The VISES of Garage Journal

MayerMR · Nov 6, 2018

chrisnazzy said:
I'm sure I'm not the only one who has run across this new listing on eBay. $225 for an 8" jaw Parker initially had me wondering how far Galena, Kansas was from a relative of mine in Oklahoma.

Spoiler alert: the seller states the vise was stored outside upside down and water froze in it and caused it to crack. It's okay to cry again VA.....I was too! Really too bad because other than the missing collar, it looks like it was in really good shape.

BTW that's a 4C in the background of the pic for a little scale. The 4C is for sale in another of the sellers listings for a measley $750 as it was not left outside to die in the cold.

That really *****, but I bet a good welder could fix that reasonably well...some JB Weld as a filler, and some paint and while it would still be a repaired vise, at least it would still live on.

Speaking of repaired vises living on...

I completely the restoration of the little Prentiss 53 1/2 that I picked up off eBay. It was so grimy in the auction that I didn't see the brazing repair. Oh well though, I don't intend to use it, I just like the art deco lines of this model and she'll just sit on a shelf anyway.

Before:

After:

Before:

After:

kenc184 · Nov 6, 2018

Very happy with how my little Parker swivel jaw turned out. I don't think this saw much use, just shoved out in the weather for years. Luckily, California weather isn't too severe. Both the swivel jaw and the swivel base were seized up, but all is good now. The jaws look unused, not a mark on them, similarly, the screw looks new.
I'm not a lover of gloss paint jobs with pin striping and highlights (although I bet I'll do one someday soon LOL) so this is matte black "zero-rust".

Outlawmws · Nov 6, 2018

Carquest said:
My first older vise purchase. Anything interesting about Hardy?

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The fact that is HAS a company name at al is interesting. I have several similar an none are labeled.

Outlawmws · Nov 6, 2018

Mr. Wonderful said:
I almost forgot to include the other customer request on this one

Unfortunate advert placement! :see:

kwoswalt99 · Nov 6, 2018

chrisnazzy said:
I'm sure I'm not the only one who has run across this new listing on eBay. $225 for an 8" jaw Parker initially had me wondering how far Galena, Kansas was from a relative of mine in Oklahoma.

Spolier alert: the seller states the vise was stored outside upside down and water froze in it and caused it to crack. It's okay to cry again VA.....I was too! Really too bad because other than the missing collar, it looks like it was in really good shape.

BTW that's a 4C in the background of the pic for a little scale. The 4C is for sale in another of the sellers listings for a measley $750 as it was not left outside to die in the cold.

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Wow, a broken parker. Who would’ve guessed.

gman007 · Nov 6, 2018

kwoswalt99 said:
Wow, a broken parker. Who would’ve guessed.

May be you missed the part that ice caused the crack! Parker or not, Ice wins over metal including steel let alone cast iron, just ask titanic or any frozen and burst pipe etc.

kwoswalt99 · Nov 7, 2018

gman007 said:
May be you missed the part that ice caused the crack! Parker or not, Ice wins over metal including steel let alone cast iron, just ask titanic or any frozen and burst pipe etc.

Actually ice can only produce a limited amount of pressure, so if the material it was made out of was stronger or less brittle it wouldn’t have broken.

Negen · Nov 7, 2018

Ice can put up to 30,000 psi of force on it's surroundings. I think it is OK to not blame an antique vise for those cracks.

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RBarnes · Nov 7, 2018

gman007 said:
May be you missed the part that ice caused the crack! Parker or not, Ice wins over metal including steel let alone cast iron, just ask titanic or any frozen and burst pipe etc.

Yes, at first glance, that vise wasn't all it was cracked up to be...

kwoswalt99 · Nov 7, 2018

Negen said:
Ice can put up to 30,000 psi of force on it's surroundings. I think it is OK to not blame an antique vise for those cracks.

Sent from my G8141 using The Garage Journal mobile app

Exactly, a different vise, a Columbian for example, wouldn’t have broken in the same circumstance. Even if it was the same design as the parker.

454ragtop · Nov 7, 2018

Picked up a bunch of vises this weekend. One of the more interesting is this Parker no. 30 oval slide vise. Smallest of their oval slide vises, 2-5/8" jaws, opens about the same. Did a quick clean up last night, it's in excellent shape, which I'm sure comes as a shock to Kwoswalt99.

Haven't decided if I'm going to paint it, or leave as is.

wrenchr · Nov 7, 2018

I'm no expert but wouldn't the water need to be in a trapped space to expand when frozen to be able to create that pressure? My guess is the reason it was outside was due to the crack.

Outlawmws · Nov 7, 2018

kwoswalt99 said:
Actually ice can only produce a limited amount of pressure, so if the material it was made out of was stronger or less brittle it wouldn’t have broken.

Tell that to the solid granite in the high mountains that Ice has been responsible for splitting and breaking down for eons, not to mention the literally thousands of engine blocks that have been broken by ice freezing inside. (why do you think anti-freeze is needed?)...

You really need to do far better research before responding, and then back up these troll-like one liners you constantly pop up with... :see:

MayerMR · Nov 7, 2018

Outlawmws said:
Tell that to the solid granite in the high mountains that Ice has been responsible for splitting and breaking down for eons, not to mention the literally thousands of engine blocks that have been broken by ice freezing inside. (why do you think anti-freeze is needed?)...

You really need to do far better research before responding, and then back up these troll-like one liners you constantly pop up with...

I agree. Water is an incredibly powerful force. It wouldn't take much for water to seep into the dynamic jaw when sitting upside down and then the main screw would provide enough obstruction to block the ice from expanding upwards and outwards and would easily provide enough force to break not just a Parker vise, but any number of types of materials. Granite monoliths, roads, etc.

Asport · Nov 7, 2018

454ragtop said:
Picked up a bunch of vises this weekend. One of the more interesting is this Parker no. 30 oval slide vise. Smallest of their oval slide vises, 2-5/8" jaws, opens about the same. Did a quick clean up last night, it's in excellent shape, which I'm sure comes as a shock to Kwoswalt99.
Haven't decided if I'm going to paint it, or leave as is.

Love that #30. Looks great without paint!

live311 · Nov 7, 2018

Missed out on the 974 1/2, not sure I'll get the 974 for the price I wanted.

On another note, here's a gorgeous baby bullet on our favorite auction site. I hope he gets what he's asking. I would buy it if I had that much $$$ to burn. :pimpflash

https://www.ebay.com/itm/WILTON-BAB...rentrq:eef46bfe1660ac1d2cec924dfffd12ee|iid:1

Asport · Nov 7, 2018

Here's an old Parker 20 that I finished. I tried to keep it with an old patina look. The handle was bent badly so I replaced it. It was missing all of the base parts so I made them so it could functions as through bench swivel base vise.

kwoswalt99 · Nov 7, 2018

Outlawmws said:
Tell that to the solid granite in the high mountains that Ice has been responsible for splitting and breaking down for eons, not to mention the literally thousands of engine blocks that have been broken by ice freezing inside. (why do you think anti-freeze is needed?)...

You really need to do far better research before responding, and then back up these troll-like one liners you constantly pop up with...

Actually, you maybe need to use your brain a little. If the material had a UTS of 30 ksi, a tube would have to have a wall thickness of half of the hole diameter in order to withstand 30000 psi of pressure. On the parker shown, the walls of the dynamic jaw look to be thicker than half of the shaft diameter, suggesting a material strength much lower than 30ksi.

va.grouseman · Nov 7, 2018

Asport, that is some impressive machine work on the vise parts.---Especially the spanner nut.---All look like original pieces.---Your spanner wrench is a coveted item by the way.---Hard to find and don't come cheap.---I've have 2 of them and it took a good spell to find them, but the vintage CP's just don't look complete without them.---Very pretty work you did.

Asport · Nov 7, 2018

va.grouseman said:
Asport, that is some impressive machine work on the vise parts.---Especially the spanner nut.---All look like original pieces.---Your spanner wrench is a coveted item by the way.---Hard to find and don't come cheap.---I've have 2 of them and it took a good spell to find them, but the vintage CP's just don't look complete without them.---Very pretty work you did.

Thanks for the kind words! I didn't make the wrench. It's is an original Parker.

va.grouseman · Nov 7, 2018

There should be an ice pressure test conducted on different items of strength just for references of curiosity.---I've seen ice bust some things that I wouldn't have dreamed would bust.---It's the #1 plague of Mt. Rushmore.---They're constantly having to patch up big flake offs and seal cracks.

va.grouseman · Nov 7, 2018

Asport said:
Thanks for the kind words! I didn't make the wrench. It's is an original Parker.

And that's what I meant about hard to find and don't come cheap.---I've seen them on eBay and they're not cheap.

Asport · Nov 7, 2018

va.grouseman said:
And that's what I meant about hard to find and don't come cheap.---I've seen them on eBay and they're not cheap.

Even the box end wrenches for the 1930+ years go for crazy money!

Krang · Nov 7, 2018

RBarnes said:
Yes, at first glance, that vise wasn't all it was cracked up to be...

Jokes only useable in a thread about vise, who woulda thunkit.

I figured it could hold its own and not clamp under pressure.

va.grouseman · Nov 7, 2018

The old Charles P. put up a valiant resistance to the elements and for a time it looked like it was going to prevail.---But in the end it was no daisy, it was no daisy at all.---Poor old vise was just too high strung.---I'm afraid the strain was more than it could bear. :sad:

connorm · Nov 7, 2018

That parker is beautiful.

KMScott · Nov 7, 2018

Nice work Asport. It is nice to see these old vises brought back to shape especially the Parker's.

Asport · Nov 7, 2018

connorm said:
That parker is beautiful.

KMScott said:
Nice work Asport. It is nice to see these old vises brought back to shape especially the Parker's.

Thanks!

I meant to post this picture before to give some idea of size. Pretty beefy vise for a 2-1/4" jaw.

justin.d.richards.9 · Nov 7, 2018

Well here's a few pictures of the base just because.. Like I said there's no cast numbers on it anywhere. Wish this thing could talk and tell me how it got broken lol.

gman007 · Nov 7, 2018

justin.d.richards.9 said:
Well here's a few pictures of the base just because.. Like I said there's no cast numbers on it anywhere. Wish this thing could talk and tell me how it got broken lol.

Justin
While no one can with certainty say how the base got broken, if the rest of the vise is in good shape , the damage to the base might not be related to abuse and misuse as such action should have also impacted the rest of the vise as well.

I believe one possibility might be that someone dropped the base and broke it.

Outlawmws · Nov 7, 2018

kwoswalt99 said:
Exactly, a different vise, a Columbian for example, wouldn’t have broken in the same circumstance. Even if it was the same design as the parker.

(Cough Cough) B%&#S#%$

Outlawmws · Nov 7, 2018

kwoswalt99 said:
Actually, you maybe need to use your brain a little. If the material had a UTS of 30 ksi, a tube would have to have a wall thickness of half of the hole diameter in order to withstand 30000 psi of pressure. On the parker shown, the walls of the dynamic jaw look to be thicker than half of the shaft diameter, suggesting a material strength much lower than 30ksi.

Yuo are making an awful lot of assumptions for someone with no engineering training or experience.

gman007 · Nov 7, 2018

kwoswalt99 said:
Exactly, a different vise, a Columbian for example, wouldn’t have broken in the same circumstance. Even if it was the same design as the parker.

That is an interesting statement but is is just a statement without any proof. So I suggest you back it up with actual data. If you in fact have any vises, I suggest that this winter to take them outside and to turn them upside down and fill the cavities with water. Specially if there are Columbians with the hallow jaws they should fill up nicely. Leave them outside to freeze over winter and let us know what happened to them in the spring.

Personally I will be eagerly waiting for the results of your experiment.

hitthewall79 · Nov 7, 2018

So I've been away for a while, and I've been on the hunt ******** for bigger vises. My question is, how do you guys find "the big ones"? I'm talking like 6 inches and above. Also, here is a Reed 204.5 I restored

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MayerMR · Nov 7, 2018

Well, I'll just get this thread back on track with my lucky little $50 pick up tonight! Date code is: 1/79.

gman007 · Nov 7, 2018

hitthewall79 said:
So I've been away for a while, and I've been on the hunt ******** for bigger vises. My question is, how do you guys find "the big ones"? I'm talking like 6 inches and above. Also, here is a Reed 204.5 I restored

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Hit
Welcome back and nice restoration job.

va.grouseman · Nov 7, 2018

Hitthewall, I can't speak for these fellows that will road-trip hundreds of miles for a vise, (that's dedication by the way), but for myself I can say that I ain't finding no more 8 inchers.---Luckily I started buying up large and odd vises aggressively about 10 or 12 years ago before the market went crazy, but I had been picking up 1 or 2 along for 30 years or better.---The sad thing is that vises use to be worth only scrap iron prices but now the whole world is aware of their value.---There's still a few people that could care less and would toss a monster in the scrap bin but I wouldn't set around waiting on them to.---Like I said, I haven't seen an 8''er in the wild in 3 years.

By the way, that is an awsome restore you've done there.

weldstuff · Nov 7, 2018

Someone on this forum wanted info to update his list of vises I saw earlier but I can not find the post now...So maybe some one could send this info to the correct member for me. He has a very nice list with vise info and he was asking if anyone had an addition the list to let him know, well I have a Chas parker 25X , weight 139 pounds. 26" long 5 1/2" jaws Model 25X

kwoswalt99 · Nov 7, 2018

Outlawmws said:
Yuo are making an awful lot of assumptions for someone with no engineering training or experience.

Funny how you assumed that... :headscrat

kwoswalt99 · Nov 7, 2018

gman007 said:
That is an interesting statement but is is just a statement without any proof. So I suggest you back it up with actual data. If you in fact have any vises, I suggest that this winter to take them outside and to turn them upside down and fill the cavities with water. Specially if there are Columbians with the hallow jaws they should fill up nicely. Leave them outside to freeze over winter and let us know what happened to them in the spring.

Personally I will be eagerly waiting for the results of your experiment.

If I had a columbian right now I would try it. It would be very interesting considering how much surface area they have.

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