I "SNAG"ed A Couple Tool Boxes Yesterday

A mill vise will probably work, but I never have one mounted anywhere other than a mill table. I like the bench vise (very heavy steel bench) for this sort of work because I have it on the corner where I can work all the way around a part.

Someday when I have a layout and assembly table that doesn't suffer from HSD (Horizontal Surface Disease) I may mount both a bench vise and a mill vise on the table for different things. A mill vise is better for things like a hydraulic tapping arm if I ever decide I need one. Bob La Londe

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Somewhere I saw a suggestion of a pipe vise bolted to a heavy timber for unscrewing things that required a lot of torque and custom machined jaw inserts.

A pipe vise is awesome for holding, but he wants to create zero cosmetic damage. Pipe jaws in a bench vise, or the chain style pipe vise will both dig in. I'm not even sure I'd risk prismatic aluminum soft jaws for the zero chance of cosmetic damage he is going for. I'd go straight to the leather surfaced plywood vise jaw liners.

On 6/21/2024 11:57 AM, Jim Wilkins wrote: ...

A pipe vise is awesome for holding, but he wants to create zero cosmetic damage. Pipe jaws in a bench vise, or the chain style pipe vise will both dig in. I'm not even sure I'd risk prismatic aluminum soft jaws for the zero chance of cosmetic damage he is going for. I'd go straight to the leather surfaced plywood vise jaw liners. Bob La Londe

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You made me look through my library. In a Ruger SA shop manual that I hadn't even unwrapped Jerry Kuhnhausen suggests barrel vise inserts cast to fit from Brownells Steel Bed compound, with powdered rosin (for baseball pitchers) to increase grip. Optionally the barrel can be padded with paper shims, also sprinkled with rosin.

The barrel vise shown is a hydraulic jack within a large U bolt frame, pressing on a 3" x 3" x 3" split block with a hole for the barrel-specific insert sleeve, also 3" long to spread the pressure and not deform the barrel.

The barrel should turn 30 to 45 degrees after contact.

He suggests Delrin frame wrench inserts in a Maryland Gun Works revolver frame wrench from Brownells. He does NOT recommend an axe handle through the frame, as old timers used to do with the Colt SAA.

The manual does not appear to assume you have a machine shop. He mentions that now you can buy the tools that older gunsmiths / machinists had to make themselves. I found more useful info in older books that assume you need to make, harden and temper springs etc.

If I'm going with plywood/leather jaws I might as well use the regular vise . It's bolted to a stool but easily held down with a foot bracing on a rung of the stool . Mill vise is currently under the mill table . I've got an Arctic Cat 600 vertical twin cylinder block on the mill . We're boring out the cylinders for new sleeves , he's making it into a 660 ... and putting a belt drive blower on it . Gonna be wild .

It might work. If kid you tightened it down the first time adult you might be able to tighten it a little more. BUT: I think putting your foot on a vise stand is a bit optimistic. I'm fairly heavy, but I don't think I could get enough leverage against myself that way to make a significant movement. I could be wrong of course, but when I need to move something I use the vise that's mounted to the 9 foot heavy steel (1/4" top and c channel frame and legs) work bench. Not the one that's bolted to the heavy butcher block top bench.

Its funny. That vise belonged to my friend John Apple, and before that to his dad Lewis Apple (RIP). John called me up one day and said I could have the vise because he was moving to Tennessee, and he didn't want to haul it. When he got there he said I could have the vise, but I had to take the bench and everything under it too. I still have boxes out back of the shop getting water and sun damaged I haven't finished sorting through.

P.S. Lewis was the one who came up with the plywood jaws for that vise, and John was the one that showed them to me. I figured out the addition of leather with contact cement (3M77) myself for more "delicate" parts. I usually used whatever I had handy, not always plywood, to make those wood jaws. Right now I think I have MDF jaws laying next to the vise. I consider them consumable. Lewis was a retired fire fighter (medical), cabinet builder, and fine furniture restorer. I hesitate to think the small fortune in wood that went to the dumpster or somebody's fireplace when he moved out of his compound and gave up his big shop. He sold it at the peak of the real estate bubble in 2004 so he did okay.

P.P.S. I just ordered a fresh piece of leather from Tandy to make some new leather jaws, and a couple strops (3 micron and 1 micron diamond).