Stanley 2101A Brace – Jaws & Spring?
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I made the mistake of completely unscrewing the chuck on my Stanley 2101A 10-inch brace (also labeled a ‘Bell System-B’). The jaws popped off the spring and I can’t for the life of me figure out how to reattach them. There doesn’t seem to be an obvious way for the spring to lock into the jaws. There is a groove on the side of the jaws but the spring doesn’t stay seated, it just slips. Does anyone have any ideas/info on how I put this thing back together? It worked great up until 5 minutes ago!
The spring holds the jaws open. The hooked end needs to go under the little tabs that are punched at the end of the slot. To do that you have to tilt the jaw outwards so you can thread the hook under the tab, then rotate the jaw so the spring goes in the rest of the slot. I’m not sure if the hook goes under the first or second set of tabs., but I think just under the first set of tabs.
My Stanley has a drilled hole instead of punched tabs, but the principle is the same. Don’t try getting the spring out of the brace. It’s a pain to get back in. Just clean and grease around it.
Thanks for the info Larry! The punched tabs on each side don’t really grab the spring, like there should be some metal crimped over to hold the wire in place. Maybe this is something I can hold in place and peen? Or find replacement jaws similar in style to yours, which seem very straightforward.
Hi Nick – I was struggling with the same thing and Larry’s comment helped me figure it out even though the jaws on mine look a bit different. The key was to think about it like putting on windshield wiper blades. I made a quick video in case anyone else is struggling.
Hi Max, thanks for the video! In my case, one side of the jaws seems to have lost whatever small metal nub catches the spring, so it wouldn’t stay seated. In the end I got replacement jaws off of ebay in the same style as Larry’s, so there is actually a drilled hole for the spring wire to feed through. Works great again!
(They were ‘new’ old stock Stanley Universal Type G Brace Bit Jaws https://www.ebay.com/itm/185196764691)
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