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Cast Iron vices

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Terryd12/01/2012 11:22:40
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Hi All,
 
Following on from a comment about vices by Ady1. I have used (and abused!) cast vices all my working life, bench and machine types, and never had one fail. Ady1 pointed out quite correctly that cast iron generally is poor in tension but good in compression - so far so good. However I was always taught that vices and such items generally are made from malleable cast iron which is much better in tension and not as prone to cracking as normal grey cast iron.
 
I'd like to have my misunderstanding cleared up by someone who knows definitively .
 
Thanks for any help on the matter,
 
Best regards
 
Terry,

Ady112/01/2012 11:53:22
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Half the problem will be a lack of experience on my part, plus I'm not exactly buying top drawer gear, although my biggest vice failure was about 6 inches capacity and looked like a good bit of gear
 
However, I have had to push my gear to it's limit on occasion and a steel vice is going to perform better than a cast iron effort when the going gets tuff
 
Horses for courses
 
My main reason for posting was because it's a good upgrade to consider for your workshop, not a difficult project to pursue, and is used pretty much every day forever after.
If you look for "solid steel" vices on the netty they aren't common, and they aint cheap.
So a relatively simple project can produce the equivalent of a high quality expensive bit of kit which gets used almost every time you enter your workshop and will probbly outlive you no matter what you make it do over the years.
 
My next steel one will be a unimat/cowells sized one, for small work.
My 25quid cast iron unimat vice was a luvvly well made bit of kit...broke that one too

Edited By Ady1 on 12/01/2012 12:10:01

Terryd12/01/2012 12:29:16
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Hi Ady!,
 
I wasn't making any sort of criticism of you, merely trying to find out some facts from those in the know. My own experience with vices has been ok. My latest abuse was extracting rubber bushes from an MX5 rear wishbone set (16 bushes) using my 5" wide engineering vice, a short length of scaffold to receive the bush and a large socket as a die. the jaws were almost at maximum extension and it needed a four foot extension (more scaffold tube) on the vice handle and all my weight to force out the 20 year old bushes which were rusted in place. The vice won unscarred and the bushes eventually gave way . That is the sort of abuse I have inflicted on various vices but never had one fail and it's why I wondered about the material it was made from.
 
I did however see a small Record engineers vice (2.5") with a broken mounting bracket, it had been fastened down to an uneven surface. Mind you I have seen some gorillas in boiler suits fiercely wielding 4lb lump hammers on machine vice handles thinking that they need such force to clamp their work.
 
Best regards,
 
Terry
Ady112/01/2012 12:48:37
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One thing I have noticed with that circular configuration is an incredibly high resistance to bending (where the workpiece rises out of the jaws under pressure) when applying as much pressure as possible.
All steel bends eventually, it's a given
 
I abandoned doing the lower part of the jaw mechanism because I've never had that problem.
 
Maybe a circular configuration has a higher resistance to bending than a straight configuration, like flat steel sheet vs corrugated steel sheet
 
So now I'm wondering whether to make my small vice out of a circular bar instead of a square bar....tsk tsk tsk decisions decisions
Phil P12/01/2012 13:00:52
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I once bought a vice for my drilling machine at an exibition because it was on special offer.
 
The very first time I used it, it broke in two just with hand pressure on the knurled handle.
I since bought a second hand "Nippy" drill vice and it is much better.
 
I am not sure how common it is, but my "Victoria" milling vice has a plate on it saying it is made from cast steel, not iron.
 
Phil
ChrisH12/01/2012 13:18:39
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I took an OND course back in 1962/64. In the summer holidays of 1963 we students had to do a 6 week workshop course, wherein we all made a vice fabricated from various bits of steel, using of course various machines and hand tools to further our experience of the various techniques required. That vice is still my one and only workbench vice today! It has been abused a bit in the distant past when the need arose, true, but not now, it's too much appreciated for that now and is still in excellent condition and giving me excellent service.

Chris

Edited By ChrisH on 12/01/2012 13:19:33

Windy12/01/2012 13:38:23
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I had a Parkinson 6" a lovely vice but pressing some car wheel bearings with it and using an extension on the handle broke it.
Then bought a new 6" Record without the quick release.
I very rarely use an extension on the handle now as a good 6" vice is not cheap.
A friend who is restoring his old car and tractor has a trick? when using a vice for pressing car wheel bearigs out of there housings.
He tightens the vice as hard as he can just using the normal handle without extension.
Then using a 2lb hammer he gives the vice jaw a firm clout then tightens a bit more and repeats hitting it.
The shock moves most stubborn bearings.
Apart from bruising the vice body I have lost count of the number of wheel bearings he has removed with this method when we worked together at a garage.
 
 
Windy
Terryd12/01/2012 14:32:18
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Hi Windy,
 
A similar story. When I used to do a lot of my own vehicle maintenance by necessity rather than hobby, I frequently had to remove those horrible taper bearings at the top and bottom of stub axles, especially the top ones which would be constantly hammered into the taper by the action of the suspension.

I did have an extractor but several were particularly stubborn, I tried all sorts but then a close and ancient neighbour, who was a foreman at a local large garage (he constantly chain smoked Woodbines down to a stub, lighting one from another and had the build of a starved whippet) said "just tighten the extractor as much as possible then go away and have a cup of tea". While drinking my second cup with my third 'Rich Tea' there was an almighty bang from the garage, on investigation the extractor sat neatly on the floor and the taper separated.
 
However this hasn't answered the initial question, are they malleable iron or not!
 
Regards
 
T
ChrisH12/01/2012 17:28:42
1023 forum posts
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Humm, liked the extractor on the taper bearings trick - must remember that! I don't usually need much of a reason to down tools and drink tea.
 
Have used a variation of the "wind it up in the vice and then hit it with a hammer" trick, usually with something like a bearing puller, or even with spanners loaded on a stuck bolt. The puller or spanner puts the load on and the hammer blow "breaks the stick" as we used to say.
 
Chris
Paul Barrett12/01/2012 18:36:33
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Machinists vices are made of very high grade cast (ductile) iron around 60,000 psi or more. Ductile iron has graphite in the form of nodular or spheroidal form rather than flakes as found in cheap grade cast iron wich is what a lot of the cheap import vices are made of.
 
Mechanics and Blacksmiths vices are made of forged wrought iron which makes them ductile and flex slightly and enables them to be hit without breaking.
 
Paul
Andrew Johnston12/01/2012 19:20:35
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Posted by Paul Barrett on 12/01/2012 18:36:33:
Machinists vices are made of very high grade cast (ductile) iron around 60,000 psi or more.
 
 
Precisely, my main machine vice (Kurt D688) claims it has a "80,000-PSI ductile iron body".
 
Regards,
 
Andrew
Paul Barrett12/01/2012 19:56:19
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Andrew.
Are you crop spraying or glider towing in that picture?
 

Edited By Paul Barrett on 12/01/2012 19:58:27

The Merry Miller12/01/2012 20:30:58
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Vice breaking takes me back to about six months into my apprenticeship in a Power Station back in the early '50's (not 1850's).
All fitters benches were fitted with 6" wide jaws heavy duty vices (can't remember the make)
 
I was given the task of making some joggle brackets out of 2" x 1/4" black mild steel.
The blank was about 10" long and the centre joggle about 2" wide.
I had made about 50 of these brackets using a small sledge hammer when crash, I broke the back of the vice and the front fell onto the floor just missing my foot, safety boots weren't around in those days.
The foreman came rushing out of his office wondering what all the noise was about, it was probably all the other fitters laughing their socks off, they would have known it was bound to happen but kept shtum.
What are you going to do about that then? he said.
Pay for a new one, I said?
No he said, you're going to make another identical one out of steel.
This I did and was I proud of the finished article.
 
I did finish the rest of the brackets off in the new vice and it was "steel" working well when I left many years later.
 
What smashing days they were in the '50's.
 
Len. P.
 
Sorry to get a bit maudling, it comes with old age.
 

 
 
Stub Mandrel12/01/2012 21:08:34
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> Are you crop spraying or glider towing in that picture?
 
That's not an aeroplane, it's a milk float
 
Gliders, methinks from Andrew's other posts.
 
> broke the back of the vice and the front fell onto the floor just missing my foot,
> safety boots weren't around in those days.
 
>wince< a Leisure battery fell on my big toe just after Christmas - it looked like a plum, now it just looks horrible. Hurt worse than breaking ribs, ankles etc.
 
Neil

Edited By Stub Mandrel on 12/01/2012 21:11:38

Andrew Johnston12/01/2012 22:47:07
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Stub is correct; I'm about to tow a glider into the air.
 
The aircraft is a Pawnee, an ex-crop sprayer, with 235 horses in the front. It's more generally compared to a tractor, built like a brick out house, no creature comforts, ugly, simple but rugged.
 
Regards,
 
Andrew
Nicholas Farr13/01/2012 23:49:11
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Hi Terry, I have a time or two welded brooken cast iron vices in the past, and to my mind they grind out and weld in a manner that I consider to be malleable cast iron, however not all cast vices are cast iron as some of the more, heavy duty type much used in industry are cast steel, I think.
 
In a Buck and Hickman catalogue of 1964 that I have, there are many different types and makes advertised, some of which clam to be unbreakable and some of them are classed as steel vices. One refference is to a "Record" Engineers' Heavy Duty vice, which is listed in five different sizes both in quick-grip and plain screw type. It has stated in brackets thus (Unconditionally guaranteed against breakage) At the bottom of the ad it says; "The Castings are made of high-tensile Pearlitic Malleable Iron, 30-35 tons per square inch. In a Croager Bros. Homerton London catalogue from around the period of the breakout of WW2, the same range is quoted as "Record" Heavy Duty Steel Vices.
 
I have in my time abused heavy duty 6" vices, by clouting things in them with a 14lb sledge hammer no less, but have not brooken any.
 
Even in the old days I think you got what you paid for.
 
Regards Nick.
Terryd14/01/2012 06:03:47
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Hi Nick,
 
That may be the answer as the majority of engineering vices I have used/owned have been Record Heavy Duty. My present long suffering one is a plain screw type, I never trust those vices which rotate in one or all planes. OK for watchmakers perhaps but not as sturdy as a fixed, plain screw vice.
 
Thanks for the reply,
 
Best regards
 
Terry

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