Mike G
Petrified Pine
I spotted a vice on Facebook a day or two ago, and bought it for £30. It's a Parkinson Perfect, with QR. I am sure I read somewhere once that this was the first vice with QR..........although, I could have just plucked that from thin air. It was in OK condition, but seized fairly solid with rust and dried oily sawdust. I couldn't get the QR to release at the seller's house, but it screwed in and out OK-ish.
Anyone looking for Wallacian levels of shininess is very much in the wrong thread. This is to be a restoration back to working condition, rather than to museum-condition. Here it is in the "before" state:
As you can see, it doesn't look too bad at all.
The first job (after taking the photos), was obviously to dis-assemble. It offered little resistance:
Initially I used a paint scraper to hoik off the main bits of gunk, and scrape at the rust:
I moved on to a wire brush, and then sand-paper:
I did this clean-up entirely dry, other than a wipe over the front face with white spirit. The moving parts and screws were cleaned up on my bench-grinder-wire-brush. The cleaning revealed that it had originally been a red colour, and that paint was impressively robust. I managed to pick and scrape the spilled modern paint off it quite easily, but there was a creamy-white hard substance on the face which I assume to be putty, which was more difficult. I've done the best I can with just picking at it, but I'm wondering whether I might usefully soak the remnants overnight in white spirit and see if it comes off more easily tomorrow.
The only thing which required replacing was a broken split-pin on the back end of the screw shaft. Here it is an hour or two later, re-assembled, in all its glory:
As to why I need another vice.............I don't. This is a gift for my son-in-law. I'm about to build him a bench (in Sweden), and a vice like this, if it ever came up for sale, would cost £150 to £200. I know we whinge a bit about the price of second hand tools here, but when you look at Swedish prices, even for Sandvik products, we really shouldn't ever moan again.
Anyone looking for Wallacian levels of shininess is very much in the wrong thread. This is to be a restoration back to working condition, rather than to museum-condition. Here it is in the "before" state:
As you can see, it doesn't look too bad at all.
The first job (after taking the photos), was obviously to dis-assemble. It offered little resistance:
Initially I used a paint scraper to hoik off the main bits of gunk, and scrape at the rust:
I moved on to a wire brush, and then sand-paper:
I did this clean-up entirely dry, other than a wipe over the front face with white spirit. The moving parts and screws were cleaned up on my bench-grinder-wire-brush. The cleaning revealed that it had originally been a red colour, and that paint was impressively robust. I managed to pick and scrape the spilled modern paint off it quite easily, but there was a creamy-white hard substance on the face which I assume to be putty, which was more difficult. I've done the best I can with just picking at it, but I'm wondering whether I might usefully soak the remnants overnight in white spirit and see if it comes off more easily tomorrow.
The only thing which required replacing was a broken split-pin on the back end of the screw shaft. Here it is an hour or two later, re-assembled, in all its glory:
As to why I need another vice.............I don't. This is a gift for my son-in-law. I'm about to build him a bench (in Sweden), and a vice like this, if it ever came up for sale, would cost £150 to £200. I know we whinge a bit about the price of second hand tools here, but when you look at Swedish prices, even for Sandvik products, we really shouldn't ever moan again.
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