I do have the blurry pictures...
Yep. Kinda cool though...makes me think that it might have still been in use in the not too distant past. When it gets restored the sticker will come off.
Probably so. That big chip is luckily out of the removable jaw and not the vise itself. I was worried about that until I got a closer look.
Did you hand load that into your trunk?I hope y'all will overlook the excess photos I took instead of just posting one. It's not everyday I come across a big one. My last big/rare one was a Wilton SJ-60 I saved in Virginia a few years back.
A few weeks back I found a blurry photo on Facebook Marketplace of this vise with an asking price of $200. I couldn't tell the make or the model, but I knew it was big and old. I managed to narrow it down to being a Prentiss, and a large one, but I wasn't sure of the model yet and didn't want to spook the seller into looking into its value.
Since they were one town over at about 22 minutes away, I asked if she would hold it for me until I got back on the weekend. I offered to pay an extra $50 if she would. She agreed and after I trucked back in state it was time to go pick it up.
It used to belong to her ex-husbands grandfather who was an electrical engineer for G.E. up in the northeast. After the divorce he didn't want it anymore and told her to keep it. It was in her garage for a few years before she decided to sell it.
While it is not the 295 pound 8" jaw Prentiss Model 58 that I was hoping it was, it turned out to be the little sister to it at 210 pounds for this pre-1948 7" jaw Prentiss Model 57 Railroad Chipping Vise. She's a beast!
The lady's new dude helped me to load it in there. Way easier getting it in than getting it out due to the angle and gravity haha.Did you hand load that into your trunk?
Thank you sir. I haven't tried to date this yet, but at a minimum this is pre-1948 as that is when Prentiss sold out to Chas. Parker. Thanks again.Jarhead: Prentiss #57 info from 1920 catalog and info about detachable jaw faces from 1922.
Seems extremely specialized, but if you had the saw to match, it would be ideal for making lots of angle frames.
Very interesting !!
I’m in the camp of “if it looks like a woodworking tool, but is way overbuilt, it might be a printers tool”. I’ve seen planes, miter gages, and something else that is escaping me right now, that looked like it’s WW counterpart, but stupid stout. Looked up the patents, and all three were printer’s tools. Maybe?
Thank you for that RTM. I think you have cracked the case. Very similar and a significant lead to follow. Ed.
Sawing or grinding round stock tends to be dangerous because the stock can start rotating.
Thinking outside the Machinist box, and into my photography days of yore, I had a tripod where the attaching bolt was turned down below the threads. Your screwed thru the base, then it hit the open threads, and could thread into the camera base, and tighten down.
