Strange old vice anyone seen one like it?

[vj6pac]

Picked this up at a garage sale today, never seen anything like it.

Does anyone have any idea about what it would be used for, the jaws only open about 1cm.

 

[Milton Shaw]

Probably a vise for holding hand saw blades while you file the teeth. I have one that is all cast iron, I had not seen one steel and wood but that would do the job. Google hand saw sharpening and you can see a lot of different tools used in the last century before power tools took most of the sharpening duties. Lots of questions about id of saw sets and tooth height gauges in other posts.

 

[vj6pac]

Thanks for the reply.

 

[Corndoggeh]

That is an extremely old style of vise, its ancestor was a wedge vise where a square wedge was hammered up to create the force on the jaws, this one uses a screw. The very long tail ends says saw sharpening rather making parts or smithing. This is more than likely a lightweight vise to sharpen crosscut saws or sharpen axes or the like by loggers out in the field/camp that would need to be lightweight to be carried frequently.

 

[Packard V8]

Agree, a very old saw-filing vise.

jack vines