Hello All: I've picked up a large old Columbia vise that is cracked paralell to where the steel jaws meet the cast (?) iron arms of the vise. It apears to have been brazed at that point, but the braze has not held. What should be my appraoch with this vise? Can it be brazed, tig brazed, or otherwise fixed? It is useable in this condition as the steel jaws are pinned in place to the arms. See link
-Mike St. Louis
It can be welded, but you'll have to grind away a lot to clean out the old brazing material. Has to be completely gone. Then it can be torch welded with cast iron rod (have to preheat the whole part and let it cool slowly after) or TIG brazed (same preheat requirement).
GWE
Grant:
I said picked up... . Its worth a couple of bucks of lunch money in any case.
The old brazing seems mostly surface so the grinding should be fairly easy. The cast iron rod will also work on the steel jaw? Thanks,
-Mike
If you have a mill, I would make a good surface and then make a new jaw.
Dan
Someone gave me a Simplex with the same problem. I pulled the jaws, cleaned up the old braze with an endmill, then drilled from the jaw niche with both pieces clamped together, tapped em, ran in some long setscrews, which held it all together, grooved the cracks, preheated with a rosebud, then stick welded it with Ni55. Cleaned up with a grinder, painted, stuck in the jaw and its been in use on my welding bench for about 5 yrs now.
It was a fun project and a good learning experience. Took an afternoon of fun time..so it was a win win.
Gunner
Rule #35 "That which does not kill you, has made a huge tactical error"
Price of old vices (low) and the price of nickel rods (high), then I don't think I'd bother.
prices of high quality old vises..very high.
prices of vices..young or old....can be VERY high...
Gunner
Rule #35 "That which does not kill you, has made a huge tactical error"
I have a large vice like that my dad got years ago. It was missing a jaw insert - likely it was broken or such - Dad made one out of aircraft Al for a soft jaw on it. One face is hard steel - the other is soft.
Nice thing is you can with a mill cut new ones from what you want!
Martin
Mart> Grant:
I've seen some Ni/Fe rods pretty cheap on eBay UK recently. I nearly bought a box, but then decided to save the pennies as I don't need them right now.
Best wishes,
Chris
Greetings Mike, I have a large vise that I repaired by brazing several years ago. This vise gets lots of hard use and the brazing has never failed. If it were me I'd clean it up real well and braze it again. Before heating the vise I ground a pretty wide and deep vee groove to make sure the repair would be complete. Then I built an oven of sorts by placing the vise on firebrick and stacking more fire brick around it. After getting the broken piece plenty hot with a torch I used bare brazing rod and plenty of flux to wet all the surfaces to be repaired. This is vitally important. Once everything was wetted it was easy to fill in the area using the brazing rod like welding rod to get nice beads. I used a weaving motion near the top of the repaired area because it was about 5/8" wide. When the brazing was done I covered the whole works and let it cool slowly. ERS
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