Blacksmith Post Vise Rehabilitation

[wachuko]

anvils can be a rabbit hole too. If one is careful and patient you can get a good anvil at decent prices. Once you have used a good one, you understand the differences.

Once I get the shop built, yes, I will look for one. Those seem to come up for sale around here in Ocala, FL often enough...

 

[G-ManBart]

I'm curious about the when and the why leg vises (or post vises, or is there a difference?) went out of vogue. These forged, long-leverage tools are interesting, so why are they no longer made? What is it about the bench/swivel vise that makes it the modern choice, completely and totally replacing the leg vise in the metal shop? I know woodworkers use a version of the older mechanics; every woodie that ever built a woodworking bench seems to have one, but I assume it's for the clamping range.

The resto vise that you are aiming towards looks really neat.

I think a couple of things happened all at once that caused post vises/leg vise (same/same) to fade away. Generally speaking, blacksmithing was tapering off leading up to WWII and pretty much done by the end of the war so the demand was low. They also took a fair amount of specialized equipment and knowledge to make since they were largely forged and I suspect the cost to produce them simply got too high. Bench vises are generally cast with just some finishing machine work, so probably a lot cheaper to produce. If you aren't beating the heck out of something in a vise, a bench vise works just fine.

If you're beating something in a vise, a 40lb post vise will indefinitely withstand the abuse that would destroy a bench vise weighing twice as much (or more). You can still buy them new, but most folks find old ones, clean them up and put them back in service. I think a lot of them got scrapped during the war, but there are still quite a few out there although the prices jumped a few years back when blacksmithing started getting popular as a hobby (even before the Forged in Fire TV show smiths complain about).

Something similar happened to anvils where wrought iron forged anvils faded away by the 1950s. For ages the most common anvil type was a forged wrought iron body with a tool steel top plate. Then many companies went to a cast steel base (often mystery metal) with a forged wrought iron middle section and a tool steel top plate. Next came solid cast steel anvils. Before long cast steel anvils largely replaced forged anvils and even famous forged anvil companies like Hay-Budden were making cast steel anvils. In some cases they made the cast steel anvils in common sizes and still forged the unusual styles or very large examples and custom orders, so it wasn't a 100% switch. Many of the earliest cast steel anvils in this country were imported from Sweden and it was almost entirely based upon cost, so even though they had to pay to ship them from Sweden, they were still less expensive. There were cast iron anvils with tool steel top plates during that time, but for a long time only Fisher had figured it out so they pretty much had a monopoly until near the end when a couple of inexpensive options popped up (Vulcan being the most common).

My sense is that early on it was cheaper to use inexpensive wrought iron with a little bit of expensive tool steel and pay the labor to make anvils. As the cost of quality steel dropped it got to the point it was cheaper to use a lot of now affordable steel and pay less for labor to make anvils.

 

[G-ManBart]

This was a post vise haul I had a few years back. It shows three different styles of mounting pads. The middle two are cast mounting pads, and both are Columbian brand. The outer two are forged mounting pads with the split arm style usually being a bit older, but not always. Also, you can see the lighter colored Columbian has a U-bolt holding the bracket, which makes it fairly new...but still probably about 100 years old.

 

[Gnpenning]

This is my future project. As you can see I'm missing the spring as well plus the mounting parts.

Someone was a little hard on it.

Perfect thread for me to be following. Well let's not talk about the video rabbit hole you just gave me .

I do have the anvil that preformed some horseshoeing duties for me in the past. It was a lucky find for my area many years ago. I still have the railroad track my dad used.

 

[G-ManBart]

There is no such thing as an anvil rabbit hole! None I say. 413lb French Rhino by Claudinon on the left on down to a 200lb Fisher on the far right. There were about 100 others with them at one point but the prices got so silly I sold most and am down to just seven now. Edit to add, not these exact seven. I still have the 330lb Refflinghaus with the red paint in this picture, and the 200lb Fisher that's on the far right in this picture. I have another Refflinghaus, another Fisher, two Soderfors and a little Czech cast steel anvil. Two of these went to different guys in Ohio, one went to a local guy, another went to a buddy and the double-horn Kohlswa third from right went to Nebraska.

 

[wachuko]

This arrived as I was leaving for SFO…

 

[Tmate]

When I bought my post vise, it was missing some pieces as well. The rear main screw collar was gone, and a hex nut had been substituted for the original. It also has a weld repair visible only when disassembled. This was my first post vise, and I probably could have done a lot better.

I made a rear collar out of a large shaft collar, and found a square replacement nut. I made a vise stand for it using a 150 lb. steel press plate for a base, along with an I beam column. Looks pretty good now, but I doubt I'll ever use it.

 

[wachuko]

When I bought my post vise, it was missing some pieces as well. The rear main screw collar was gone, and a hex nut had been substituted for the original. It also has a weld repair visible only when disassembled. This was my first post vise, and I probably could have done a lot better.

I made a rear collar out of a large shaft collar, and found a square replacement nut. I made a vise stand for it using a 150 lb. steel press plate for a base, along with an I beam column. Looks pretty good now, but I doubt I'll ever use it.

That looks great! Why not use it?

I am rethinking the stand. Might follow what you did…

 

[BGHansen]

Instead of trying to heat and bend a 90 at the top of the spring, could you drill/tap a couple of holes in the spring for threaded pins/bolts? If I'm understanding the action correctly, the hook at the top is a stop to keep the spring from slipping. Maybe accomplish the same thing with a couple of pins, or a stop block screwed to the spring?

Bruce

 

[wayback machine]

I can't tell you how many of these I've seen for sale as "antiques", usually without the bench mount .......
I bought mine for $25, years ago, and I find it invaluable for when I really want to crush things :~))