A vintage hand vise

[vic neweyParticipant @vicnewey60017]

[vic neweyParticipant @vicnewey60017]

A vintage hand held vise, for gunmakers, Jewelers etc. patented in 1894 and made in Hartford, Conn USA by C.E.Billings & Spencer.

The handle is threaded inside for a bench clamp attachment. A hole below the jaws goes right through for holding long lengths of wire.

This came with a Vintage lathe and it was in pieces, I only realised what it was when I saw the old advert and found the jaws and fitted them in

Edited By vic newey on 29/01/2021 11:25:42

Edited By vic newey on 29/01/2021 11:26:17

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Very nice too, Vic

… and it looks like the stem is probably hardened

MichaelG.

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Edit: __ Patent downloadable, here

https://worldwide.espacenet.com/patent/search/family/002594103/publication/US525311A?q=pn%3DUS525311A

Edited By Michael Gilligan on 29/01/2021 11:37:29

[jaCK HobsonParticipant @jackhobson50760]

That is really nice and I got tool envy. I use a hand vice a lot.

[vic neweyParticipant @vicnewey60017]

The stem I think is hardened using acid, seeing the original patent is interesting also

[vic neweyParticipant @vicnewey60017]

After discovering that all our old posts from years back can still be found together with their photo’s I just added this post to see if it appears today

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Well done, Vic

… and the vice: it’s still very nice !

MichaelG.

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P.S. __ as regards the New forum, I note that my link to the Patent is still live

… but my inserted picture shows a question mark

[Michael Gilligan]

On Michael Gilligan Said:

Well done, Vic

… and the vice: it’s still very nice !

MichaelG.

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P.S. __ as regards the New forum, I note that my link to the Patent is still live

… but my inserted picture shows a question mark

Unfortunately Vic’s picked a thread which isn’t saved by archive.org, so we can’t compare with your original post.

However, right clicking on the thumbnail and copying the URL into Notepad, shows a link to a thumbs up gif
https://****************www.model-engineer.co.uk/ckeditor4.11.2/plugins/smiley/images/thumbs_up.gif
Stars added to break the hyperlink

Also, I note, where I’ve quoted Michael for my reply, the quoted text is smaller, less dominant, and italicised for emphasis.
The developers do seem to be listening. 🙂

Bill

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

the quoted text is smaller, less dominant, and italicised for emphasis.
The developers do seem to be listening. 🙂

Let Joy be Unconfined!

 

Neil

[vic neweyParticipant @vicnewey60017]

Bill, maybe I’ve lost the plot but I don’t understand what you mean about comparing with the original post?, I thought this was the original post and the images etc are still up at the top of the thread

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Definite progress there, Bill … thanks

MichaelG.

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Edit: __ no right-click available on the iPad, and a long press didn’t display the usual options, so I couldn’t decipher the Question Mark

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

And the grey bar dividing replies is darker joy and more joy

Also do I see a slight alternating of background which also helps

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

Vic, I think they are talking of looking at an archived copy of the thread to see what it looked like there and comparing it to here

[JasonB]

On JasonB Said:

And the grey bar dividing replies is darker joy and more joy

Also do I see a slight alternating of background which also helps

A vast improvement, and very welcome.

MichaelG.

[JasonB]

On JasonB Said:

Vic, I think they are talking of looking at an archived copy of the thread to see what it looked like there and comparing it to here

Oh, I see,  well I think I see as I’m still somewhat confused as I presumed this thread came from the ME archive?

[jaCK HobsonParticipant @jackhobson50760]

I WANT one

[PeteParticipant @pete41194]

It’s hard to tell for sure on the rest of that vise, but the shaft and those mottled colors are what’s generally referred to as color case hardening. A few of the older Starrett tools had the same. Some older sporting and especially lever operated rifles as well as some hand guns also used it on there actions. There’s various methods of doing that type of coloring and case hardening, although none of them are all that simple or quick. Given the patent date of that vise and at the usual industrial production numbers, I believe one of the most used methods was suspending the part in a molten Cyanide bath for exact time periods to do both the case hardening and coloring.

There’s another method called pack case hardening that uses an almost totally sealed container with high carbon materials surrounding the part and then heated to well above that high carbon materials burning point. Bone Meal, actual ground up bones, charcoal, large fruit pits etc can be used to drive carbon back into a low carbon steel and then allow surface hardening to occur. For the obvious reasons and workplace health & safety regulations, I don’t think that molten Cyanide is still a method being used today in at least the more developed nations. And just in case you don’t already know, those colors are fairly delicate since there only on the metal surface. Using anything even slightly abrasive on a color case hardened part can easily start to remove them. And for any tool that does have that coloring, it would be fairly safe to assume it isn’t something that was cheap or poorly made. $4 for your version in 1894 would have been a fair amount of money back then.

[Grindstone CowboyParticipant @grindstonecowboy]

Just a thought…

As peach pips contain cyanide, maybe using them for pack case hardening would kill two birds with one stone… I’ll get me coat 🙂

Rob

(Actually they contain amygdalin, which gets converted to cyanide by enzymes during digestion, but that would have ruined the joke)

[vic newey]

On vic newey Said:

On JasonB Said:

Vic, I think they are talking of looking at an archived copy of the thread to see what it looked like there and comparing it to here

Oh, I see,  well I think I see as I’m still somewhat confused as I presumed this thread came from the ME archive?

Sorry if I wasn’t clear enough in my explanation (or lack of it).
archive.org is a useful web site which scours the internet looking for interesting websites to archive, or take a snapshot in time if you like; once that snapshot it taken, it doesn’t update, though later shapshots may be taken and saved with a different recording date.
It doesn’t allways save all the contents of a site; Unfortunately in this case Vic’s post wasn’t archived even once, so I couldn’t see exactly how it looked when it was originally posted back in 2021.

I was trying to see why the picture Michael thought he had inserted wasn’t showing in this thread, now that the vice discussion has been transported to the new version of the forum.

This is all that showed on a Windows PC with Opera browser.

It looks like that odd little icon showed on Michael’s Ipad as a Question Mark, as his operating system is different to mine.

It turns out it was actually a “Thumbs Up” gif, hosted on the previous forum’s software (so it desplayed ok on the original greenish forum), but the gif database was not transferred over here.

Bill

[Grindstone Cowboy]

On Grindstone Cowboy Said:

Just a thought…

As peach pips contain cyanide, maybe using them for pack case hardening would kill two birds with one stone… I’ll get me coat 🙂

Rob

(Actually they contain amygdalin, which gets converted to cyanide by enzymes during digestion, but that would have ruined the joke)

Subtle, but I like clever and subtle Grindstone. 🙂

[peak4]

On peak4 Said:

…

 

I was trying to see why the picture Michael thought he had inserted wasn’t showing in this thread, now that the vice discussion has been transported to the new version of the forum.

This is all that showed on a Windows PC with Opera browser.

It looks like that odd little icon showed on Michael’s Ipad as a Question Mark, as his operating system is different to mine.

It turns out it was actually a “Thumbs Up” gif, hosted on the previous forum’s software (so it desplayed ok on the original greenish forum), but the gif database was not transferred over here.

Bill

Just to elaborate upon Bill’s excellent explanation … here’s what my post looks like on today’s forum:

.

.

The Question Mark indicates that iPadOS recognised something was missing, but didn’t know what.

Bill’s system was much more informative.

MichaelG.

[vic neweyParticipant @vicnewey60017]

The stem of the vise is definitely colour case hardened, I own a late 19th century muzzle loading percussion shotgun with browned Damascus rose twist barrel. I acquired this gun back in the 1960’s and the original brown finish on the barrel was poor but the original rainbow colouring was still on the breach block and plug.

I took it to the nearby Birmingham gun quarter to get it re browned and left it with them for a month or so. When I went to collect it they said getting the breach unscrewed was extremely difficult and fitting it back they couldn’t quite align the marks under the barrel. He then proudly announced they had “reblued”  the breach block etc and it was now a horrible dark blue/black colour. So in essence they ruined the original finish which would have been done in a furnace with old leather, bone dust and other bits and pieces using a secret recipe passed down.

[Author]

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