Can someone help with my vise.

[Angry welder]

Ok, so I finally got the vise apart. Long story but lets just say I have been using two 10 ton jacks to separate the jaws apart.

So with a brief cleaning the only numbers I have found on it as far as dating might be concerned are the numbers stamped on the keyway. The stamping is 172. From what I have seen after doing a little searching, on Wilton vises this would mean it has a warranty date of January 1972 correct.

If I am wrong will someone please let me know what this means.

 

[bczygan]

You are correct.

More photos?

 

[drivesitfar]

AW: so what is your question? first off i wouldn't be using jacks to get a vise unstuck so if you did it without breaking any part of the original cast you were lucky.

the 1/72 date on the slide of your Wilton means it was made then or that's when it left the factory in January 1972 and nothing about warranty. if you still have questions please post up a bunch more pictures of your entire vise please. also was it just rusted shut or do tell why you needed to use hydraulics on your nice vise?

 

[tedsters]

10 ton jacks, did you damage the vise.

 

[tedsters]

post some pics of what your working on, instead of just the slide

 

[colin39]

Sounds like the slide is all mushroomed where aomeone has beaten on it? Only at a guess as we need pictures. Lil

 

[Angry welder]

Update to the vise post.

So I was given this vise by my aunt. She had told me that it had belonged to my grandfather. When I got it the thing had been sitting in their yard on a stump / bench that my late uncle had been using to hold the vise down, for what ever reason. He was a bit strange, great guy and as nice as they came, just strange. So I have no idea how long it had been sitting in the weather.

So to start with, I cleaned up as much of the vise as I could with a wire wheel. I tried using the screw handle to open and shut the vise, however the retention plate for the front jaw broke. So I started with penetration lube, when that didn't work I filled it full of break fluid, because that eats rust off like a two year old with candy. Then I added a little heat to it, hoping to pull it apart with a chain fall and the thing tied between two trees. Thats when I gave up hope on it ever working.

Not willing to accept defeat I built this contraption. The base is 1 1/2 x 1/4 inch bar grating that I bolted the wise to with a 1/4 inch backing plate that I welded to the bar grating. The bottom that the jacks and vise are sitting on is a series of 2x2x1/4 inch tubing that I welded to the bar grating so the jacks would have a floor to push from.

The jaws of the vise were open just enough that within the throat I could just slide a piece of 2x2 between the two jaws. I used this as a pushing point for the two jacks. keep in mind at this point I had already considered the vise scrape and that it was not coming apart, so I really didn't care if it broke. I was just fooling around with an idea, and trying to get some time behind my new welder.

 

[Angry welder]

So once I started using the jacks to separate the two pieces of the vise. I was really really surprised with how much pressure I had to apply to get the thing to move any. When it did finally pop, I almost crapped my pants and thought the jacks had exploded on me. I had so much pressure built up on the jacks that I really thought they were going to blow a seal and I had begun using a cheater pipe to jack the jacks up, so if anything did blow I wouldn't be close by.

But once it started moving, I thought yeah its broken free and should come out with little trouble now. Wrong. That damn thing did not move at all unless I was using the jacks to press it out. But it did finally come out, and the slide has cleaned up quite nicely with a lot of degreaser and a lot of wire wheeling. So I have hope for the vise again.

 

[Angry welder]

I did manage to get the inside nut out. Surprisingly the pins on the side that hold the nut in the main body came out with very very little effort. I used a punch and a 2 pound hammer and it came out with little effort. I will get some more pictures posted tomorrow of them before and after I am done cleaning them up.