Greg Harding wrote:Hi Everyone,
On another note and after some head scratching, I managed to get the old vice apart, all of the bolts had a black tar type substance on the threads, I think Stockholm Tar was used on old threads? Anyway whatever it was made my job easier and I saved every bolt and nut. Years ago I pulled apart a broken John Heine folder and saved the bolts which were the right size to replace the ones that were removed for mounting to the Hardwood block so back to original now. The screwbox and screw was a bit harder but I psyched it out by laying all of my biggest tools next to it on the workbench and looked at it for a while with determination. Big Ridgid Stiltons and some leverage saw it Crack undone, to my amazement the thread was not rusty inside the screwbox. It was chock a block full of dirt/ silt that must have been left from the floods it endured!
That old vise looks fantastic Greg. I am wondering if you will be using it day-to-day or is it for special occasions/admiration/display? Maybe it's a resto for a customer?
I couldn't help thinking about the practicalities of the design and suspect that it is actually a better thing in some ways than later designs in that there is better access to whatever is being held due to the narrowness of the vise under the jaws.
Your preparation for attempted disassembly "looking at it for a while with determination" is a wonderful technique and I do a similar thing when entering the unknown. In my case, it is to give my brain time to consider all options for how to proceed without causing too much damage. The laying out of "all my biggest tools" "to psych it out" is a new one to me but at times I do talk to things I'm working on and find it greatly helps the mental processes.
Sounds like Stockholm tar was an early anti-seize and rust preventative and actually worked. I remember from my youth that when assembling (tapered) pipe threads we would use greased hemp (before the invention of PTFE thread tape) and it worked well and you could disassemble old joints but probably wasn't as hygienic as virgin PTFE.