Old leg vises

[Jason Buresh]

Does anyone know anything about these vises? The gentleman believes they are from the early 1900's. They all appear to be leg vises. Is the hardware useful from these if you replace the wood? They turned and all the metal seemed to be in good shape. Wondering if they are worth wrestling into the truck or if they are just boat anchors

[Christopher Charles]

Hi Jason,

Yes, those appear to be leg vises and if the screws are solid, they should perfectly serviceable with new wood, especially so if combined with a crisscross or Ancora chain vise. What's the asking price?

Best,
Chris

[Jim Koepke]

If the price was right they might find a space in my shop.

jtk

[Jason Buresh]

He is asking $20 each OBO. I realistically could probably get all 3 for about $40-$50

[Dan Hulbert]

Pay the man and run away. You couldn't touch the hardware new for twice the price.

[Eric Rathhaus]

Does the wood really need replacing? Maybe you have at least two whole vises ready to use. Or just touch up the wood with a few passes of a jointer plane?

[Jason Buresh]

I'm not sure if the wood needs replacing yet. I was able to get all 3 for $50 so I will pick them up this weekend and send some more pictures

[Stew Denton]

Jason,

Ya did good! The bench (or vise) screws are worth that per each, if in good "user" condition. The wooden vise screw is worth significantly more than that, again if in good "user" condition.

I have a metal vise screw like those, that was my grandfathers. It is in good "user" condition, but it is not in "like new" condition by any means. I need to put new "tee" on it to hold the handle, and it has some pitting, some rust, and is dark color with age, but it is very serviceable. Before I put it to use I will want to restore it to make it look better and also for the handle to function better.

The existing "tee" is usable, but it is one that was forged from a piece of 1/4" by 1 & 3/8" strap steel, and I think my grandfather probably forged it. It is quite a heavy duty "Tee," but I don't think a handle will fit it really nicely, so I want to replace it. That said, some day that vise screw will hopefully be part of a vise on a bench for me, and I think one of my grandkids will be able to use it some day.

I am clearly my grandfathers grandson, in that I bet he got it used after someone broke the "tee." I have a few of his tools that he had used exactly the same approach on. My guess he got it for a very low price with the intention of fixing it, which he did. I think exactly like he does in that regard to this very day.

Beyond that, you can't beat the family connection with that old vise screw.

I think it will make a good vise, and I think those will make good vices for you.

Congrats on the purchase and regards,

Stew

[steven c newman]

I didn't have the room for this one...
419157
Might have been too big for my bench, anyway...

[Jason Buresh]

So here are the pictures of the 3 leg vises I picked up this morning. The one screw is pretty beefy, the others aren't bad. One of the tees where the handle rides has a chunk missing. Are these strictly to be used as leg vises? Would I be able to take a screw and hardware out and convert it to a wagon vise if I wanted?

[Jim Koepke]

So here are the pictures of the 3 leg vises I picked up this morning. The one screw is pretty beefy, the others aren't bad. One of the tees where the handle rides has a chunk missing. Are these strictly to be used as leg vises? Would I be able to take a screw and hardware out and convert it to a wagon vise if I wanted?

The ability to use the screw for a wagon vise is only dependent on your ability to rig it up to do so.

jtk

[Stew Denton]

Jason,

It would help us to answer your question about the use for a wagon vise if we had more photos.

There are two ways to make a wagon vise work with a bench screw. One is to have the screw "locked" to the end plate on the bench so when the handle turns the screw does not go in and out from the end of the bench. On the wagon vise block you attach the threaded vise nut that comes with the bench screw. As the handle is turned, the nut attached to the wagon vise moves back and forth driving the wagon vise block back and forth with it. There are a few ways that this can be set up.

The other way that you can use a bench screw is to have the threaded nut that comes with the bench screw attached to the end plate of the bench, so the vise screw moves in and out from the end of the bench when the handle is turned. The end of the bench screw that attaches to the wagon vise is often slotted, and you have a heavy duty "clip," if you will, that attaches to the end of the wagon block that allows the screw to rotate, but travels with the screw as it moves in and out from the end of the bench.

The vise screw on the left looks like it could be made to work for the first type of application, with some design thinking.

The vise screw on the right looks like the type that might be used with the 2nd type of set up. It looks like it has a slot cut in the far end of the screw, but I can't be sure.

Pulling the hardware off of the vises, and taking pictures of all of the metal parts of each bench screw would help identify what you have. At that point there are probably several of us who could make comments once we know the details of the type of hardware you have.

That said, I think there is reason for optimism, but without knowing those details about the hardware it is a guessing game. The bench screw on the left looks like the one that belonged to my grandfather. I believe it could be made into the first type of set up.
As always, there is no free lunch. If that one is like my grandfathers, there will have to be some jury rigging to make it work, but once done, you should end up with a very servisable wagon vise.

Regards,

Stew

[Jason Buresh]

Stew, I will disassemble the vises and send pictures of the the hardware, but it might take me a day or two. I am going to keep at least one as a leg vise and hopefully turn one into a wagon vise. No plans this far for the third but you never know

[Stew Denton]

Jason,

That sounds good to me, because I am sure that a day or two delay will not hurt anything, after all, most of us hobby woodworkers get things done slowly, at least that is the way it is for me. Using one of the vise screws for a leg vise is not a problem at all, because that is the type of vise that those bench screws were designed to make, as you know. Sounds like you are going to have enough to make and end vise (the wagon vise), and a main vise, the leg vise. Thus, you are going to get a lot of vise capability for not very much money. My guess is that you will get a lot of good ideas and advise after you post the photos.

Regards,

Stew