Reunited With an Old Friend

[Jim Koepke]

This was on my dad's bench since before my memories start.

Got back late Tuesday from a drive down to my old stomping grounds in California to pick up some of the grandkids to come spend the summer. Went to my storage shed and picked up this guy:

100_4859.jpg

It is a No. 106. It has 5" jaws.

Not for woodworking necessarily, but it will get used for other things.

Needs a little wire brushing and grease. Should be good to go after that. Not sure whether or not it should be repainted. It has some paint on it from where my dad used it to hold things being spray painted.

jtk

[Steve Beadle]

Jim, I take your father has passed on to that great workshop in the sky? If that's so, that old vise has quite a bit of sentimental value, too. My dad's tools got away from my brother and I when he passed, and all I have is a hammer and a saw. But they are treasured possessions and I think of my Dad every time I use them.

I keep telling myself that I need to schedule a trip up to visit you some time, since we're so close. I hope you enjoy your time with your grandchildren. I was with mine last night.

Steve

[Jim Koepke]

Jim, I take your father has passed on to that great workshop in the sky? If that's so, that old vise has quite a bit of sentimental value, too. My dad's tools got away from my brother and I when he passed, and all I have is a hammer and a saw. But they are treasured possessions and I think of my Dad every time I use them.

I keep telling myself that I need to schedule a trip up to visit you some time, since we're so close. I hope you enjoy your time with your grandchildren. I was with mine last night.

Steve

Steve,

Would love to have you visit sometime, maybe in the fall when the kids are back home. I expect (and hope for) great balls of chaos while they are here. My father has been gone for a little more than 5 years now, he was just short of his 92nd birthday. He left me a few items. Some of them I have handed over to one of my brothers who is taking care of some of the family heirlooms. I kept the ones that weren't duplicates and would be used in my shop.

Hopefully one or some of my children and grandchildren will be remembering me while making use of my accumulation of tools.

From what little I have read on line (today) about Parker vises is the ball front dates it back into the 1930s. The nose is more cylindrical on later models.

I have not weighed it, but read that it is about 105 pounds. Maybe the bathroom scale needs to take a trip out to the shop.

jtk

[Winton Applegate]

Now that's a VISE. Mass Grande !
I have my Dad's vise. I used it more than he did from about the time I was six years old until I left home at twenty . I modified it by replacing the knurled steel jaws with smooth aluminum jaws that I milled to fit. He was a big time steam fitter so he had the big ones on the trucks etc., and at work.


This is the way I like to use a metal worker's vise. Weld a big thick piece of steam pipe to a plate and bolt it in the middle of the concrete floor with masonry anchors and lag screws.; another plate on top holds the vise.


If it is in the way a couple of seconds with a pneumatic ratchet and it ain't in the way no more.
If any body does this I recommend even larger diameter pipe; this is a small vise.


Yah I will never go back to bench mounting a metal worker's vise. It is so handy to be able to walk all the way around it for filing, sawing and looking at the work. I have many vises I mount to this pedestal depending on the job.

Anyway it is nice to still have his vise. I unbolted it from his built in work bench in the nice cinderblock shed before the house was sold. Not that I needed another vise but because he used it.

[Jim Matthews]

Your Dad must have used his wrong.

My Dad's vise is "properly conditioned" by miss hits, sledgehammer blows and propane torch "tempering".
That, and the original handle should be replaced by a piece of galvanized pipe wrapped in duct tape.

Yours looks like a museum piece.