Fix for Worn Wilton Magnefix Rubber Jaws?

[Chips O'Toole]

I have a Chinese 5" Wilton mechanic's vise with magnetic rubber-faced aluminum jaws. I have beaten the rubber parts to death.

These things have been great. I almost never use the vise without them.

I hate to pay $34 for new ones. Has anyone here replaced the rubber on magnetic vise jaws? I don't even know what they glued the rubber to the aluminum with.

 

[matthewsx]

Try contact cement

 

[Jake M]

I have a Chinese 5" Wilton mechanic's vise with magnetic rubber-faced aluminum jaws. I have beaten the rubber parts to death.

These things have been great. I almost never use the vise without them.

I hate to pay $34 for new ones. Has anyone here replaced the rubber on magnetic vise jaws? I don't even know what they glued the rubber to the aluminum with.

I've never used that style- I've got a couple of pairs of the other plastickyrubbery type, the bright yellow ones I use because I tend to want that for "just one thing". When I need rubber jaws, I literally use a couple of pieces of cheap floppy mudflaps from Fleetpride. They're good material for lots of stuff. "Vise jaws" come from the top part where the bolts go. It's thicker there. I stick those right to my vise jaws with 3M spray trim adhesive. Scotch brite and brake cleaner to clean/rough up the rubber, and the same to clean the vise jaws. Are you gonna do that? Probably not (but maybe....), I say that because the spray trim adhesive seems to hold up long enough that I've usually got to peel 'em back off when I don't want them any more. Maybe that's a tip if nobody knows a better way.

 

[Chips O'Toole]

I don't think spray adhesive or plain old contact cement is what Wilton used. Whatever it is, it bonds rubber to aluminum really well.

 

[Jake M]

I don't think spray adhesive or plain old contact cement is what Wilton used. Whatever it is, it bonds rubber to aluminum really well.

You're absolutely right. Wilton would have made the aluminum part, treated the surface of it with a two part primer, baked that part to set the primer, loaded the part (heated of course) into a heated mold, injected the rubber, and pressurized the the rubber for some period of time while it vulcanized, including vulcanizing to the primer that was pre-baked onto the metal backer. And somewhere in there they got magnets in it too.

For thirty five bucks, that's not happening in a home shop.....