Here痴 my post vise using a 12 ductile iron water pipe filled with concrete.
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Every time I see one of these old vices, I am overwhelmed with flashbacks. A bit of a diversion, but I thought I'd share. When I was growing up, and until I got into my late teens and discovered girls, I spent every summer with my Grand dad and my Dad's two younger brothers. I loved Grampa and everything he did. It so happened that he had one of these old, gigantic vices in his garage, and I like to play in the garage and with the old vice.
It goes without saying, that it had the same kind of handle that is pictured in most of these photos; the kind that slides up and down, so the handle is always pointing down. Like I said, this was a huge vice, and the handle was big, long and heavy. I liked to piddle with it, lift it and drop it and listen to it clank. One day I got a little careless, and I let it drop while I still had it between my fingers. When the handle reached the bottom, there were my fingers. It mashed both my finger and my thumb; and I had a blood blister on each of them that was as wide as my finger and my thumb.
I was only maybe 5 or 6 years old, and I thought I was crippled for life. If anything, it was painful, and I never forgot that experience...and I never look at one of those old vices today without thinking about that incident over 70 years ago.
