Broken vice (oops)

I was using the blue vice in the metal shop this morning and apparently I tightened it wayyy too much cause it snapped one side. :pensive: not sure what the process is regarding fixing/replacing it but I am the responsible party for breaking it.

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That’s pretty inexpressive, actually. Remind me not to arm wrestle you. :muscle:

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Hopefully that’s metal and not machine shop. Kurt vises are $700. (Sorry metal shop)

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Yes, you should use more superlatives and exclamation points!!!

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You heard it here first, Nick’s starting a war with the metal shop. You guys have the fine machinery, but we can make fire!

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It’s in metal shop. Thanks for letting us know.

This is what it looks like.

So looks like Metal Shop is in the market for a better vise. We seem to break 1 a year.

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Would you mind throwing it in the corner? I want to do something stupid with it and the TIG welder.

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Note: it is hollow and not solid metal. The Machine Shop, home of Moon Walkers, uses a solid steel American made muy beau coup (hernia to lift) strong vise.

Maybe the jaws are decent steel and a small 1" knife for scraping under fingernails can be salvaged from it. Doubt you have to anneal it.

Practicing welding cast iron might be the best use for it.

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The cheapest Wilton I found on CL was 420$… I’m going to keep an eye out for good vise

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If the jaws have tool steel I could use the faces and leave the cast iron for scrap users.

-Jim

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I doubt they would be considered tool steel in the sense you think of it.

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Eh, I’ve been surprised to find some A2 or related alloys as shims on the faces of cheaper jaws (usually pretty thin and varied how it would be attached). Can’t hurt to take a look.

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If you don’t mind, let me see if I can TIG it back into working order, and if that fails then we can part it out.

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Was it a vise racking issue? If one side is being closed under pressure without the other side having any support, the Vise jaws can break. Thus why people try to place even pressure by inserting a block on the ‘non-working’ side of the Vise jaws as something for the non’working side of the jaws to clamp down on to better distribute the load of the jaws being tightened.

At least, that’s how it works with woodworking vses. Not sure about metal/machine shop vises.

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It’s a cheap vise issue. It is hollow, good vises are solid.

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Ueah I saw that. Kinda ridiculous.

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I never heard of a hollow vise!

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I did the same thing a month ago in my Blacksmithing class at Brookhaven. They welded it back together for the third or forth time I think. So it can probably be salvaged, but we should expect it to happen again sometime.

Jeremy

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