How common are swivel jaw vises in your area?

[Packard V8]

On GJ, many swivel jaw vise finds are shared.

Here, in the frozen ***-end of nowhere, I've been buying, selling and watching used vises come and go for more than forty years and have never seen a swivel jaw vise for sale. They probably are here, just not at all common.

Why would the swivel jaw be more popular in one locale than another? The Pacific Northwest was settled late and not much here is more than 100-years-old. Is there a date range when swivel jaw vises were more common?

jack vines

 

[Provincial]

Being a native PNW'er, my suspicion is that the swivel-jaw vises are less durable than the fixed-jaw version. Abuse probably led to the demise of most swivel-jaw vises.

I have two vises with swivel jaws. One is a Cheney vise/anvil that has been in the family for three generations. The other is a Reed that Rileysan recovered from under a fallen-down barn and I salvaged. Amazingly, the movable jaw of the Reed had been broken and brazed back together!

Photos of salvaging the Reed are in my photo gallery.

 

[DFB]

Ya just more parts to break/loose

I often see an awful lot of models without their original bases I can only assume some folks discarded them for a more solid fixed point mounting on a workbench

 

[larry_g]

I stumbled on one at the Antique Powerland swapmeet a couple of years ago. If not for the hype here I would have passed it by. Now I have a very good condition one in my shop. I probably only beat out Rileysan by minutes.

lg
no neat sig line

 

[dutchgray]

Very rare in the UK, we only had one English produced swivel jaw, the Parkinson's, to my knowledge, of which a few are known, 3 are owned by members of this forum, the one I own is probably the roughest example.
There are some USA swivel jaws around as well.

 

[Roberts210]

I've never seen one in my area.

 

[RTM]

I’ve only seen one in 15+ years of tool hunting, and that was earlier this year. Guy removed it before I thought to take a pic.

 

[crguy]

I see them regularly on this side of the state. Not rare.

 

[DFB]

I do have a Reed 403 with a swivel jaw. It has been the only one I have come across since I started my hobby collection of vises going on 4 yrs now.

 

[Private Lugnutz]

Hi Jack,

I haven't kept active track of this, of course, but generally speaking, I've probably seen on the order or 10 bench/machinists vises per week in the wild, going on 8 active tool hunting years now, and less than 10 of those have been swivel jaws.

For another data point, I think you're aware that I have a lot of WWII documents (manuals, specifications, contracts, etc). Between 2nd, 3rd, and 4th echelon tool-sets, welders' vans, emergency repair trucks, and armorers' kits, I have never seen a bench or machinists' vise with a swivel jaw. They were all stationary base stationary jaws, swivel base stationary jaws, or clamp vise stationary jaws. I'm not saying they weren't being made in 1942. But the Army wasn't buying them, and I've always found the wartime Army to be a very good model for assessing production. There was no larger customer for tools in the world at the time.

 

[22george]

I've never seen one

 

[MR.X]

Maybe someone should post a picture so no one (else) will read too fast and think you're talking about swivel bases instead of jaws.

 

[Private Lugnutz]

Here's a Parker.

 

[BFBOB]

St. Louis-- RARE. I've only seen one and I bought it. (see GarageSale thread)

 

[DFB]

My REED

 

[bagged89s10]

pretty common in Connecticut. I have close to a dozen.

 

[Dozerhand]

Never seen one till I started hanging around here. I've been in lots of shops,sheds, and garages in the last 50 years.

 

[davethorik]

I own 4, I think. My dad has 2. And i gifted a Reed 404 to my BIL. They arent exactly falling out of the sky, they are definitely more uncommon. Maybe out of every 40-50 vises I see for sale, 1 is a swivel jaw.

Every swivel jaw I've bought had a stuck pin and a stuck jaw from disuse. I also think every time i bought one, the seller didnt even know the jaw swiveled.

 

[Rileysan]

I stumbled on one at the Antique Powerland swapmeet a couple of years ago. If not for the hype here I would have passed it by. Now I have a very good condition one in my shop. I probably only beat out Rileysan by minutes.

lg
no neat sig line

Don't forget about Oregonrockcrusher - he's equally as adept at finding them! Then again, I found one he missed at Antique Powerland, only to point it out to him because I wasn't interested in Wilton vises!

Going back to Jack's question, I think part of the shortage in your area has to do with what manufacturing industries were/are historically in your area.

In Eastern Washington - especially up North in your neck of the woods, the area is dominated by agriculture, and not much else. Seattle/Tacoma and Portland all have shipyards, Seattle has the big naval base, and Portland has rail car manufacturing, and other steel plants (like my employer, Columbia Steel Casting) all of which have a business need for heavy industrial equipment.

As these industries downsize, outsource, or even close, industrial equipment becomes available to the general public. Not so in Eastern Washington. What is in use now will likely remain in use until said equipment is broken beyond repair, because heavy equipment repair shops in your area still have plenty of demand. As an anecdote, my SIL was sent to school in Eastern Washington by his employer in Salem, because the schools there still offer Diesel mechanic training.

All of that to say: you don't see them for sale because no one is selling. And they're not selling because their tools are still in use.

Take a look in the Seattle to Eugene corridor, and you will find two swivel jaw vises for sale at this very moment - an overpriced, worn out Reed 406 in Portland, and a 4-1/2" Columbian that I'm still thinking about adding to the 3 swivel jaw vises in my collection.

Brian

 

[yardiron]

When someone says 'swivel jaw vise' around here I think of one of these.
Most of these are pretty worthless, I always found getting the front of the vise to stay where you want it nearly impossible regardless of how tight you make the handle. Most that I've seen have been welded or brazed, or just plain broken. Most folks who have owned one don't buy another when it breaks.

I can't say I've ever run across one like pictured above with just a moveable rear jaw, but I do have a few that are reversible, in that its got a double rear jaw for gripping larger items.

 

[akasrick]

Hi Jack,

I haven't kept active track of this, of course, but generally speaking, I've probably seen on the order or 10 bench/machinists vises per week in the wild, going on 8 active tool hunting years now, and less than 10 of those have been swivel jaws.

For another data point, I think you're aware that I have a lot of WWII documents (manuals, specifications, contracts, etc). Between 2nd, 3rd, and 4th echelon tool-sets, welders' vans, emergency repair trucks, and armorers' kits, I have never seen a bench or machinists' vise with a swivel jaw. They were all stationary base stationary jaws, swivel base stationary jaws, or clamp vise stationary jaws. I'm not saying they weren't being made in 1942. But the Army wasn't buying them, and I've always found the wartime Army to be a very good model for assessing production. There was no larger customer for tools in the world at the time.

If not the Army maybe the Navy bought a few.
Anchors on vises.
Reed
https://www.garagejournal.com/forum/showthread.php?p=7765175#post7765175
Possibly WW2

A much earlier vise.
Prentiss
https://www.garagejournal.com/forum/showpost.php?p=7765287&postcount=70223

PossiblyWW1 ?

akasrick

 

[bagged89s10]

Here are some of the rear swivel jaw vises I have

 

[thehorse13]

I have two. One was given to me for free because it was locked up but that Prentiss is now back to working perfectly. The other is a Chas Parker that was found in the wild at a garage sale.

I see maybe 3 or 4 each flea market season and they are always priced to the moon. On the Internet markets, maybe 6 or so each year.

More or less, they are fairly common here if you want to drop the money on one.

 

[Private Lugnutz]

If not the Army maybe the Navy bought a few.

Possibly. If so, it wasn't the Aviation bureau. Three pages of vises in the 1944 Aviation Supply Office "blue book" - none with a swivel jaw. So, that's the Army (including Corps of Engineers, Signal Corps, Ordnance Dept, and Army Air Forces/Air Corps) and Navy Aviation not specifying them, as far as I am aware.

As for those Reeds, the font looks WWI or Interwar to me. I am not a Navy guy, and I could be wrong, but there is no record of Reed having a WWII era Navy contract in my Major War Supply Contracts book. It has a $50,000 value cut off, so it's possible they had a small one. That is not typical for any of the major vise maker's though, who all have multiple contracts in these books.

 

[Private Lugnutz]

Gun to my head, if I had to get rough production percentages for bench/machinists' vises right based on what I have seen in the wild and what I have seen specified in wartime period documents, I would guess 60% stationary base stationary jaw, 30% swivel base stationary jaw, and 10% stationary base swivel jaw.

I have no stake in being right or wrong on this, obviously. I just think less production is why they're generally far less common in that era.

Could those percentages be different earlier? Later? Maybe. If I had to guess, though I suspect they made considerably fewer of them in any era. That, the tendency for loss or breakage, as someone else already mentioned, shrinks the number of survivors. The tendency for guys to hang onto them, as someone else already mentioned, shrinks the number of available survivors even further. But it all starts with fewer made, in my opinion.

jack has raised a very good question. And I don't trust empirical or anecdotal evidence. Vises don't travel well, for obvious reasons, but they do travel, and the presence of industry (I am surrounded by vintage manufacturing centers, for example, and hardly ever see them...) isn't always the answer.

I bet a true vise guy with a research bend of mind (such as GJ member Fierljeppen) might be able to do the same kind of assessment based on vise maker's and hardware distributor catalogs. Were swivel jaws offered and advertised in equal number of models and sizes and propensity as stationary jaws at the turn of the century? in the 20's and 30's? In the 50's? Or far less? Like my wartime documents as an indication of wartime production, that I would trust.

 

[exmaxima1]

Here's a Parker.

And here's my Morgan from the 40's.

 

[Private Lugnutz]

Nice one, exmaxima.

 

[Honest Bob]

I have a prentiss swivel vise. I didnt even know it had it when I bought it. I cant say I have seen one since.

 

[akasrick]

Why would the swivel jaw be more popular in one locale than another? The Pacific Northwest was settled late and not much here is more than 100-years-old. Is there a date range when swivel jaw vises were more common?

jack vines

My post shows a vise each (one not my own) at seaboard areas, however they dismantled then auctioned or even if, I don't know.

akasrick

 

[Packard V8]

Thanks for the many replies.

My swivel jaw question was of academic interest only, as I don't place much value on even a swivel base. I've picked up some real vise bargains because they were fixed base or because the swivel base was missing. In fact, my largest vise is a Rock Island #577 missing the swivel base. Mounted on a bench with a 1" bolt up through the middle and a 1/2" bolt on the flange on each side, it's more rigid than most swivel base; and I got it for $15 as a "parts vise".

So bottom line, those of you who like the swivel jaw, how much extra, percentage-wise, do you value that feature?

jack vines

 

[Provincial]

I'm not sure how much value (premium) I would place on the swivel jaw, but it is nice to have now and then. I picked up mine to expand the options I have to grip pieces I'm working on. My choice was a combination of opportunity and the challenge of resurrecting an abandoned and abused tool. The satisfaction of bringing it back from the dead was worth more to me than the time and money spent.

Here is a link to my posts on this project in the VISE REPAIR 101 thread:
https://www.garagejournal.com/forum/showthread.php?p=6925993#post6925993

It starts on post #5343 and discussion continues on for quite a while.

 

[Bob/Ohio]

My Holland vice.

Bob

 

[Mr. Wonderful]

Thanks for the many replies.

My swivel jaw question was of academic interest only, as I don't place much value on even a swivel base. I've picked up some real vise bargains because they were fixed base or because the swivel base was missing. In fact, my largest vise is a Rock Island #577 missing the swivel base. Mounted on a bench with a 1" bolt up through the middle and a 1/2" bolt on the flange on each side, it's more rigid than most swivel baes; and I got it for $15 as a "parts vise".

So bottom line, those of you who like the swivel jaw, how much extra, percentage-wise, do you value that feature?

jack vines

Packard,

Swivel jaw is what brought me to GJ in the first place. I didn't even know such a thing existed before I came here. I had found my first real vise three years ago. I googled the model number and here is where I landed. I didn't know what a big deal it was that the pin was still with it and that it was not seized up. Now I own two, a Parker and Hollands.

I would say I am willing to pay more for swivel jaw all things being equal. Having missed out on a Reed three separate times I know they go fast. If I had to put a number on it maybe 25% more, unless it's a Wilton then all bets are off.

For you original question, in the last three years on this side of the state I have seen maybe 10, some for sale some not. I can't say that I use the feature much at all.

 

[drivesitfar]

Jack & All; for the most part swivel jaw vises were made prior to WWII and as mentioned they were maybe not as stout or commonly bought by users hence them being a bit more rare.

not sure where CRGuy shops, but there are maybe one in 100 vises here for sale that might be a swivel jaw and if it wasn't broken or missing parts that would be amazing.

i've got more than a few, but I used to buy a vise or two almost every day for many months a few years ago so the odds were with me finding some.

in fact the first swivel jaw i bought/found was a Prentiss #26 coachmaker's vise that the 75 year old son of the original owner said the back jaw shouldn't move and he was almost mad that I told him it would so I let him think it didn't. and of course it does but the pin was rusted in place.

 

[Fierljeppen]

Gun to my head, if I had to get rough production percentages for bench/machinists' vises right based on what I have seen in the wild and what I have seen specified in wartime period documents, I would guess 60% stationary base stationary jaw, 30% swivel base stationary jaw, and 10% stationary base swivel jaw.

I bet a true vise guy with a research bend of mind (such as GJ member Fierljeppen) might be able to do the same kind of assessment based on vise maker's and hardware distributor catalogs. Were swivel jaws offered and advertised in equal number of models and sizes and propensity as stationary jaws at the turn of the century? in the 20's and 30's? In the 50's? Or far less? Like my wartime documents as an indication of wartime production, that I would trust.

Swivel jaw vises were very popular at the turn of the century. Prentiss, who started out by only making swivel jaw vises were adding many new models to their line card, while all of the other main vise mfgs. were all offering swivel jaw model vises. With that said, I don't believe they were ever as popular as the stationary jaw vises.

From the 1910's until the 1970's, all of the "Big Twelve" offered swivel jaw vises in various models and sizes, with Starrett being the last USA mfg. offering them into the 90's.

My data doesn't take into account the percentage of sales, just catalog listings. My personal experience with swivel jaws is pretty limited. Reed is by far the most popular swivel jaw vise I see in the Chicagoland area.

 

[bbbarracuda]

It's not something I collect, but i don't ever remember seeing one other than the pictures here. Now I have to find one.

 

[Private Lugnutz]

My data doesn't take into account the percentage of sales, just catalog listings.

Thanks for chiming in. I was hoping you'd be able to gauge the percentage of production based on the percentage of ads/listings.

UPDATE/CORRECTION

The 1944 Navy ASO catalog does include a swivel base swivel jaw vise. I missed it. Note, though, that it's only available in one size option, as opposed to other vises, which had multiple size options.

 

[Oregon rock crusher]

The first swivel jaw I worked with was a very old Prentiss 22 that was on mounted on the back of an early 70's POS GMC service truck. For many years I didn't even realize that goofy crack accross the body was for the swiveling jaw. Not until I pulled the heavy ******* off the rear deck and checked it out did I realize what was going on with the jaw. It was the only one I had ever recognized in the wild up to that point.

After that I started deliberately looking for vises with the swivel jaw feature and that's when I started to notice and find them. I've left quite a few behind because the rear jaw had been fixed by welding the back jaw solid....grrr. They don't seem to be all that rare in this area but certainly harder to find than fixed jaw vises. I have collected several over the years. Ed.

 

[drivesitfar]

Fierl: I think that's the first time i've heard of the BIG TWELVE vise makers. do you actually have that list and would you mind sharing it? I'm guessing that list has changed over the years or what years are you saying the BIG TWELVE existed?

I knew a few vise makers made swivel jaw vises after WWII, but since i don't really buy or collect vises much after WWII anymore I replaced that piece of trivia with something else I'm guessing.

ALL: it seems like Prentiss and Reed had a full line of swivel jaw vises while others maybe only had a 3 and/or 4 inch version. I know Prentiss was bought out by Parker around WWII and I think Reed quit making swivel jaw vises after WWII or does anybody have one that is newer? did other makers have a full line at one time?

nothing not stout about a 6 inch Prentiss #22 swivel jaw vise that I think weighed 160 pounds and their #22 I think weighed over 200 pounds. even though I like the old pre WWII vises best I surely could be talked into buying a newer Starrett 326 swivel jaw vise that I think weighs close to 200 pounds.

 

[akasrick]

I thank you for your effort.

akasrick

Thanks for chiming in. I was hoping you'd be able to gauge the percentage of production based on the percentage of ads/listings.

UPDATE/CORRECTION

The 1944 Navy ASO catalog does include a swivel base swivel jaw vise. I missed it. Note, though, that it's only available in one size option, as opposed to other vises, which had multiple size options.