Sounds like scrap metal to me. Palmgren used to make pretty good stuff in the USA back in the 1960's. An old USA vise would be better than repaired junk. For that matter, new junk would be better than repaired junk.
Larry
They were pretty sorry even by 1970. Grainger was carrying them and "Day Job" kept replacing them as the Gorilla's drilled the jaws and rails, if not also the screws, full of holes, then cracked the base rails
I still have ONE made from the sad remains of
four.
The screw from A, the TWO movable jaws, from B and C, one formerly movable doweled to the cut-short busted-off rails from "D" to become the "fixed" jaw.
Opens only about an inch, but it's a really handy and compact little devil, so still in now-and-then use near fifty years on... given if something is cheaply built, most of us notice that, CAN respect wotever limits that imposes and "run what you got"....
Mind, 78th year, I'm near-as-dammit clear OUT of "vices", but still have PLENTY of "vises".
Gerardi, Quad-I, Multivise.. "etc."
Palmgren?
Phhhtttt... "scrap metal" would be generous..
Hate to be the one to say it, but the average Chicom ones are fit and function just as good..... some few are actually better.