# Forum Home Renovation Metalwork & Welding  Peter Wright 6" vice

## Marc

Sometimes you get lucky. Found a 100 years old vice on Gumtree and I am making a stand for it. It's a bench vice but I want it to be mobile ... well as mobile as a 60 kilo vice can get. 
Had some scrap steel laying around that seemed just right. 
The base is a 12mm plate 380x520mm Welded a ledge on one end where all the hammering is going to be.
The base is on a tripod so 3 legs. My neighbour gave me a whole heap of RHS 5"x2"x1/4" that is just perfect for it.  
The old cold saw struggled a bit to cut it but it's all done now. the two front legs are (will be)  at 20 degree and the back leg goes out at 30 degree. Because the front legs will be in the same plane as the front edge of the base so they do not interfere with the vice handle that is rather long, the back leg will need a counterweight just to be safe. I borrowed an old dumbbell with 20kilo disk for that purpose. The whole shebang will be over 100 kilos.       :Smilie:

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## Marc

Stand is all finished. The legs are actually 5x2.5x1/4". I ended up cutting the dumbbell handle and welding it to the leg. It's all nice and stable. I refuse to work on anvils or vice that wander.  
I had to make one of the spacers and replace all the bolts. The spacer had to be 1/2 inch but we don't make flat bar in 1/2 inch, only 12mm or 16mm and that is critical for the sliding jaw clearance, so had to cut it out of 16 mm flat bar, drill the 5/8 holes for the bolts and take it to a machine shop to mill it down. No big deal. i couldn't buy 5/8 bolts with square heads, we don't make them anymore ... well we don't make anything anymore, so ... bought them from "Fastenal" a manufacturer/distributor in Winona Minnesota.  The bolts' box arrived in record time and the lot was cheaper than the same hexagonal heads here. Go figure. 
Before putting it all together I thought I need some bracing for the legs, but after welding it at full blast two passes it is so rigid that a sledgehammer wouldn't move it one bit. 
Front legs are at 20 degrees and back leg is at 30 degrees.

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## Bros

60Kg is that for the vice or the whole kit and caboodle?

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## Marc

Actually it's 51 kg according to this ad ...  :Smilie:  the base plus counterweight is probably 70 kg

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## Bros

The only reason I asked was mate and I made 3 vices like this and they would't be that heavy and I have flogged the guts out of mine.

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## Marc

Nice one. I have one similar to that but bought it at total tools, offset vice made from plate. I'ts a good vice too and very light in comparison, probably 20 kg. Use it all the time.  
Forged vice like this one and another I have that is a post vice also 6" are much heavier due to the stock used. Just look at the jaws material, it's massive. The reason is simple, forging requires a lot of pounding and no vice can take that abuse unless it is forged out of a couple of inch material and built in a particular way. The only thing that comes close is plate construction like yours. 
Cast machinist vice are also very nice but not to pound on them with a hammer. 
A good explanation of how the blacksmith vice works https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SrZcfdehS6Y

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## commodorenut

My father-in-law has the same vice.  Bought nearly 50 years ago.  I was using it as a press one day & managed to bend the handle - I'd hooked a chain up between the handle & the car to get more pull on it.... yep, young & silly days...   Lucky the bench it was on was made from railway sleepers & built into a nook in between brick walls in the under-house garage.  In hindsight I could have unintentionally ended up demo-ing part of the house.

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## Marc

Ha ha, yes, seen plenty of vice abuse using pipes to extend the handle. Mine has also a slight bend in the handle. Does not bother me. using a vice as a press is OK, extending the handle is not ... using a car? wow  :Smilie:  
About Peter Wright: *Peter Wright*   Peter Wright (1803-1874) of Peter Wright and Sons 1863 Peter Wright, Railway Wheel, Vice and Anchor Works, Dudley.[1] *1875 Obituary [2]* *Peter Wright was born in Dudley on 15th March 1803, and in early life commenced business as a vice and anvil manufacturer, a trade which had been carried on by his family in the same place for more than a hundred years previously. He made many improvements in the manufacture of anvils and vices, all of which were successful ; and this placed him at the head of the trade, as the senior partner in the firm of Messrs. Peter Wright and Sons, of Dudley and Oldbury.* *In 1848 he invented and made the machinery for cutting the internal screws of vice-boxes out of the solid iron, making the ‘solid box vice,’ which he was the first to accomplish; this he did by fixing the Screw-cutting tool vertically during the cutting, so as to allow the cuttings to fall away clear of the work.* *In 1852 he invented the 'solid anvil' with which his name is associated, and which he was the first to make all forged solid in one piece by means of dies and by turning it frequently under the hammer during the forging, anvils having previously been always built up of a number of pieces welded together.* *In 1862 he invented the parallel vice, and also an improved railway wheel.* *He died on 28th August 1874 in the 72nd year of his age. He became a Member of the Institution in 1863. * By the way I have two of his anvils, one is 240 lb and the other is twice as much at 480 lb, give or take. Forged anvils have tell tale marks where the giant tongs fit in, to handle the block of steel under the power hammer. Because they were hand made there are not two exactly the same.

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## Bros

All you need now is a forge, anvil and striker.

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## Marc

I have 5 anvils and a coal rivet forge but no striker. Don't trust anyone with a 5kg hammer near my head, I rather buy a power hammer   :Smilie:

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