo will be heading to Detroit.---Better set another plate Kwoswalt.

 

[Maddog10]

Couple new minor issues... Holy **** this thing is well built! I never could get the broken set screw out, so I decided I would just drill it and try an easy out. I couldn't even put a scratch on that screw! After failing at that for a while, I decided I would just take it to dad's shop since I was going there for hot tank/sand blasting anyway. Had the mechanic there spend a few minutes trying to drill it out since he has a lot better bits than I do, and even he couldn't touch it. No big deal, maybe the collar is a softer material and we can just drill/tap a new hole. Nope! Whatever hardening process was used for that collar/screw did it's job, because that thing is un-drillable. Moving on to plan B now, which is to find a another collar of the same ID and drill/tap a new hole into it. Not sure why the factory one was hardened so much considering the light nature of it's job, but it's stout.

Aside from that, sandblasting went well. All the paint is off and I think the vise looks pretty good. Jaws are in good shape and slide looks good aside from where it was used as an anvil. I think a little grinding is going to be required on the slide, but not much. Hopefully have this thing painted tonight.

 

[EOC_Jason]

Go to McMaster and search "shaft collars". I think those should work, there's not a lot of pressure put on them when opening the vise (as long as the slide isn't jammed).

 

[Maddog10]

Go to McMaster and search "shaft collars". I think those should work, there's not a lot of pressure put on them when opening the vise (as long as the slide isn't jammed).

No, you are right. In fact, just the built up grease/gunk provided enough friction on the collar for it to hold in place and push the jaw open when I originally took the slide off. That is until I got to the slight mushrooming in the slide, which is going to require a little grinding..

I think I'm going to look today at some local hardware stores. The collar seems pretty standard and the dimensions aren't critical except for the ID, so if I can find one local I'd prefer to do that than wait for shipping. If I can't though I will be sure to check McMaster out.

 

[kwoswalt99]

Couple new minor issues... Holy **** this thing is well built! I never could get the broken set screw out, so I decided I would just drill it and try an easy out. I couldn't even put a scratch on that screw! After failing at that for a while, I decided I would just take it to dad's shop since I was going there for hot tank/sand blasting anyway. Had the mechanic there spend a few minutes trying to drill it out since he has a lot better bits than I do, and even he couldn't touch it. No big deal, maybe the collar is a softer material and we can just drill/tap a new hole. Nope! Whatever hardening process was used for that collar/screw did it's job, because that thing is un-drillable. Moving on to plan B now, which is to find a another collar of the same ID and drill/tap a new hole into it. Not sure why the factory one was hardened so much considering the light nature of it's job, but it's stout.

Aside from that, sandblasting went well. All the paint is off and I think the vise looks pretty good. Jaws are in good shape and slide looks good aside from where it was used as an anvil. I think a little grinding is going to be required on the slide, but not much. Hopefully have this thing painted tonight.

Heat it up with a torch and drill it while it's hot.

 

[meatsis]

i know what you mean, i've got this 109 with the damn forged in jaws, and i can't get anyone on cl to take it. At this point i should probably just take it to the scrapyard.

pics???

 

[kwoswalt99]

pics???

It was a joke.

 

[sanddan]

Just a caution, an old vise without removable jaws will never be worth very much since the jaws aren't renewable without a ton of work. Doesn't mean you shouldn't do it, or that the work won't be satisfying. Just sayin'.

metalmagpie

So the vise jaws are not removable on the Columbia vise's?