Post vise and stand

[Dantheharleyman99]

Ok. So some of you that fallow my threads may already know but, I went to Webster flee market about 2 weeks ago and picked up a post vise for$75 in pretty good shape.

I dis assembled the vise and gave it a good cleaning with some meuratic acid and then let it get a light coat of flash rust then oiled the whole thing. It's working great now!
I decided to build a stand for it yesterday out of some scraps I had laying around.

The post is the leftover from the teuyre on my forge 4x4 .25 wall square tube. And the base is made from 2 track supports I found at a train wreck site a couple months ago.

Anyway here are a couple pics, there's more to come



Also the first welds with the miller xmt304... It's a pretty sweet machine, just gotta figure out all the fancy features! Arc force control is awesome in this machine.

[Dantheharleyman99]

I'm thinking of building a small shelf that comes off the back side of the post and possibly around the sides so I've got a place to set tools while im using the vise. Any suggestions?

[DSW]

Looks nice. About the only thing I might have done different was to not have welded the vise to the base. Instead I'd have welded a piece of pipe or tube to the base that the vise post could drop down into.

The way you have it, the vise is permanently fixed to the stand. I assume you are going to anchor this down?

[Dantheharleyman99]

It is a piece of 1" Dom tubing. It just looks like part of the vice.
The vise is re moveable!

[DSW]

Ah! Ok. That makes more sense.

[Dantheharleyman99]

Yes it will be anchored to a nice wood platform of some kind! Just haven't figured out what I want to use yet, I was thinking maybe a couple 4x6 pieces at the bottom.

It's very stable front to back but it is a little unstable side to side. So I need something that will sturdy it up and is also moveable, but I'm out of thick steel plate big enough to use as a base.

[Dantheharleyman99]

I also posted a pic of the first rr spike knife I made and my attempt at a pineapple twist over on equilibreums knife post! It's deffinately more challenging than i thought it would be but I love practicing!

[DSW]

In a pinch I've bolted my bender to a 3/4" sheet of plywood and parked the truck on part of the sheet to stabilize it. With My post vise I use something of the same idea, my plate is large enough that I can stand on the from of the plate and add my weight to the stand to help keep things in place. A wider plate would have been nice so if I'm off to the side I can also use my weight to help keep things in place, but so far that hasn't been a big deal for what I've needed to do with a "portable" vise.

I'll take picts of mine later. Right now I have to do a few repairs to mine. The kids that were helping me load up dropped the vise and stand when putting it in the truck, and pulled the 1/4" lag screws out of the end of the 6x6 I'm using to hold the vise. I need to grab some 3/8" plate or 2" angle from the tech school either this week or next and weld that to my plate so I'm lagging into cross grain vs the end grain that has already stripped.

[cope]

Yes it will be anchored to a nice wood platform of some kind! Just haven't figured out what I want to use yet, I was thinking maybe a couple 4x6 pieces at the bottom.

It's very stable front to back but it is a little unstable side to side. So I need something that will sturdy it up and is also moveable, but I'm out of thick steel plate big enough to use as a base.

While you were at the train wreck scene, you should have snagged a tie or two.

[Dantheharleyman99]

While you were at the train wreck scene, you should have snagged a tie or two.

Oh.. I did my friend! Along with about 200 lb of coal and 150 in scrap alluminum I have yet to use. Also got about 10 spikes! I love scavenging useful stuff that I can use to make things with... Can't go wrong with a 8 ft piece of 4x6 .25 wall aluminum square tube!

And no I didn't take anything that wasn't left there after the clean up crew was done and gone for a few months. I figure if they left it there for 4 months they probably don't want it.... So I see it as a community service to clean the side of the road and get all that clutter off the right of way!!

[shortfuse]

Yes it will be anchored to a nice wood platform of some kind! Just haven't figured out what I want to use yet, I was thinking maybe a couple 4x6 pieces at the bottom.

It's very stable front to back but it is a little unstable side to side. So I need something that will sturdy it up and is also moveable, but I'm out of thick steel plate big enough to use as a base.

Good find on the vise, Dan.

You'll be using it a lot. I didn't have one for about 4-5 months when I started and don't know how I made it that long.

For your base, most of your forces working with items in the vise will be side to side, up and down. The base should be made stable accordingly; you'll need more steadying side to side cranking the handle open and closed (up and down, you've got covered!). Mine is mounted on a huge truck rim and still will rock sideways a bit. I haven't done much "heavy" hammering in the front to back direction.

[Mudman]

Good find Dan! I could never find one in my area. I've been searching. The few on craigslist are in the $150 range.

[Marty Feldman]

The base plate for my post vise is a really large piece of heavy steel plate. There is no realistic substitute for it that I can think of to keep the vise from rocking. Wood does not sound to me to be a very satisfactory longterm bet. My base plate never moves from its spot on the shop floor (it can move, but I don't want to be the one). I have drilled and tapped the plate in 4 locations, and keep the holes slathered with neverseize, so that I can bolt down, from above, the post vise base flange. This lets me use the heavy base plate as a base for other things after unbolting the vise. One such other thing is the big bender I made, which has a base flange that I have drilled in the 4 corners to match the holes in the plate.

Since one of the things I wanted with this base plate was to have it remain a flat surface for walking over when no machine was bolted to it, I did not weld a cuff onto its surface to act as a socket for the bottom of the post of the vise. What works for me is a simple block of really hard hardwood on the surface of which I milled a hemispherical depression to accomodate the ball on the end of the post. The block is not anchored to the steel base plate. I just position it on the base plate by eye when mounting the vise. Perhaps because most of the pressure exerted on the post when the vise is in use is in the straight down vector, the block shows no tendency to walk or skate when working with the vise, friction between the wooden block and the steel base plate being enough to keep it stationary.

As to the tool platter you are thinking about adding to the pedestal, it might be good to have it in back of the pedestal but perhaps less so at the sides. I find myself most typically standing at the sides of the vise (in line with the gap between the vise jaws) when tightening the jaws and doing some other jobs, and I would guess that I would not want a tool shelf, or at least not a big one, sticking out between me and the work.

-Marty-