Recent content by desertforge

I really like the "dimpled" type grinding wheels for aluminum. Several companies make them but they have raised dots or diamonds of abrasive. These are slightly flexible type 29 wheels. +1 on the single cut carbide burrs.

If your blast media has been used on regular steel then blasting will make it rust again. Blasting the rust may in fact drive tiny particles of rust or iron into the surface. The main thing is to get the surface free of iron. Stainless is only stainless by virtue of a surface layer of chromium...

it has crossed my mind

I think you're on the right track. The break you've indicated in the picture is actually part of the casting but I believe the slide is also cracked in the same general vicinity beyond the casting we see. I can't get that part of the casting out yet even though it's broken because it's keyed...

So that was a complete failure. That is, the repair I made didn't fail but it failed to address the problem which is worse than I had guessed. The vise handle still feels as if it could turn forever. The front jaw still racks out of parallel and the deflection in the slide is back without much...

@Fierljeppen: side note - did you see the fixed base swivel jaw 4 1/2" for sale on MKE craigslist? (I've got family around there so I keep tabs from time to time on what's available.)

Wow! Thanks Fierljeppen! That's really cool. Looks stouter than I'd have guessed from the condition mine was in. Mine's a little different I'm sure, and as ganymede noted, the pipe jaws make it taller and more vulnerable. Makes me wonder if my repair is stout enough. But if that's a big cast pin...

Re: Simplex vise slide question and attempted repair UPDATE BFBOB: You know... I thought about trying to braze it. Brazing is a great repair on cast iron or for joining steel to cast iron, but in my limited experience 50+ year old machine iron is really hard to get clean enough for a good...

I posted this a couple days ago in the vise repair thread and got no replies so I'm posting here again with pics. As you'll see in the last picture I've moved ahead with a start of a repair kind of aggressively... Below is a pasted quote of my original post. Anyone know how the steel slide in...

Anyone know how the steel slide in a Simplex vise is attached to the active jaw?... I might have discovered the weak point of these vises and why the steel slide isn't an advantage: It looks as if the active jaw casting has a "key" cast in (with the bore for the screw) that fits a dovetail in...