who made this ball vise?

O

oakleave

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Jun 5, 2013
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27
Location
USA, DC
During the blacksmith spring fling 2014 I bought a broken ball vise. diameter a little over 6 inches, squere key is 5mm. The table is running in ball bearings. Any idear who made it??
Thanks
Bernie ballvise2.jpg ballvise1.jpg
 
R

Ron Spokovich

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Dec 27, 2012
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Appears to be homemade, but done adequately except for two points. Seems there were jaws at one time. First, a slight weakness exists in the one piece left & right hand nuts that the screw turns in, but this could've been done with the idea of avoiding premature wear & breakage in drilling & tapping jaws for acme threads. . .price taps once, and make sure you're sitting down. The base seems lightweight, but this may be an illusion. Apparently, the jaws slide on & off, and swivel. All you need to cut the corresponding grooves is an end mill and a woodruff key cutter, a move thinking of avoiding tap costs. See if you can make a couple jaws, and the thing looks like it'll work out OK. Looks like easy to clean & maintain, too. Do you have the jaws with it?
 
DanM

DanM

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Looks old,much like a Monarch or Stehman & Stehman ball vise. Most likely pre 1940's manufacture.
 
O

oakleave

Member
Joined
Jun 5, 2013
Messages
27
Location
USA, DC
thank you for the feedback. There are some marks on the blocks were the jaws attach but they are unreadable. There is also threat with 11.5 mm diameter in the bottom half. The weight is 17 lbs. what could this screw hole been for? Yesterday I coulden't resist to start rebuilding the piece. With a set of new balls ( $8 for a box of 175) it turns fantastic.
When I have time I will build a fixture to hold work pieces for inlay work.
happy engraving
Bernie
 
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