geejack
New member
Just joined this forum yesterday.
I was looking for information on a Columbian D45-M4 vise. The vise came with a heavy duty Shure metal work bench I bought off Craigslist. The vise is missing one of the jaw inserts but I made a temporary replacement by stacking three pieces of 1/8 x 3/4 x 5" aluminum cut from a 3 foot piece I got at Lowes for four bucks and change (it was Sunday so not too many choices). Couldn't find a screw with a smallish head like the original so I ended up grinding down the heads of some stainless flat heads to reduce the diameter and then using a file to get them reasonably flush.
The dimensions of the original insert are 3/8 x 3/4 x 5" with 1/4 inch holes 3 inch centers. I'm thinking about buying a 3/8 x 3/4 piece of aluminum and some fillister head screws to make something that looks more like the jaw insert pictures I see on the web. If I can't find those locally, McMaster-Carr has 6 feet of 3/8 x 3/4 aluminum flat and 25 fillester head 1/4 inch screws for 25 dollars which should allow me to make a lifetime supply of jaw inserts using a drill and my new vise. I'm not a machinist so we'll see how that works out.
The bench and vise were well used in an auto body shop and had a lot of overspray and bondo spread and dripped on them. It felt good to wire brush and scrape that off and see what things looked like underneath. I'm going to leave the vise with it's red patina but not sure what to do with the top of the work bench yet. Rust seemed to be forming pretty quick when I got to bare metal - so it's covered with some light oil waiting for me to figure out if I'm going cover it with long term (maybe light oil). I'm going to repaint the frame the original red color and may paint the top too and put a piece of hardboard on it to keep from chipping it up.
I'm not a vise nut yet but I also have a small 2 inch Goodell Pratt homeowners vise purchased via Ebay that was made in the 1920's http://cafejack.blogspot.com/2011/11/new-vise-coming-my-way.html and a HF drill press vise that doesn't get used (it was cheap though) - not knocking HF, I've bought a lot of stuff there, just can't figure out what to do with that vise yet.
I've been gazing at the pictures in the vise thread particularly that huge vise with the pop can sitting on it.
I'll try to take some pictures of my two old vises sometime.
I was looking for information on a Columbian D45-M4 vise. The vise came with a heavy duty Shure metal work bench I bought off Craigslist. The vise is missing one of the jaw inserts but I made a temporary replacement by stacking three pieces of 1/8 x 3/4 x 5" aluminum cut from a 3 foot piece I got at Lowes for four bucks and change (it was Sunday so not too many choices). Couldn't find a screw with a smallish head like the original so I ended up grinding down the heads of some stainless flat heads to reduce the diameter and then using a file to get them reasonably flush.
The dimensions of the original insert are 3/8 x 3/4 x 5" with 1/4 inch holes 3 inch centers. I'm thinking about buying a 3/8 x 3/4 piece of aluminum and some fillister head screws to make something that looks more like the jaw insert pictures I see on the web. If I can't find those locally, McMaster-Carr has 6 feet of 3/8 x 3/4 aluminum flat and 25 fillester head 1/4 inch screws for 25 dollars which should allow me to make a lifetime supply of jaw inserts using a drill and my new vise. I'm not a machinist so we'll see how that works out.
The bench and vise were well used in an auto body shop and had a lot of overspray and bondo spread and dripped on them. It felt good to wire brush and scrape that off and see what things looked like underneath. I'm going to leave the vise with it's red patina but not sure what to do with the top of the work bench yet. Rust seemed to be forming pretty quick when I got to bare metal - so it's covered with some light oil waiting for me to figure out if I'm going cover it with long term (maybe light oil). I'm going to repaint the frame the original red color and may paint the top too and put a piece of hardboard on it to keep from chipping it up.
I'm not a vise nut yet but I also have a small 2 inch Goodell Pratt homeowners vise purchased via Ebay that was made in the 1920's http://cafejack.blogspot.com/2011/11/new-vise-coming-my-way.html and a HF drill press vise that doesn't get used (it was cheap though) - not knocking HF, I've bought a lot of stuff there, just can't figure out what to do with that vise yet.
I've been gazing at the pictures in the vise thread particularly that huge vise with the pop can sitting on it.
I'll try to take some pictures of my two old vises sometime.