Work bench vice

[Jim King]

Last week I posted a photo of a bloodwood workbench under construction. I thought you guys up there in cicilization would like to see how we are making the face plates for the Bronze vices.

Here is a series of shots of the mold master and the mold prep process. The peices were poured this morning and are cooling now and we should be able to polish them tonight or in the morning.

I will post the next series of photos probably tomorrow thru to the finished product.

[Joe Petersen]

Need more pictures. Show how you remove the patterns. Of course the finished product too.

[Jim King]

Here are the photos of the smelting , pouring and removing from the mold.

The next step is the polishing. I hope to have it finished and photos of the bench complete Monday night.

The bigger vice face plate weighs over 15 pounds.

[Dave Lewis]

Nice photos. What fuel is used to melt the bronze and how do you mix components?

[Jim King]

Dave:

Here we just use scrap brass or bronze whichever is available and most times hard to tell. It is just cut up and thrown in the melting pot.

The heat source is deisel fuel from a pipe with an air pipe blowing on it. Kind of sounds like a jet in your living room.

[Jim Dunn]

Kinda reminds me of making stuff in metals class in highschool. Real neat vice Jim.

[J. Z. Guest]

Thanks for sharing that. It is quite interesting, but it looks more like a sign than a vise. :confused:

[Don Bullock]

Kinda reminds me of making stuff in metals class in highschool. Real neat vice Jim.

Jim, I was thinking the same thing. It's too bad that kids today don't have those experiences any more. No wonder they don't appreciate hand made things.

Jim, those face plates look fantastic.