Re: Clamps and vises thread

Here are the last pieces of the USA made C-clamps I got from Panda.

Diecraft & Wilton drop forged steel clamps (3").

Re: Clamps and vises thread

Also found a few English made Records (4"). Don't know if these are still available. Forged steel but not as beefy as the Diecrafts and Wilton.

I believe Proto C-Clamps are still available in Binondo but the prices are very expensive.

@Owyn

Do you have a flip side shot of your Record C-clamps. Does it say Forged Steel and Made in England? Those look beefier than the Records I found.

Re: Clamps and vises thread

Well I'll be... the acme thread looks serious. The records look girly by comparison. Wilton eh... the wilton bullet vise in the compound came from the u.s. cavite naval base when it closed down...

...
I learned my lesson from the stanleys- don't use a cheater pipe cause the handle/threads aren't meant to take it.

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@JayL
Nope, no "made in england" words =/. Been looking at ebay, stores and forums and i can't confirm it either way if it had been written there in the "120" model. (There's some difference to the current ones tho- current ones no longer has the 120 or 4 written along with the record.)

PDF catalogues that describes the 119, 120, and 121 models.

http://www.trenwa.com.sg/UploadedImg/record.pdf
http://www.belmonttools.com/Products/Hand_Tools/Locking/ht_record.pdf
http://www.irwin.co.uk/xp/PDF/IR_LIT_Workholding-UK.pdf

Re: Clamps and vises thread

The Wilton price was not bad @ 550 pesos considering that it is drop forged steel and very beefy. In fairness the Diecrafts are very sturdy too. I mostly use these to clamp flat bars ( for bending purpose ) to my mini 1/2" thick plate welding table. I had not been disappointed. I now refuse to use KYK and Lotus C clamps for such task considering it as a waste of time and money.

Sadly I can't find these anymore. The one piece I got from Panda was their last available.

If the Record you got are forged steel then you got the better stuff. The color in your first pic looks like it's not China yet. If I am not mistaken the Irwin China C Clamps now are cast iron and colored a bit darker blue.

Re: Clamps and vises thread

Here's my set of Bessey K-Body parallel clamps

Close up of the rear

Re: Clamps and vises thread

dami mo rin pala na pauwi eh, buti hindi nagalit yung nagbuhat, maykasama pang granite slab... :p

Re: Clamps and vises thread

Balikbayan box naman yun..kaya kinarga lang niya papunta sa box hehe

Re: Clamps and vises thread

nice choices as always...

Re: Clamps and vises thread

Me wants a bench vise by march.

I was just thinking how the wilton "'bullet" style (looks more like a submarine to me) vises have reached some cult status when it does have a design shortcoming. Looks-wise I have come to appreciate it but initially i thought it was fugly heh.

The wilton vise in the compound has some play, about 1/4 a turn of the handle. Turns out it's not in the threads but the garter (like half a washer) which connects the screw to the dynamic jaw so it moves together. On Records, there is a spring which takes out play no matter how the connection wears out over time.

pic courtesy of an ebay auction

Stolen from this site: http://alex.threlfall.me.uk/?p=63

Anyhoo, just thinking out loud.

Re: Clamps and vises thread

Since the topic is about clamps and vises. Has anyone of you have and idea of a homemade turntable for welding. I really need to make one.

Re: Clamps and vises thread

^ What's a turntable sir?

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I bit the bullet. (Sorry for the bad pun.) After having waited a week to research and to check myself if it ain't an impulse buy.

Cheap rags and hand cleaners sure makes life easier when messing with metal. Although while thorough, the pumice content makes my hand feel a little thinned skinned if i scrub too much.

I don't think the paint is original. A bit of a standard practice in the binondo area, you could see in some sidewalks tauhans/"boy"s haphazardly brushing off rust and repainting metal chains/pulleys/ or whatever NOS stuff that's pulled off from storage.

Hope you guys could see the corrossion in the swivel handle painted over. I plan to change the handle to 8" long for leverage.

There's a flaw in the casting. Syringe needle indicates that the hollow is about 1/4" at its deepest.

Judging from the Chicago lettering, this vise was made before 1957 when they moved to the bigger/better Schiller Park factory. Same 60,000 PSI ductile iron, but i think the quality of the casting process went higher with the Schiller ones. Also, the swivel deisgn is much improved.

There have been a post or two on the net where a bullet vise wouldn't close because the cylinder was bent from abuse, (maybe someone whaled on it with a sledgehammer,) and had to use a hydraulic press to straighten it back. They could have made the wall an inch thick and there'll still room for the screw.

Re: Clamps and vises thread

And the "collar" that makes the dynamic jaw move with the screw.

Just less than .3mm of gap in it and the handle has about 5 minutes (if it were a clock) of backlash before the jaw moves with it. If it had a spring like some records, it would have been backlash free as a micrometer.

Jaw parallelism is topnotch (there's no gap and light wouldn't pass through) and sideplay is non-existent thanks to the the keyed design. From what i recall, the screw is smoother than records but not by much. I became a believer when the other bullet wilton in the compound was used to squish 2" diamter pipes, they put cheater pipe on the handle and then one person would stand on it. Poor sad b*stard, they had to weld in the jaws :confused:

Re: Clamps and vises thread

Great catch bro. I'm sure it will serve you well. Congrats. 😎

Bro you have PM. tks

Re: Clamps and vises thread

@ owyn
Yup! Thats a big catch all right.

I covet that.

Are there anymore from where you got it?