milling vice restoration

[millwright]

Nice restoration Andrew, those Sandvik scrapers do make a lot of difference as well. Ive had mine over 30yrs fortunately they were bought by the company and left with me when i was made redundant.

john

[Andrew Wildman]

John, I baulked a bit at the £50 odd quid it cost me but it saves a lot of time sharpening carbon steel scrapers, you soon forget the cost!

I made some transfer screws out of some whitworth 12.9 screws that were in the 'misc whitworth' drawer.  I quenched them but I am not sure it made them any harder.  They served there purpose anyway.



I made up some new jaws out of (what the Americans call) O1, mainly because it is pre ground stock.  I may harden and temper the jaws, depending on whether my experiments show that I can do it without twisting them up like a pringle.  The jaws will be milled in situ so I stamper them up f for fixed and s for sliding so that if I remove them I can put them back in the right place.

[Andrew Wildman]

I filled the castings and slapped on a bit of paint

[Arbalist]

Nice paint job! 

[Andrew Wildman]

I assembled the vice.  The only bit left to do is experiment on heat treating the spare bit of ground bar I have to see if it warps.  I think my tool cum surface grinder is too small to grind the jaws flat again if they do warp.

[RotarySMP]

Very nice restore. What is next? The mill it sits on?

Mark

[Arbalist]

Nice work and good paint job!

[millwright]

A nice job Andrew it looks as good as new.

John

[Mark Rand]

Sorry for the late question, but did you check and scrape the base, if necessary, before scraping the ways?

[Andrew Wildman]

Mark, the old mill needs a bit of a makeover.  Possibly a job for the future.  I did rebuild the vertical downfeed mechanism on the quill when o got it.  Three of the gears had lost their teeth and one of the shafts was bent! Works well now though.

Mark Rand, I only stoned the base as it was fairly flat.  I did not want to take any material off the base as it would have messed up the fixed jaw alignment to it.  The top of the vice had worn or been peened to death by people hammering parts down so it needed resurfacing.

[Andrew Wildman]

The shed now smell of chips thanks to my heat treatment experiments  .  I heater a spare piece of the plate to above its curie temp (so it was no longer magnetic) and kept it there for 20 mins.  I then quenched it in veg oil.  The plate is currently in the oven (in the kitchen!) at 240 deg for 1 hour.  I have not checked for straightness fully after quench but after a quick eyeball it looks ok.  Here is the forge in full heat.  The bog brush holder on the ground is my quench tank. 


I will clean up tomorrow and see if it is straight and if my talcum powder/meths anti-scale worked.

[millwright]

Looks like an ex schools Flamefast brazing hearth there Andrew, does the torch run on the flow gas ok or did you have to alter it?

John

[Andrew Wildman]

John, it's a bye such is very similar to the flame fast. Ex school. I purchased it already converted for propane. Does a good job, but didn't cost me much

[millwright]

That sounds like you got a good deal Andrew, a nice bit of kit,

John