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Antique pattern maker's vise.
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Previously:
https://www.homemadetools.net/forum/...3716#post99842
https://www.homemadetools.net/forum/...589#post117878
What a great bit of kit!
Good lord, Jon — I had no idea such a thing existed. And the guy is doing the demo like he's performing a close order drill — with a parade rifle.
That is a really clever vice and beautifully made.
I have been really enjoying Jons archive photos of huge machinery and apart from the engineering involved, I often wonder about the unsung skills of the pattern makers of the day who rarely get a mention. A highly skilled job back then as it was done by hand mostly to drawings of the finished part requiring an understanding of shrinkage rates per section etc. I can see that vice getting another life in a boat builders yard etc.
Got $325 ? You can buy one of your very own...
https://www.woodcraft.com/products/w...rn-makers-vise
Glad this one was appreciated. Seems like we've been going down the vise path lately, and that's probably a good thing.
I often find this cool stuff in the worst parts of the internet. This one came from...hold your nose...Instagram!
Hi Jon,Quote:
Originally Posted by Jon
That was & is a cool vice, but if you want to see "the best" so far then check out the HNT Gordon one, made here in Australia. It addresses all the old issues in my opinion. I'd still like to own one of those antiques but could probably never afford the old or the new HNT Gordon.
That vise looks to be an Emmert #82 Turtleback patternmaker's vise. A very fine tool to have on hand. My grandpa was a patternmaker at foundry in Portland, Ore. after WWII... I inherited many of his tools, but one of these was not part of his collection. :(
For anyone interested, here's a page on the Emmert vises, their history and everything Emmert. Sadly, they closed up shop in the 1970s:
The Iron Hand - Emmert Vises
That's quite the resource, IAMSatisfied. Thanks for the link.Quote:
Originally Posted by IAMSatisfied
The end was near when the US Navy Patternmaker 3,2,1,& C classifications came to an end in the end of the last century, the 1990s (Think about that sports fans!). No longer would the Navy train sailors to make the patterns for the Foundrymen for repairs to ships at sea.
No US Armed Forces had training useful to industry exceeding that of the Navy; not everyone makes service a career.
Certainly demand for individual castings lessened with smaller fleet, but repairs are still conducted. Ability to prepare and pour metal at sea, combined with other functions like machining and welding in a mobile 'factory'; nothing short of astounding. There remain two active submarine repair vessels Emory Land and Frank Cable, unclear how long they'll remain.
My ambivalence to service isn't well founded, being a 26 year veteran. Disliked most rewarding aspects seemed to dissolve. Folks still inquire as to my rate, Quartermaster [Navigation], from shortly after draft 1972. "We thought you'd been a machinist." [aka Machinery Repairman, MR] Yes, I was machining already 4-5 years by '72, career of choice maybe 10 years before that.
Distilled into elements, Navigation and Machining are very much alike. Instead of calculating time-speed-distance, its metal removal rates. N-S/ E-W of a compass and altitude, the Cartesian representations X-Y-Z, including positive and negative numbers. Angular measurements like time and position of planets, the trigonometry of design. Chart corrections, red-lining blueprints. Submerged geographic features or territorial waters, I never ran us aground, caused an international incident; and never drilled into a vise or machine table. Planning, attention to detail, using instruments, befit either innumerable ways. I can stand back when discussions bat metric and inferial [lol :hattip: M. Klotz] advantages to and fro, being subject to three- sometimes four- measurement systems at once.
"So we are now more confused, why not MR then?"
Because that, I already know how to do.
As a reservist, they had records of our civilian employment. Many weekends, and a few two-week active duty periods, with MR's spread thin, guess who got called?