Steel for a vise handle

+1 to all the posts about cutting Thompson shaft. Difficult at best. And if you got it cut to length, you'd have to weld on the "balls" - no peening possible for that stuff!
 
I would go to harbor freight and get a pry bar and use it bill
 
In my opinion, low carbon steel in the stock length is the answer. The handle is ment to bend before other parts of the vise fail. I strongly disagree with using high tensile strength steel in this application. Bent handles imply abuse, the way to fix abuse isn't to add strength to the input system. Cheater bars and hammers are not to be used for vise handles. The thing remains, and I quote Mr. Pete "a bench vise is a tool used by desperate men". :)
 
NC Rick said:
In my opinion, low carbon steel in the stock length is the answer. The handle is ment to bend before other parts of the vise fail. I strongly disagree with using high tensile strength steel in this application. Bent handles imply abuse, the way to fix abuse isn't to add strength to the input system. Cheater bars and hammers are not to be used for vise handles. The thing remains, and I quote Mr. Pete "a bench vise is a tool used by desperate men". :)
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That was one of the reasons for using 1144....it's got quite a bit of spring to it. I actually have a page on my website dedicated to "How not to break your bench vise" and the first thing is to not use cheater pipes...LOL.
 
@G-ManBart what is your website address? I am interested in learning more about my wilton.

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Awesome guys. Thank you for the responses.
There will not be any cheater bars used on this vise. In fact, I am not sure how much I am going to even use this vise. I am hoping that you guys will say "ohhhh, that kind of restoration" when I'm done. LOL.

G-Man... thank you so much for that link. Awesome.
 
Razzle said:
@G-ManBart what is your website address? I am interested in learning more about my wilton.

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That's actually not my website...that's my buddy Kevin's site. He used to own wiltonviseparts.net but retired and sold the site to a new machinist. My site is www.mivise.com it's more of a blog than anything else. The article about Wilton history is here:

mivise.com

Wilton Vise Date Stamping • MIVise

***Note: If you’re reading this post so you can cut and paste portions for your eBay listing please be kind enough to cite the source. There were a lot of people before me who put time into collecting this information and they should at least be given credit.*** One of the most common questions...
mivise.com mivise.com
 
Aukai said:
Thompson rod, someone sent me one, it did not go well.....:eek 2:
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I tried turning some of the stuff without realizing what it was and pretty quickly understood it wasn't gonna happen. I have had good success throwing a bunch of it in my kiln and annealing it though. Still comes out pretty tough from what I've seen.
 
Man, I'm being difficult today! To me, the worst thing to ever happen to a beautiful vise is to not be used. Broken in a desperate attempt to fix something is a far better fait :grin:
 
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