Vise maintenance?

[MushCreek]

We've had a number of threads about restoring vises, but what about just plain mechanical maintenance? My Wilton vise came to me with ancient, dried-up grease on the moving parts. I'll take it apart and clean everything, then what? Do you grease the screw or nut? Grease the sliding part? All of the above? None of the above? My Wilton is in nice shape, and I'd like to keep it that way for a long time. Any tips?

 

[KEH]

All of the above. I would do the same even if it's one of the cheaper imports.

KEH

 

[General Geoff]

when I did my Starret-Athol refresh, I cleaned and put fresh grease on the main screw and nut, and a light coat on the top of the swivel base and the contact pads under the dynamic jaw slide. I also put a light coat of BreakFree CLP on the jaws and handle, as I left them bare metal.

I reapply the CLP about twice a year on the handle and jaws.

 

[Mark in Indiana]

Easy.
1. Keep it clean by wiping it off after each use.
2. Occasionally remove the slide, apply a thin coat of grease to the main spindle.
3. Apply a thin coat of oil to the slide and other bare metal parts. This prevents flash rust. I use gear oil because it lasts longer than a thinner oil.
4. Keep a paint pen of your vises color to touch up any scratches in the paint.
5. When your vise isn't in use: First cover it with an old tee shirt, then cover it with a garbage bag. This will protect your vise from normal shop dust, condensation and other sources of moisture.


I won't say that the steps above are perfect, but it works for me.

 

[pstemari]

You're using grease on the screw and not way oil?

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[pepi]

Vise maintenance? what 3 moving parts, how tuff can it be? Hammers are much more complicated.

 

[Mark in Indiana]

Way oil will work fine. I've known guys that use anti-seize and other lubricants. I only use grease because I have it on hand.

 

[davethorik]

If you are gonna do a lot of metal sawing or grinding in the vise, I'd keep grease on the slide itself to a minimum.

 

[Mark in Indiana]

Pepi:
All due respect sir. IMO: The vise is the center of the shop/garage. A clean, lubricated vise will work smoother and last longer than a neglected one. It's also more of a pleasure to use than a poorly maintained vise. It's also good shop practice. I've seen large vises that were never lubricated and ended up with no threads.

 

[Bellaireroad]

Vise maintenance? what 3 moving parts, how tuff can it be? Hammers are much more complicated.

That's what I thought when I saw this


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[vintage nut]

My two main vises live on the same bench as a pair of belt grinders, so I do a tear down a d clean every 3-6 months. Pull it apart, clean every moving part as well as possible, and relubricate. I use insted-a-led which is the best I've found. Antisieze is a close second, quality grease works too

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[mjoekingz28]

Vise maintenance? what 3 moving parts, how tuff can it be? Hammers are much more complicated.

Alright funny guy. The Mazda rotary engine has three moving parts.

 

[Skin]

I'd think wax or something else dry like a Teflon spray would be better than grease for a vise if you actually use it between all the dirt, metal filings, and other debris.

 

[MushCreek]

Ya know, I thought it was a simple (maybe too simple) question, and yet, we have different answers and theories. It is true that grease + grit = lapping compound. The Wilton screw is pretty well covered, though. My vise will see a lot of grinding and sawing of metal. BTW- Anyone know what the manufacturer recommends?

 

[AJ.]

I don't think you need to overthink this one. It has few moving parts and they are slow moving so what type of lube you use is not a big deal.

https://postimage.org/app.php

I just took this picture of my vise, I have been grinding rust off parts all day on or near it. It see's lots of metal grinding. You can see a couple of nicks from where I have been plasma cutting and slipped.

I pull it apart once every few years and clean it up and lube it with whatever is handy, sometimes a bit of oil, more often grease, occasionally anti sieze. Its 30 years old now and shows little sign of wear from my lack of lubing it, I expect it will easily last another 30 years which will see me out

Cheers Andrew

 

[Mark in Indiana]

All:

I should clarify my advise about using a thin coat of grease on the main screw. The vises that I refer to when using grease are your basic bench vises which the slide covers the main screw and nut. I just use grease on the covered main screw because I have a lot of it.

Most lubricants will capture dust and grit. So it's a good idea to periodically clean & re-lubricate the main screw, as well as other components. For my wood vise & drill vise, I use a silicone spray for the exposed main screws and slide rods. For my milling machine vise, I keep a pump bottle of thin machine oil handy and squirt some oil on the parts after I've cleaned up the chips.

Thankfully, vise maintenance isn't rocket science. You're not dealing with the preciseness of a ball screw on a robot. You could occasionally spray WD40 on the vise components. Main thing is to keep them clean and lubricated with whatever works for you.

Cheers

 

[drivesitfar]

ALL: how often you clean and re grease or oil your vise always depends on use and even more so the type of use.

one thing i try to do when cutting, filing or working on my vises where there might be debris hitting the slide is to put a rag (clean or oily) on the slide to catch any debris. then pull the rag out when you are done and shake it into your garbage can. this will keep a lot of debris out of inside of your vise and keep the slide and screw cleaner.

i've picked up some vises off of a guy's bench where he might have used it every day for 30-50 years without ever greasing it and they still perform, but they do like a little grease and oil especially if used fairly often.

simple thread title and good subject cause a lot of us don't take care of our tools we spent good money to buy.

if you want to eliminate surface rust there are several spray on and rub on oils and waxes to use and i like BLO. Fretters made up a little recipe for his humid shop's tools in England that he's still perfecting, but might be something to protect your vise and steel in your shops.

The recipe for that graphite paste.

1oz beeswax
30ml gum/pure turpentine (2 tablespoons)
60ml linseed oil (4 tablespoons)
3 rounded tablespoons of graphite powder

The method I use for making it is to get a saucepan and roughly half fill it with water, (just make sure the water level is not high enough to flood over the lip of the jar when you put that in there), put the jar containing the ingredients into the water and then set that pan off to simmer. Mix the paste occasionally as the wax melts. It'll eventually turn completely liquid, so give it a good stir once it does and then remove the jar from the saucepan of water and stand it to one side to air cool. Once you notice the top starting to skin over, give it one last thorough stir to stir up the graphite powder and then leave it to harden fully. Once it's set, time to have a diddle with it.

Leave the top on the jar when you're not stirring, btw. Don't tighten the lid down fully until after that final stir, but keep it loosely on there as much as possible. It'll prevent the turpentine evaporating.

You may want to try tweaking the formula to best suit you, btw. I've just settled on this blend as it seems a good compromise of softness but without being too runny.

cheers

 

[Leaflessshadetree]

Vise maintenance? what 3 moving parts, how tuff can it be? Hammers are much more complicated.

How many moving parts do your hammers have?

 

[mjoekingz28]

How many moving parts do your hammers have?

The bicep, elbow, wrist, fingers......there are four right there.








For the vise, I do not have one but I do have a c-clamp. It has never been used and can develop flash rust from humidity. I suggest a light oil lightly soaked followed by a spraying of water(distilled?) then wiped meticulously clean.

We want these hunks of metal to last thousands of years. Wouldnt it be cool if you found out your vise was from the Middle Ages where they were used to make armour for the Knights jousting? Well, we have the lubricants and internet know-how.....now just put it to use and keept the vise out of the ground and away from the rain.

 

[Outlander]

Occasional wipe down, occasional oiling of mating surfaces and moving parts.

 

[SweetD]

I just keep it real simple. No grease, just oil. Thin as possible coat on all exposed surfaces, and I lube the main screw with a little oil. Wash, rinse, repeat as needed.

Dave

 

[sonoronos]

My favorite is Super Lube 71150 (Silicone-free Teflon fortified grease) for the screw and all the screw contact surfaces.

Transparent/clear, very slippery, and lasts a very long time.

Also cheap.

 

[crane operator]

Occasional wipe down, occasional oiling of mating surfaces and moving parts.

This sounds like a instruction manual for something totally different.

That said, I don't think I've ever greased a vise, it's not like its high pressure and a heavy wear item. I find in a dirty shop environment grease tends to make it worse (attracts dirt and crud)

 

[Outlander]

This sounds like a instruction manual for something totally different.

 

[MushCreek]

Doesn't it make you squirm just a little when you see a big Wilton bullet welded to the bumper of a county work vehicle?

 

[kwoswalt99]

No..

 

[sonoronos]

Doesn't it make you squirm just a little when you see a big Wilton bullet welded to the bumper of a county work vehicle?

Nope. With the same bases having been made for decades by Wilton, and an easily available replacement part, why worry?

 

[Outlander]

What about you guys with vises outside? Do you do things differently when is comes to maintenance?

 

[crane operator]

Doesn't it make you squirm just a little when you see a big Wilton bullet welded to the bumper of a county work vehicle?

That's exactly what they are made for, holding things in place while you beat/ bash/ pry on it to fix it.

 

[MushCreek]

Still, it pains me to see them out in the weather like that. I understand welding it in place; otherwise it would grow legs. I made a vise mount that fits in a 2" receiver, but I don't leave it on the truck unless I'm using it.

 

[drivesitfar]

Mush: a lot of those service trucks can remove the vises when not in use and put them inside the truck or a locking tool box. there are better tools for beating out old metal parts and stuff, but a lot of guys learned that from their grand dads and dads or co workers and still think a vise it meant to be hit with a BFH. or in some cases a $500 to $1500 vise is a small expense to keep a job and a crew running. the sad thing is the person breaking a vise almost always wants a refund which i'm sure is part of the reason so many old vise companies are no longer in business. now we get CHEAP IMPORT **** to buy and they will gladly replace them with another $1 vise.

before my outside 6 inch Parker vise on a 200 pound stand sold to a friend cause he HAD TO HAVE IT i used BLO, greased the screw and had a huge rubbermaid bin to cover it. i would have left the rubbermaid top off if it was not at my shop and was thinking of getting a big oil pan off a truck to put on it since that 956 Parker was no little thing. sounds like Vintage nut's 150+ pound blacksmith vise is just sitting outside his shop with BLO with pine tar and some wax on it and it's in great shape after sitting out in the PNW rain all year.

 

[vintage nut]

It's been holding up fairly well. A few little spots of light surface rust showing up, but 5 minutes with a wire brush and a bit more of the was mix will have it looking like new again. Been very impressed with that mixture

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[sonoronos]

Still, it pains me to see them out in the weather like that. I understand welding it in place; otherwise it would grow legs. I made a vise mount that fits in a 2" receiver, but I don't leave it on the truck unless I'm using it.

You're not wrong, but...

This Wilton is mounted on the bumper of a DC Water truck. When you have an institutional purchaser like DC Water and they buy a hundred Wilton 1780's to mount on their trucks, they are not like you and me. They are not individuals. These vises are wear items and will eventually be decommissioned after many years of use. These people do not have time to be lifting an 80 lb vise up on a hitch mount every time they need to be working on the vise.

The military does the same thing with the vises mounted on HEMTT M984A4 wreckers and the old ones on M936 wreckers. The military manuals for wrecker trucks have specific instructions on how to use the device, including typically verboten things like using the vise as a press for replacing driveshaft u-joints and hammering on them to pop bearings out.

 

[vintage nut]

You're not wrong, but...

This Wilton is mounted on the bumper of a DC Water truck. When you have an institutional purchaser like DC Water and they buy a hundred Wilton 1780's to mount on their trucks, they are not like you and me. They are not individuals. These vises are wear items and will eventually be decommissioned after many years of use. These people do not have time to be lifting an 80 lb vise up on a hitch mount every time they need to be working on the vise.

The military does the same thing with the vises mounted on HEMTT M984A4 wreckers and the old ones on M936 wreckers. The military manuals for wrecker trucks have specific instructions on how to use the device, including typically verboten things like using the vise as a press for replacing driveshaft u-joints and hammering on them to pop bearings out.

Having a fair amount of navy surplus in my collection, I can say the military in general is definitely not easy on tools.
Using non sparking bronze wrenches as hammers and such

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