Dysfunctional pen blank vice - the 'other' one

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rlharding

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Joined
Nov 20, 2007
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Location
Nr Vancouver, BC
Does anyone have the pen blank vice that has been out for a few years. I really can't remember where I got it. It has a black metal bed, on one end is an L shaped metal piece that holds 4 threaded rods, one in each corner. The other end has a thin metal cover over two spiked wheels and they are turned by a black hand. Turn one way and the vice closes, the other and it opens. (The updated version only has three threaded rods)

Mine works whenever it wants, which is not very much these days. I took it apart and it is so simple that I couldn't see anything that could be out of shape or broken, so I put it back together again and it worked for about 30 blanks, now it won't work again. The handle just refuses to turn and it's locked in the fully open position.

Anyone had these type of issues with theirs and can give me some tips?

TIA
 
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A friend got one of these once, sounds like a (Woodcraft version). I was teaching a little pen turning class and forgot mine. First blank locked up the thing and the handle broke trying to open it up.
 
Ruth- if this is the same vise I used pre-PHD vise acquisition, I had similar problems that required that I tweak tightening and loosening the nuts on the 4 metal rods that acted as the guides for the vise jaws- when they were all tight, they weren't quite all in the same plane, and would cause the jaw plates to bind as you tried to open and close with them being out of alignment. I ended up needing to leave a little slop in two of them, and then give the plates a little "pinch" between tightening and loosening in order to keep them aligned enough for the vise action to work. Hope this helps, but it is obviously not a "fix"- more a bandaid until you can get a better solution (and my final was a PHD vise, with which I've been very happy!!)
 
Same as what Stan said, YES and YES. Mine is now a paper weigth over looking my PHD vise. I was going to sell it on IAP, but couldn't pass along a piece of junk to another turner. [:0]
 
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