Restoring a 50 year old Machinist Vice 

There are very few more satisfying things in life than restoring mechanical components and putting it all back together again! Great job 👏

Only really one additional comment of somethings you can add to the vice to make it more useful 1. The unused large screw location on the side of the vice - That is used to fabricate a work-piece stop: Very useful with the DRO on the machine for repeatability 2. If you look under the vice again you will see several slots - They are the same width as your T-slots: You can bolt in a pair of pieces of ground toolsteel - shape a taper on the lower slide and they will be fixed in the T-slot and aligned almost perfectly with the machine bed - That allows you to make notes of the fixed vice location with the DRO so you don't have to clock the vice for every job

Kudos on this project! There are foundry employees, manufacturering personnel, industrial reps, setting up in their graves applauding the product that they manufactured a century ago that sits proudly on your milling table. Beautiful remanufacturing job.

I love how detailed oriented you are when you do your projects. Awesome job man. Love the videos.

Always makes me happy when someone tells me that they are working through all my old videos, so I figured I would let you know I am now doing the same for your channel. Great work, it’s been a fun few days.

This was so oddly satisfying! I love how much work you put into restoring such a beautiful and useful machine. Such a labor of love!! Great job!!

Nothing better than using a tool or machine that you have restored. Well done.

Nice restoration! One thing: I didn't see any lube during assembly. IMO, every metal to metal surface should be lubed during assembly, including screws.

That turned out sharp! That paint/filler job is crazy.

That now has to be the nicest looking vice I've ever seen! Great job and fantastic attention to detail!

Great video! Thanks for taking your time and showing how you work.

Love that restoration. That old clamp is a sexy bit of kit for the shop. So much better than something from Harbor Freight!

An outstanding job with deepest attention for details. 👏👏👏 It looks more like a miracle than a restoration! 😮

Discovered this channel pretty much right after deciding to make a custom desk, funny coincidence.

Found your channel last weekend and watched a whole bunch of your videos since then. Your awesome. Love the channel.

Great restoration job Alexandre. Enjoyed every minute of it. Liked and subscribed.👍

It looks extremely nice! The result is very clean!

Very nice result, we have exactly the same one in our videos 🤩

I enjoy watching all your videos. congratulations

Wow! Great video. Huge variety of angles, great close-ups and well edited. That's a lot of work. Cool vise, too.

Awesome Restoration, i cant imagine the pleasure of working with the Brand New Restored Vice

Great job! Very inspiring. I discovered your channel a couple of weeks ago and i love your videos. One thing that can be improved is the different sound level between moments when you talk and moments of music. I always need to play with the volume :) Keep up!

Recently 'discovered' your channel. Great content and skilled restauration. Besides that, also the editing and quality of the video is very high. You deserve much more subscribers! Won't take long before your channel takes a flight... 💪👍

Man, I just stumbled across your channel.. I’m glad I stuck around! Great videos!!

Great job taking it to an automotive finish. I didn’t for my vise restoration (see it on my channel) and mine took forever so I can’t imagine how much footage isn’t in this video. Taking tape off is satisfying!

loved the choice of music. great restoration

Awesome video the difference is definitely in the details you put in.

You could have skimmed the ways and machined surfaces with your mill, it'd be faster and more accurate. That vice probably is out of square on all axes now.

9:20 the vice looks unhappy even terrified getting the filler treatment

Admirable job. Bravo!

You're quite talented and have a nice breadth of skills.

This is a fantastic refurb job. I'm really impressed by your attention to detail.. Keep it up!! Cheers,

pro tip: polished stone tiles from a store (like the 3-5cm thick ones) are usually astonishingly flat, much flatter than any piece of particle board could ever be, so those make the perfect surface for sanding something flat on a budget. (sure its not as good as a proper flat stone but still)

I 3D printed a hand knob for when I am placing small parts in my vice rather than having to crank around the whole handle. Then I tighten it with the regular handle. The other tin I did was machine a step in the top of each jaw for holding small bars and plates.

man, that's the best vise restoration video I've ever seen. Easy to watch the whole video without skipping 👌👌

Outstanding work, great video

I like your videos, but the music was louder than your voice in some parts of ths, like when you were talking about refinishing the machine screws.

One of my subscribers told me to check out this video... Glad he did! Awesome job! Thanks!

Absolutely brilliant, your work is a great inspiration for my own videos😊👍

The older vice looks way better than today's boxy designs. It's very sleek in appearance.

No Grease during reassembly? I'm Triggered..

Fantastic job

Fantastic result!! Great work this is the 4th video in a row on your channel, great content 👍🏻

Another outstanding restoration! You definitely posses the right ingredients for this stuff, patience & persistence. A few things, not criticisms, more quality of life suggestions. Get yourself a brass hammer for persuading things together. A small set of rifling files make life much easier for the intricate & limited access finishing jobs. Make yourself a speed handle for the vice. Once again, great job! :)

Nice restoration mate!

I really love your restoration, really wonderful job 👍

Looks like a old palmgren vise. Nice job

That thing looks like a new car. Great work, and I can tell you're a perfectionist like myself lol.. Great work bud

congrats on finding the hardest way to refinish it

it's called cold blue because traditional blueing is done by heating the metal to cherry red then quenching in oil, resulting in a black rust protective coating :) cheers from Sverige, love your channel

If I may suggest... more lathe work ... use the end mill to flatten stuff and make screws nice as My Mechanics does...and equally so, perfect things on the lathe. The painted parts came out nice but I think viewers like seeing stuff made new. :) But you're off to a good start. I just think you can make people like it even more.

Greetings and hallo from Texas. Your patience is admirable and the key to your success. I just found your channel today and watched the Bridgeport and vise restorations. Could you tell more about the cleaner you used on the Bridgeport? It's not available in the US. I recently sold my milling machine due to the cost of moving it 700 miles (over 1100 km). Your videos will help me make the replacement look good. Beautiful job on the vise! Subscribed. Skål.

Came here from the Bridgeport vid - brilliant work - also so glad you stopped with the hand held shakycam :)

WOW, awesome job! I know some people gave you flack in the previous video about the word 'restoration' as opposed to 'cleaning'. Most were probably Americans like me, but who forget that English is not likely your first language. In the US, and from what I can tell in Europe, there is a real difference in PRACTICE between restoring and cleaning of tools and things like milling machines. At the end of the day, you did a great job on both the mill and vise. The vise really was a restoration, to an even higher degree than many who do these things repeatedly. I know such things are often more expensive in Europe compared to the US, but an ultrasonic cleaner would have made getting the old grease and dirt off much easier. I use Simple Green in mine, which is far better for the environment that oil-based degreasers, not to mention less toxic to people. Of course, there is also something very satisfying about doing those things with elbow grease. To get the rust off, check out the videos of your fellow European the Post Apocalyptic Inventor. He shows how electrolysis using a DC power source with high amps works the fastest and deepest. Also better for the environment than harsh chemicals. The fastest, easiest way to remove paint I have seen so far is vapor blasting, which is sand blasting with water included. Again, not cheap, but the parts can be gotten used separately over time and there are several DIY videos on how to convert sand blasters. Again, no chemicals. I wish I lived in a country where the environment is more highly regarded like it is in Norway! Finally, you didn't show a final degreasing of the metal parts prior to using filler and primer, but probably did use something. Isopropyl alcohol is very often used, along with acetone. I like rubbing alcohol because it's cheaper and less toxic. I know you didn't ask for advice, and clearly don't really need any, just thought I would share some ideas for thought and maybe future planning. Again, you did a GREAT job on both, and look forward to seeing what you make in the future!

Nice to see someone that is not using nitrile cloves all the time.

Now you need to refinish the rest of the Bridgeport to match that gorgeous blue. ;) (LOL)

Bravo, bravo, bravo, awesome..., Well done, you are an artist, unique and perfectly work, master done, It's a pleasure to watch this work! respect from the old BG. sori for my english.

Very nice job...you are a craftsman

What products were used as the primer and filler? Are they just standard auto body products? Also curious on the product to remove the old rust and paint. The end result looks great!

This color is beautiful!

Loved the video and the result, it's a really beautiful addition to the mill. I don't mind the music so much, but when you're speaking, I'd rather hear you talking! Either way, you've got a new sub from me, keep up the great work.

They made beautiful vises back in the day.

Nice job. I did one of these a few months ago as well. Love the baby blue, it really pops! You may have done this and just not shown it but a bit of light oil on the sliding faces would be a good idea to help with the smoothness of operation, prevention of wear and prevention of future rusting. As for the body filler that a few people are ripping you for I don't really see an issue. Bridgeport milling machine castings are full of the stuff if you get a bad one. (sorry not seen your restoration on that yet.) Anyway good job, keep the videos coming you just got another subscriber. 👍👍👍

Beautiful Restoration!!!!!!!!

Just a little tip for the next time you're using filler of some kind. If you've applied the filler, just spray some matt color lacker lightly over it, while it's still wet. So, while sanding you can see all the little bumbs and scratches, that you want to sand down. Makes sanding filler quite a lot easier. Besides that... very nice video!

Awesome job, and also the best blue color!

This video is so satisfying

damn that lathe makes a lot of metal clanking noises, your sure there is enough oil in the gearbox? or are the bearings f*ck*d up?

Great video! 1 question: why apply paddy after red primer? , can’t you just apply the final color on to the red primer?

So amazing and satisfying video. I love it

This looks amazing! I love the shine on that!

Really nice work!

Beautiful work my man, I would have been fine with way less lol I got a good tip once: try to swap the bearing plate (16:13) out for a needle thrust bearing. That way the screw will go much easier and smoother.

Damn that looks smooth! Like a 60s sports car. Nice work, did you do any measurements afterwards? Would be interesting to know what the geometry is like after removing all the rust

Love to see Czechoslovakian vise in the world 😍😍😍😍

I actually subscribed before you finished. Love your attention to detail. Thanks mate. 🇦🇺👍

Only 21.5K subs? Feels like this channel should be 20X that amount, great vids dude.

Just randomly found your channel and can't belive that you only have 12.7k subs?! You're amazing and your sense of detail and creativity is through the roof! Saw you had some Biltema products too so I googled you and found out you're from Norway(?) Your English is on point and I can't hear a bit of Norwegian dialect! I'm from Sweden so it's awsome to see a neighbor :D

you're really good at this keep it up man

Awesome restoration!

Great video! Thanks for sharing!

Can’t wait to see this vice used in a new video!

Great work there. Well done!

Great work

Great video! But tbh...I wouldn't sand those jaws on a piece of MDF like that, especially with such coarse paper. Those are typically ground and you can get the rust off with chemicals, and polish it with a very fine fiber wheel or something.

Very nice work!

What an awesome restoration! Just discovered your channel and subbed. Don’t pay any attention to the ridiculous comments here about your sanding, painting or other techniques you used. It’s your equipment and you took the time to share with us what you did with it and I, for one, am thankful for that. People have nothing better to do then criticize and complain about the hard work and free content that you and other content creators provide. They love to nitpick and find fault with everything you do. I always find it interesting that the ones who complain are the ones who have zero videos to share. What difference does it make that you used Bondo, or sanded the surfaces? It’s your vise, you can do whatever you want to with it. In the end, it is better looking and more functional than when you started. I appreciate the work and the video. Thank you!! 👍🏻😃

Beautiful restoration of the old vise...maybe too pretty. I must ask how well the body filler will work on a vise. Very nice work!

I enjoyed your video and really appreciate your efforts and hard work in restoring that vise correctly. It turned out great! One suggestion? The music was really tough to listen to and I ended up muting the video. Just an opinion and I'm not trying to be critical but rather, give you some feedback. Again, you did a great job restoring that vise. Well done!

Great restoration my friend,great job and color,keep up the good work !!!!

Nice a very detailed resto! I can't help but think doing it in hammertone paint again would have looked better.

Nice job. Did you use any lube putting it together? Even the fixed metal surfaces should have had something to prevent corrosion.

you know those patch jobs other restauration youtubers come across? guys like this made em

Amazing restoration, it's a different kind of restoration video and i like it, subscribed!

Beautiful work, man. That thing is swanky, now.

Beautiful job mate. Well done.😀

When taping the parts, instead of using knife to cut the edges, use sandpaper. When paint stripping, wrap the whole thing in cling film, this way, when you unwrap it..most of the stripped paint will carry over with the film, less & faster clean up.

nice job well done mate

Nice job on the vise!!!!

Looks nice to go with your mill but.....If you plan on using a vise I'd get an angle-loc style. I had to use those old style vises years ago and hated them. The problem is the jaw trys to lift when you tighten it down. Makes it very frustrating trying to get your work tapped down tight on a pair of parallels. Restoring it as a "period" vise to match your mill is fine but in my opinion they serve better as a boat anchor.