Vise Repair & Restoratuion

[Mark in Indiana]

I pulled my FPU vise and found some information stamped on the bottom of the nut. The size and other letters. I'll have to research them.

 

[JPigg55]

I pulled my FPU vise and found some information stamped on the bottom of the nut.

Are you talking about the main acme screw nut or the swivel base wedge nut ?

 

[Mark in Indiana]

Main acme vise nut.

 

[JPigg55]

Thanks Mark, hopefully have time tomorrow night to pull mine out and see if anything's there.

 

[JPigg55]

I pulled the Acme nut off mine and did find a stamp.
Very light and paint over it, but looks like B- 428. Tried the pencil rub method as well, photos attached.
Space between the dash and the 4, could be another number, hard to tell until completely cleaned.
Didn't find anything with Google search. Any info ?

 

[JPigg55]

Played around in photoshop.
Converted to greyscale and adjusted contrast and brightness to see if more visible.

 

[Mark in Indiana]

Interesting.
Mine says: PJWK 80
I can only guess that the 80 is the jaw size.

 

[Ulma Doctor]

i just came across the thread.
i just gotta say i wish i lived closer to you JPigg55, i'd love to do some CI repairs for you on the old vise.
that's gotta be one of the cooler vises that i have seen, very high quality.
too bad it's seen a hard life...

i'd braze humpty dumpty back together again, if she were mine.

 

[partsproduction]

Is that screw a true Acme? You know the Europeans have a thread they call trapezoidal, how far it varies from our Acme I don't know. But I have an FPU vise, and had it apart, my poor memory was of a 60 degree thread, but I'd be happier if it were Acme or trapezoidal. (PS I looked, it is a trapezoidal style thread)

I assume they know how to make a good vise in Poland, especially Bison. So I assume these are ductile iron castings, not what we normally think of as cast iron. Still, that dovetail flange did break, and it should not have as ductile iron. I wonder what brazing does to the metallurgy of ductile iron, I think it is up around 60K tensile strength.

 

[4GSR]

I recall checking out the threads on a few vises many years ago. What I found was not many followed any thread standard. Some were square threads, some a variation of Acme or Trapezoidal thread, and even some vee threads. Another dead give away is the thread pitch. How many threads per inch? Is it Imperial pitch or a Metric pitch? I do agree that the country of origin has an effect on what thread form was used, too.