broken Vice !! need help!!

[FusionKing]

It looks to me like you could put a plate on each side and sandwich the part
with bolts.

You reminded me of the old vice I have on my old horizontal mill.
Somebody welded it and "sandwiched it"...quite crudely... but I use it and it works fine.

[fun4now]

the break point on mine dose not really allow for sandwiching. as its broken in a bad spot for that due to the design.

right now i have a lot else going on right now but will post out some pic's when i get to it ( soon i hope)

[FusionKing]

Yuh know....Father's DAY is coming
If you was my dad I'd buy you one.

[kevin]

braze

looks like brazing would be cheap and easy, if it breakes again, melt it out and start over, if money is tight try 312 stainless, i was told by the supplier that its ni rod without the filler in the flux, about jb weld, i bought some to fix leaky rusty oilpan in plow truck, worked great, i took 1/4x2 flatbar- ground it clean, washed it with breakclean, put that crap on, clamped it together, let it set- 3 days at 70 degrees wacked it on the table, instantly 2 pieces on floor, jb wont weld

[MR.57]

Don't short change the strength of a good brazed joint, I have found that they hold up quite well, in fact better than I would have thought in these types of applications. I have seen many vises brazed and and still take the beating and squeezing abuse just as well after as they did before...But I think the guys that fixed those vises were typically in the front pew every Sunday. go ahead take a crack at it...if you melt it down, no harm you can always put two groves in it and post it on the projects board as an INDUSTRIAL ASH TRAY , and brazing rod is cheap.

k

This one was braze repaired by some anonymous farmer with an O/A torch long before my time - it's still holding up just fine.

[crawdaddy]

its a larin.
i don't know if its top shelf but it doesn't seem like HF junk aether. i been beating on it for years and never realized how much i used it till i broke it.

here is a few pic's of it and the break point.
any help would be great.

After looking at the pics I realized that I have the exact same vice.That model was selling at Costco about 10 years ago,so its not that old,Although I like the vice it is not a top of the line vice and I dont think its American made I think it is middle of the road quality.

[fun4now]

I'm going to go with braise as soon as i get a chance. true its not a top dog vise but it is a good one for my needs. if the braise works out great, if not i can try again or just bite the bullet and get a new one at $120 when i can come up with the $$. at this point i don't have any thing to lose by trying to braise it.

[kevin]

mr.57

boy i love that post, just a pic and a little bit of history, i think we all try too hard and think to much sometimes, its refreshing to see a repair from an ol timer just going back to the basics, i bet he had fun

[fun4now]

Nomacast ????

any one try a stick called Nomacast ?? i found some 1/8" sticks of it for like $13. was considering giving it a try. its supposed to be for cast and its a lot more affordable.
with the odd break shape i think i might have better luck with stick, although I'm not great with stick.

plan is to attack it this weekend. a clean up with some purple cleaning gunk, grove it out. then off to the BBQ for a heat up. lay down some beads peening in between each run, then off to the kitty litter for the night.

I'll be giving the Nomacast a shot with my TA-185. I'll post up some pic's of whats left of it when i get done. be it good or bad.

i still gotta figure out how to hold it in place wile i run the rod. I'm also thinking of putting it on some ply wood with a thin metal sheet over it. my welding table is a lil over 1 " thick so I'm concerned about it sucking out all the pre-heat. I'll just have to see how the prep comes out.

[allessence]

I'm not posting this because no one has come up with a good answer. There are plenty.

I've welded, broken old Cast iron on more than one occasion. metal shear leg, that someone knocked over the side of the pickup bed onto concrete, Drill press spindle, Punch press head handle, Even did a T3 turbine housing once.

Most of the stuff was welded with 7018, or 7014 depending on how the welding seemed to progress. The keys are to make a wide 60 or even 70 degree notch all around where you can get to. If you can't get to it from the inside then notch all the way to the back side of the crack. The turbine housing was welded with 0.30 70-6 mig wire and 24Volts. Don't remember the WFS.

Then heat up the parts cherry red. And then have at it. No hammer peening needed. Be sure and reheat the parts to cherry red once you are done welding, and cool in ashes.



The process really depends on the quality of the cast iron to begin with. Seems the older stuff is made better unless it some of the high quality stuff form Starrett.


I have no problem heating large parts as I run a blacksmithing shop and used to be able to heat up stuff that weighed in at 300lbs.

Here is a gate I did and it doesn't have a modern weld on it. All done in the forge with hammer and anvil. 4'6" X 9'.

[fun4now]

about time i got to it.

well i finally got around to welding it up and all is good now.

i went with the Nomacast 1/8" at 110amps DC electrode positive. i have to say i was really impressed with this stuff and or my TA-185. the combination made for a smooth burning rod with a fairly nice deposit rate. i ground it out into same rather wide and deep V to give me the best chance of getting a good deep bead as i only had access to one side. went with a wide V as i admittedly su ck at stick welding and felt the wide V would give me the best chance of getting the first pass at the base of the V without arcing sideways instead of down.
a few passes and several sticks later and i had a nice filled in V that should give me a good hold.

i used my old charcoal BBQ to do the pre-heat. not an exact way, but it was what i had. i drooped it into a box full of cat litter and left it over night before taking it out and cleaning it up.

the Nomacast was my cheapest option and at $13 was worth trying. glad i did.

yet again i find myself questioning my choice to sell my TA-185 as it again pays me back in savings. it dose spend more time sitting then working, but its always possible I'll get to using it more at some point. and with each repair i see a return on my investment. well i have till the end of the summer to decide, keep, or sell ?? i have an offer that will give me the full $ i paid for it, but will find it hard to replace at a later date should i let it go.

[PLWeld]

Definately repair it!

Like the other suggestions, prep it for weld, pre-heat (about 4-500....ish degrees), weld it, post heat until cools slowly. again, ni99 works well. Good luck with it

[Showdog75]

I would steer away from the HF vise, I bought one last year trying to stretch my dollar for as many things as I could. I striped the threads out of it in about 4 months and I wouldn't consider myself a frequent extreme user... Anvils are for beating, presses are for squeezing, and vises are for holding. I have broken too many vises using them for the above when I did use and abuse them more often..

If you want a vise that will take all the abuse you can throw at it go buy yourself a post vise like a blacksmith uses. They will take heat and plenty of beating.

[FusionKing]

yet again i find myself questioning my choice to sell my TA-185 as it again pays me back in savings. it dose spend more time sitting then working, but its always possible I'll get to using it more at some point. and with each repair i see a return on my investment. well i have till the end of the summer to decide, keep, or sell ?? i have an offer that will give me the full $ i paid for it, but will find it hard to replace at a later date should i let it go.

This is the first I have heard of this....are you getting a bigger and better machine now?
Or has your brain just finally burnt out??
If someone is offering as much as you gave then you got a great deal.
Anyways dude unless you are giving up welding, you NEED that machine.
Sell the mig!!!

[fun4now]

no I'm not going to a bigger better machine. just looking at its usage VS the investment. i had a plan for it but just never seem to get there so it spends 99% of its time covert being rolled around to keep it out of the way.

yep the fact i can get the $1700.00 i paid for it just makes it a tuffer decision. i have played around with selling it a few times when $$ was tight. i always seem to get by without selling it. as a general rule i do my best to never sell any type of tool once i have managed to get it, and i suspect i should stick to that.
truth be told i just got the welder as i wanted to learn to TIG, no real need from the git go. i love this lil thing as its always done anything i have asked of it with ease. its great on aluminum and easy to set up. no complaints with it, just a question of use VS $$. with $0.00 in the bank as a backup if some thing happened to house or car or whatever its a bit scarier.


on the brighter side the vise looks as good as new ( well almost) and should be good to go for a wile, longer if i get out of the habit of abusing it.

as it stands now my plan is to keep it. even if i get purchase price for it i could never replace it at that $$ or even close.