Hi all,
So I picked up this vise for pretty cheap. I did a little research beforehand, and determined it was one of those Studley style piano makers vise. Don W and Chris Schwarz did some blog posts about these when they were doing research for their Studley book (hopefully Don sees this and can help me understand how it works). The guy I got it from was retired, and said it was his grandfathers vise, so that makes it…. pretty darn old. Also I bought it about 15 min outside of Lowell, MA which is where Studley hailed from. I wonder if the original owner of this vise and Studley were homies?
Anyway, I brought it home and took a closer look at this beast.
It turned nice when I bought it, but I didn't open it all the way. So that's what I did first. It stopped moving around 6".
So I closed it up and flipped it over to see what the problem could be.
I started opening it while inverted so I can see what it does. This time, instead of the jaws opening, the piece that the screw goes into moved towards the rear. Now that piece is all the way back and the jaws won't budge either way.
I need to take it apart anyway to clean it, so I unbolted the back piece, which pulled out. This allowed the middle piece to freely be screwed back down to the front. I think I need to reaffix this piece back in, so that the middle piece engages it and opens the jaws. There is another metal piece and a spring where this long piece came out of the middle piece. Hopefully the pictures show my lousy explanation.
My first question, does anyone know how this vise works mechanically so I can take it all apart, clean it good and maybe paint it, then put it all back together and it actually work?
Second question. I want to use this as a tail vise with a chop that I can put a dog on. Short of drilling holes it the jaw face, are there alternatives for affixing a chop to vise jaws. Adhesive?
That's all for now. Thanks for your help!
So I picked up this vise for pretty cheap. I did a little research beforehand, and determined it was one of those Studley style piano makers vise. Don W and Chris Schwarz did some blog posts about these when they were doing research for their Studley book (hopefully Don sees this and can help me understand how it works). The guy I got it from was retired, and said it was his grandfathers vise, so that makes it…. pretty darn old. Also I bought it about 15 min outside of Lowell, MA which is where Studley hailed from. I wonder if the original owner of this vise and Studley were homies?
Anyway, I brought it home and took a closer look at this beast.
It turned nice when I bought it, but I didn't open it all the way. So that's what I did first. It stopped moving around 6".
So I closed it up and flipped it over to see what the problem could be.
I started opening it while inverted so I can see what it does. This time, instead of the jaws opening, the piece that the screw goes into moved towards the rear. Now that piece is all the way back and the jaws won't budge either way.
I need to take it apart anyway to clean it, so I unbolted the back piece, which pulled out. This allowed the middle piece to freely be screwed back down to the front. I think I need to reaffix this piece back in, so that the middle piece engages it and opens the jaws. There is another metal piece and a spring where this long piece came out of the middle piece. Hopefully the pictures show my lousy explanation.
My first question, does anyone know how this vise works mechanically so I can take it all apart, clean it good and maybe paint it, then put it all back together and it actually work?
Second question. I want to use this as a tail vise with a chop that I can put a dog on. Short of drilling holes it the jaw face, are there alternatives for affixing a chop to vise jaws. Adhesive?
That's all for now. Thanks for your help!