[TheForge] Vice repair

[Bob Ehrenberger]

About a month ago my demo vice was giving me trouble, it was sticking when
tight and was hard to loosen.  So I took it apart and greased the screw real
good and put it back together.  That made a huge difference, but after a
couple weeks use it started to slip when tight.  Aparently it was sticking
because it was so badlly worn that the screw was starting to work it's way
over the ridge of the thread in the box.

Well last week a friend was over who is a retired macheanest. He offered to
make a new screw and box for the vice in exchange for a forged knife blade.
A pretty good deal on my end, but he wanted a piece of steel big enough to
make each piece solid, cap to ball. This was going to take 3"x 13" for the
box and 2" x 15" for the screw.  It was a new point of reference for me, I
would have just replaced the working sections and not all the steel on the
ends.  He was going to come back today to pick up the old parts and steel.

Well over the weekend I took a really close look at the thread box and
discovered that it was just a piece of steel pipe that had been swaged
around the screw.  Figuring I had nothing to loose so I heated it up and
repeated the process using a half round section on the block that was the
closest fit.  Well it seemed to have worked.  The threads are tight again
and seem to work just fine.  Time well tell how well it holds up under use.

If this works long term, it has saved my friend a huge amount of work making
a new one from scratch.  I'm sure that if he still wants the knife I can
come up with something I need that he can help with.

Robert Ehrenberger
Shelbyville, Mo.
eforge at centurytel.net