Follow along with the video below to see how to install our site as a web app on your home screen.
Note: This feature may not be available in some browsers.
Largest Manufacturing Technology Community on the Web
Stay Connected:
"PERFECTION 28" bench vise ( vintage?)
- Thread starter ddougee
- Start date
- Replies 6
- Views 2,185
MT6
Aluminum
- Joined
- Dec 25, 2004
- Location
- Northern Colorado
There's some pics of Perfection vises on the garage journal vise thread. Not a lot of info on them tho. Your pic looks a lot like a Prentiss vise and yours has the rear of the slide cracked like one of mine. That's common on Prentiss vises. You may want to look at the vise spread sheet: Vises 2017 Vr1.0 - Google Sheets
Your handle appears to be welded on which is definitely not original. The broken jaw is also a sign of abuse. Other than that wire brush it, lube it, and put it to use.
Your handle appears to be welded on which is definitely not original. The broken jaw is also a sign of abuse. Other than that wire brush it, lube it, and put it to use.
L Vanice
Diamond
- Joined
- Feb 8, 2006
- Location
- Fort Wayne, IN
"...put it to use." Or recycle it.
Larry
Larry
Joe Michaels
Diamond
- Joined
- Apr 3, 2004
- Location
- Shandaken, NY, USA
Bench or machinist vises are sized by the width of the jaws. I am guessing your vise may have a jaw width of 6 to 8 inches given the overall size dimensions you posted.
Never heard of "perfection" as a vise brand. The design appears to be a common US machinist vise design. The classic old-line vise makers used a fairly consistent design with minor changes to things like how the vise screw and nut were retained, how the jaw plates were attached to the jaws, and "details" in the castings such as little "knees" or "gussets" between the body of the vise and the base.
I believe most of the old vises such as the one you have were made using castings for the body/fixed jaw, and movable jaw/slide. These castings were usually quite massive and were often made of either a malleable iron, or a "semi steel"- a cast iron alloyed with a significant amount of scrap steel. The jaw plates varied with the makers. They were usually steel, and could either be fastened to the jaws using a "groove and tongue", or were sometimes cast into the jaws in when the jaw castings were poured.
These old vises could take quite a licking, and to really damage one took some serious abuse. Your vise seems to have had it. The vise screws were usually finished with a "ball" type end, and this was drilled for a sliding handle bar. Some vise makers, rather than use a one-piece forging for the vise screw (upsetting the end and using a closed die forging process to make the ball end), would machine the vise screw from bar stock and machine locking grooves on the end where the handle/ball was to go. This end was stuck into the cavity of a sand mold, and the ball end was poured around the end of the vise screw, incorporating it. Someone obviously broke that end off the vise screw, probably putting a large "cheater" pipe on the handle, or maybe using a large pipe wrench or chain tong on it. Could have been trying to use the vise as a press. I've never seen the end/ball broken off a US made machinist vise screw, and this speaks of real abuse.
The busted jaw plate may well have been cracked by hitting with hardened hammers and chisels. Or, someone was using the vise to hold work for welding and hit it with one too many grinder gouges, along with arc strikes followed by hammer blows.
Without knowing how the jaw plates are fixed to the jaws, it is hard to say if the vise is really repairable. Making and fitting new jaw plates is what it would take- if the jaw plates are fasted to the jaws by "groove and tongue" and screws in counterbored holes. If the jaw plate was cast into the jaw, all bets are off.
About the only real use for the vise would be in a shop doing welding and half-assed blacksmithing. It is beyond any real restoration, nor does it appear to be anything special. Just a garden variety machinist vise of fairly common design. Use it for work where you don't care if you land a hunk of red hot steel in it and wale on it with a sledge to hot bend it, or use it to hold work you are welding together. Or, use it as a lawn ornament or boat anchor...
Never heard of "perfection" as a vise brand. The design appears to be a common US machinist vise design. The classic old-line vise makers used a fairly consistent design with minor changes to things like how the vise screw and nut were retained, how the jaw plates were attached to the jaws, and "details" in the castings such as little "knees" or "gussets" between the body of the vise and the base.
I believe most of the old vises such as the one you have were made using castings for the body/fixed jaw, and movable jaw/slide. These castings were usually quite massive and were often made of either a malleable iron, or a "semi steel"- a cast iron alloyed with a significant amount of scrap steel. The jaw plates varied with the makers. They were usually steel, and could either be fastened to the jaws using a "groove and tongue", or were sometimes cast into the jaws in when the jaw castings were poured.
These old vises could take quite a licking, and to really damage one took some serious abuse. Your vise seems to have had it. The vise screws were usually finished with a "ball" type end, and this was drilled for a sliding handle bar. Some vise makers, rather than use a one-piece forging for the vise screw (upsetting the end and using a closed die forging process to make the ball end), would machine the vise screw from bar stock and machine locking grooves on the end where the handle/ball was to go. This end was stuck into the cavity of a sand mold, and the ball end was poured around the end of the vise screw, incorporating it. Someone obviously broke that end off the vise screw, probably putting a large "cheater" pipe on the handle, or maybe using a large pipe wrench or chain tong on it. Could have been trying to use the vise as a press. I've never seen the end/ball broken off a US made machinist vise screw, and this speaks of real abuse.
The busted jaw plate may well have been cracked by hitting with hardened hammers and chisels. Or, someone was using the vise to hold work for welding and hit it with one too many grinder gouges, along with arc strikes followed by hammer blows.
Without knowing how the jaw plates are fixed to the jaws, it is hard to say if the vise is really repairable. Making and fitting new jaw plates is what it would take- if the jaw plates are fasted to the jaws by "groove and tongue" and screws in counterbored holes. If the jaw plate was cast into the jaw, all bets are off.
About the only real use for the vise would be in a shop doing welding and half-assed blacksmithing. It is beyond any real restoration, nor does it appear to be anything special. Just a garden variety machinist vise of fairly common design. Use it for work where you don't care if you land a hunk of red hot steel in it and wale on it with a sledge to hot bend it, or use it to hold work you are welding together. Or, use it as a lawn ornament or boat anchor...
Trboatworks
Diamond
- Joined
- Oct 23, 2010
- Location
- Maryland- USA
That looks very similar to my Prentiss Bull Dog 5”.
Similar threads
