Cleaning up my vice

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Along with the anvil I was also given a leg vice. This is a heavy-duty vice with a long pole that goes down into the ground a little way to transfer energy away from the hammer blows or moving the metal making it less likely that the vice will break under use. It was thrown in with the anvil because, well, the guy who sold the equipment to my wife is a super nice guy but also because he could never use it… the thing was rusted all the Hell! Seriously; the pivot arm wouldn’t pivot, the screw arm was locked in place and wouldn’t move, it had a big helping of rust all over… well, I didn’t think I’d even be able to get this:

To look like this:

But I did!

The hardest part by far was getting the pivot arm working again. The bolt to release the arm was rusted fast in place.  It took a can of rust release spray and several days of work – not to mention a blow torch and several club hammer blows) to unlock the bolt, but it finally broke!

Seriously, what could possible have gone wrong with leaving the blow torch unattended on the vice in a garage with lots of oil, petrol, and wood around? 🙂

Once that was done, though, I was able to clean up the rest of the vice (the screw box was and thread were in a lovely condition on the inside) and got it to work!

Now the only thing left to do is get the leg onto a vice so I can straighten it out…

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