French Vises anyone? (Dolex)

I found this at what I thought to be a picked over estate sale a few months back. It appears to be a Dolex model 56T made in France. The jaws are 125mm (5") wide and it opens to 180mm (7"). The vise weighs in at 14 Kg (about 31 lbs). The really nice thing about the vise is the total lack of slop in the moving jaw. This appears to be due to the 4 brass adjustment screws (2 on either side of the main body at the top). Dolex is still in business and has these specs on their web site:

Technical features :
1 - Renewable jaw-plates, file-cut face, made in case-hardened cr-mo steel (+55HRC)
2 - Ample clearance below the jaws and off the slide for holding the pieces vertically
3 - drop-forged head
4 - drop-forged main screw, with trapezoidal rolled threads, nickel and chromium plated in its whole
5 - perfect steadiness of the swiveling vice (thanks to the compact height and the wide stay of its base)
6 - prismatic slide in special steel (high yield point and tensile strength)
7 - brass adjustment screws . Patented device to compensate for wear , and adjust the jaws parallelism
8 - body in casting, with a large machined anvil permitting hammering

It took a bit of searching but from what I saw on the web they sell for about 284 Euros (abut $390).

It is a bit different of a vise, but a pretty nice one all totaled. I would pick up another one if the price was right on the used market. But at new prices a Reed or Yost would be my preference.

Never seen one of those, interesting.

That's got to be a rare piece around these parts. It looks well made too! Nice find. Too bad you couldn't get a history on that vise. Whoever owned it wanted to take it here bad enough. Any guess on its age?

Dolex "Serie 15", small jaws, 105mm. Bought in 80's.







Adjustment screws, zero wear


With magnetic rubber jaws.

Cool find!

Dolex has been referenced quite a few times by members Automatique and Monte:
Google Search results for GJ

nice vise

autopts said:

That's got to be a rare piece around these parts. It looks well made too! Nice find. Too bad you couldn't get a history on that vise. Whoever owned it wanted to take it here bad enough. Any guess on its age?

Click to expand...

The estate sale was in a fairly nice section of town ($$$) with great views. I saw the sale a few hours after I started. There were a bunch of people milling around and surprisingly in the middle of all this was a vise sitting on the ground in the garage. So I headed straight for the vise and grabbed it. From a distance I thought it was a Rigid vise. I did not realize it was a Dolex until later. The previous owner had a modest garage with a single Craftsman toolbox (probably 70's vintage) and a 6 foot workbench. But everything in there was clean and nominally in its place (no packrat here).

I am not one to use a vise as an anvil, but I was impressed at how much material thickness Dolex designed in around the anvil area of the vise.

It is an interesting vise - I think I will make room for it on the bench somewhere.

I know that would be an unusual find in my area for sure. It looks like a very high quality piece and I would love to have that in my shop. It's a shame that being French, the Vice will probably whine if you use it to much or clamp on it to hard LOL .

Here's an interesting French vise I picked up a year or two ago at an industrial auction: A SMID shaft vice. Not sure when I'll need it, but the price was right!

A presumably older Dolex, without the adjustment screws or prismatic slide, but with a keyed slide.

Nice! I missed your post. The keyed slide is pretty unique

Funny.....I'd been wanting a vice for awhile and our neighbor was having a garage sale. He had a workbench my wife thought I might want - but she said it had a vice attached. I was, like, "Well, I really don't need a workbench but I do need a vice." I'd been looking at some cheap ones. The bench and the vice were marked 50 bucks. I walked next door and my neighbor said, "Hell, you can have this thing - I just want it out of the way." I started messing around fixing small engines in my 60's - I don't know much. I also do some plumbing and on various occasions I've really needed a vice. Our neighbor commented that he looked this thing up and it was three or four hundred bucks. I was skeptical since he's pretty frugal. He just gave me the thing - this is the model. It's identical. I guess I should buy a lottery ticket, today. Woo-hoo. A really nice, heavy duty vice fell outta the sky today. I couldn't find much about the thing until I found this post.

Glad to hear of your find. Doled is still in business, now part of VP industries in France. Here is a link to their website.