Reply To: Metal working vise
Welcome! / Forums / General Woodworking Discussions / Tools and Tool Maintenance/Restoration / Metal working vise / Reply To: Metal working vise
Hello Gerard, I’ll happily offer my two-pennies-worth;
A metalwork vice is definitely a good investment. It’ll have a better grip on smaller objects than your woodworking vice and they usually come with an anvil area for bashing stuff. The one Paul uses appears to be a huge, heavy, beast of a thing. Just watching him lift it to the floor made my arms ache! I wouldn’t go for one that large.
Record vices are roughly numbered; 00 for the smallest (Jewellers size), 0 is the one I’ve got (small all-purpose), then they go up in sizes 1,2,3,4,5…
Record had a selection of table-top vices which can be quickly attached or removed for occasional use such as the Record Imp 80. They’re hard to find in good condition, but look cute. They have a pipe-bending area, tube grips, round anvil and pointed anvil.
Speciality vices like the Engineer’s one have a rotating base. Nice, but not necessary.
Then there’s the Pipe-Fitter’s Vice; as the name suggests it’s good for holding/cutting tubes.
Begin your search by looking at the Record 0 or Record 1 and judge your own needs.
Check the jaws are OK. Buying replacement jaws for any vice is ridiculously expensive.
For protecting delicate work (plastics/aluminium) you can buy ‘soft’ jaws inserts with a fibre lining.
The Tommy-Bar must be straight. You won’t be able to straighten one easily and the screw has been stressed.
Make sure it’s the one you’ll want. Taking a gamble at auction is a risk when spares are non-existent and the postage costs exceed the cost of the vice itself.
Don’t limit your search to Record. They’re good, but so are many others. Lesser-known names are a lot cheaper.
Paul bolted his to a wooden block to sit in the woodwork vice. A good idea for occasional use/limited space.