toolcollector109
Active member
- Joined
- Nov 15, 2022
- Messages
- 36
Hi all, last year, my Dad hauled the old Wilton Shop King out of storage in his basement. We didn’t know what had happened to it after their recent move. I don’t think I had seen it in six years.
This vice was my Great-Grandfather’s, and when he went into the “old folks” home sometimes in the 1980’s, he gave it to my Dad. It was always on his garage workbench for as long as I can remember. When I was a kid and then a teenager, I began using it regularly for my car and metalworking projects. The anvil surface was also my first anvil, for peening pins and stuff like that.
It was in pretty bad shape when we relocated it. Lots of surface rust and old grease. The bolts that held the jaws in were rusty and bent and one was missing.
I painted it with Rustoleum oil enamel. I always felt it should have been two tone somehow, it just looks right the way the lines are set up.
I plan to use it, but not abuse it. If the current paint job ever gets as bad as the original had after 60+ years (and I still own it), I would likely opt for full commercial stripping down to bare metal and then I’d just wirebrush it and oil it. I was heavily influenced by the YouTube trend of vice restoration. It looks great but like an anvil, a vice probably doesn’t need to be painted. I’m sure the main reason they paint them to begin with is because the average Joe isn’t going to go to a big box store and pay for a new vice covered in surface rust.
This vice was my Great-Grandfather’s, and when he went into the “old folks” home sometimes in the 1980’s, he gave it to my Dad. It was always on his garage workbench for as long as I can remember. When I was a kid and then a teenager, I began using it regularly for my car and metalworking projects. The anvil surface was also my first anvil, for peening pins and stuff like that.
It was in pretty bad shape when we relocated it. Lots of surface rust and old grease. The bolts that held the jaws in were rusty and bent and one was missing.
I painted it with Rustoleum oil enamel. I always felt it should have been two tone somehow, it just looks right the way the lines are set up.
I plan to use it, but not abuse it. If the current paint job ever gets as bad as the original had after 60+ years (and I still own it), I would likely opt for full commercial stripping down to bare metal and then I’d just wirebrush it and oil it. I was heavily influenced by the YouTube trend of vice restoration. It looks great but like an anvil, a vice probably doesn’t need to be painted. I’m sure the main reason they paint them to begin with is because the average Joe isn’t going to go to a big box store and pay for a new vice covered in surface rust.
