Fully chromed vise?
- Thread starter bchee
- Start date
tonydanzah
Well-known member
there is pictures of one in the the tools of the old world thread at a trade show monte went to
A chromed Wilton is shown in this post on Practical Machinist:
http://www.practicalmachinist.com/v...lets-see-yours-78814/index20.html#post1338444
http://www.practicalmachinist.com/v...lets-see-yours-78814/index20.html#post1338444
TheGrooveking
Well-known member
Yes, matter of fact I've seen dozens of them. In 1988 I worked with a maintenance tech who used to work at the Wilton vise facility in Schiller Park, Illinois and he was able to get employee discounts thru another employee that still worked there. So I arranged to buy 5 vises for myself, so when I went with him to pick them up at the Schiller Park plant I was given a tour and there I saw more than a dozen large chrome Wilton vises.
From what I understood is that these were special order and were on average another $300 - $600 above the price of the vise depending on size. I saw the vised in the deburring/smoothing stages prior to chroming and polishing stages after plating. There were 4 guys that the smallest had to be 6'6" tall and about 350 of solid muscle standing in front of these large belts sanders that had different grit belts and they would hold a vise in their hands and move it around cleaning off all of the casting marks.
The same thing happened at different stations until it was almost mirror smooth and then they were packaged and sent out for plating. Of course the vise bodies were done separately from the moveable jaws. When they came back from plating they were polished on large floor mounted pedestal buffers. It was pretty impressive and I will say that being 6'3" and 320 pounds back then I was somewhat intimated by those guys polishing the vises, everyone of them had biceps that were about the size of their heads.
I don't know if Wilton still offers this, but after seeing it, I decided that if I ever won the lottery I would get a chrome Wilton, to match the chrome Bridgeport mill I would buy.
TheGrooveking
From what I understood is that these were special order and were on average another $300 - $600 above the price of the vise depending on size. I saw the vised in the deburring/smoothing stages prior to chroming and polishing stages after plating. There were 4 guys that the smallest had to be 6'6" tall and about 350 of solid muscle standing in front of these large belts sanders that had different grit belts and they would hold a vise in their hands and move it around cleaning off all of the casting marks.
The same thing happened at different stations until it was almost mirror smooth and then they were packaged and sent out for plating. Of course the vise bodies were done separately from the moveable jaws. When they came back from plating they were polished on large floor mounted pedestal buffers. It was pretty impressive and I will say that being 6'3" and 320 pounds back then I was somewhat intimated by those guys polishing the vises, everyone of them had biceps that were about the size of their heads.
I don't know if Wilton still offers this, but after seeing it, I decided that if I ever won the lottery I would get a chrome Wilton, to match the chrome Bridgeport mill I would buy.
TheGrooveking
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spongerich
Well-known member
I've been thinking about doing a small one in some of that chrome finish powder coat. I'll probably pickup something cheap at a swap meet or auction to try it on first.
mjozefow
Well-known member
WICKED! I think a Reed 108 in chrome would be bad ***!
mkdive
Well-known member
Chrome BP you say????
