Member postings for Nick Grant

I don't see anyone trying to advise, just a general appreciation of the engineering involved and how difficult and dangerous it will be.

Rather patronising to suggest anyone here would think we know better than the guys and girls doing the work to be honest.

Edited By Nick Grant on 15/03/2015 17:51:44

True but surely wheel bearings would be taking a far greater load than either of those? I was thinking you would need a huge amount of downforce to keep this thing on the ground at those speeds.

Im half searching for one myself at the moment. One thing I have learned is that metal causes extra problems because a lot of the cheap ones have plastic dust collection chutes and the metal sparks burn through. They can also be far from precise which is a bigger problem for metal work than wood.

I would make sure you can have a good look in person to check everything over before buying one or possibly look into making a belt sender yourself. There are plenty of designs online for the kind of sanders that knife makes use which are very flexible.

The bearings must be quite something to cope with that!

Have you tried 123d design? Its designed for 3d printers so might output in the correct format for a CNC machine. Ben Heck just uses illustrator for his CNC plans so I guess and good vector application should work as well.

Neil, the idea is to get it apart so I can properly clean it, repaint the base and possibly replace the bearings. The pin in the shaft is the last fixing I can see other than the ones holding the jaws on so I assumed with that collar removed I could wind the thing out and up. If theres some other trick to it then I would love to know.

My experience (or lack of) with vices is with a few Record bench mount ones that I have stripped, repaired and painted. This thing is in a different league in terms of engineering and complexity so im not afraid to admit im out of my depth.

I could give a screw extractor a go I guess. If im going to drill it anyway then I have nothing to lose. It will have to wait a month or two until the drill is running though. Dont fancy trying it with a hand held!

Hopefully this thing will come to bits once that pin/screw is out, They built em strong back then....

I though that end looked weird and very screw like too Jason so you could be right.

I think I will put the vice aside for now and when I get the drill running I will drill it out. Less chance of cracking something that way.

Thanks for the help guys.

Damn thing didnt move which ever end I tried to hit. I guess Im going to have to support everything better and use a bigger hammer. This thing puts up a fight....

Well I managed to get the last two screws out from underneath by filing the hole slightly larger and doing the vice up as tight as I could, the bolts just squeezed out. I will continue to try and remove the jaws however. Now the moving block is only fixed to the body of the vice by the shaft. I see what I thought was a pin that I could hammer out and everything would slide apart but of course it wasnt that easy.... The pin wont budge at all so im wondering if I am going to have to drill it out to finally get this vice apart? Or is there some other trick for this final part of the disassembly?

This was the side of the pin I tried to apply force to via a punch and hammer.

and the other side of the pin

Quite something! Seems like youd need the right shaped shoulder to fit the stock though.

Nice that he actually spends time in a workshop too, not just behind a desk. Id imagine their tools are better for it.

Not to my personal taste but the craftsmanship is amazing. Talented guy!

I have to say I think I would feel uncomfortable dunking it in cola. I will stick to wd40 (not the best I know) and the impact driver for now and see if I can shift them

I will be painting the base black but leaving the rest natural, drill marks and all. It does have a beautiful patina under the grime.

Ive got a manual impact driver on order now so hopefully with all these tips I can get them shifted in the next few weeks. Does anyone know if you can get flat bladed bits bigger than 12mm? That will do one side but the other is more like 14-15.

@pgk pgk, cola? really? Not heard of that one.

Thank you for the help everyone.

Thats a good idea actually, or increasing the size of the original hole very slightly. Something to think about, thank you.

The vice jaws are actually in very good condition and wont need replacing (amazingly for something so old!). To be honest I might have just left them on if I didn't need that extra mm of clearance to remove the screws from the underside.

I was considering buying a manual impact driver and giving that a go but just welding nuts on and replacing the screws is a good idea.

Thanks for the tips everyone. I will certainly steer clear of heat as I don't want to damage it. The vice (and drill) came from a very old teddy bear factory in shropshire called merrythoughts. It even has the name merrythought punched into the top so its a real one off piece that I would hate to damage.

I do have an 18v makita impact driver for woodwork but I doubt that would have enough power even if i could get a bit that was wide enough?

I had a good look underneath and after poking around I found two holes that were hidden as they were packed with black grease and bits of metal. The holes go right through the base and allow access to the underside of the moving block where 4 screws are visible with the vice in the right place. Taking these out should release everything I think.

However 1 set of screws do not line up with the hole and I beilive I have to remove at least one jaw plate to allow room to screw the vice forward and extract them. There are yet more slot headed screws holding the plate in place and I don’t think they have been removed for a very long time because they are not budging an inch. I tried a big screwdriver with a wrench attached to it for leverage and put all my weight on it while banging the end with a hammer but nothing. The next thing is heat I suppose but I only have blow torch so I’m not sure it will heat the large lump of cast iron fast enough.

Hard to see but the screw just wont clear the casting and this is when the vice is fully closed so I cant get it to line up any more.

The two screws that hold a jaw plate in place. I think if i could remove these I could gain the clearance to slide the main block forward and extract the final screws from the base.

Looking beautiful, that shade of red really sets it off