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Tools & Craft

Using Clever Techniques to Restore a Hopelessly Rusted, Frozen Vise

This man brings tools back from the dead

By Rain Noe - November 16, 2018

Making a boat anchor is easy: Just buy a heavy cast-iron vise, neglect it for 27 years and boom, you've got a rusty piece metal that can serve no other function.

Unless, that is, you're the Swiss tinkerer behind the My Mechanics Youtube channel. He acquired an old, rusted and hopelessly frozen Gressel vise for $20 and was determined to bring it back to its original glory and function. To do so required a lot of creative problem-solving, including building some clever little jigs and contraptions to get the darn thing apart:

Enter a caption (optional)

I sat through the entire video and didn't get bored once. However, if you're sneaking peaks at the office and the boss is about, here are some time codes for jump-cutting:

Timestamps

- 00:00 preview

- 00:35 loosen the stuck movable jaw

- 02:09 disassembling

- 04:39 restoring the spindle

- 05:11 removing the pins

- 05:45 restoring the movable jaw

- 06:58 restoring the body (fix jaw)

- 08:14 sandblasting

- 10:09 painting

- 11:02 making the missing part

- 12:10 restoring two screws for the missing part

- 13:10 restoring the jaws

- 13:27 reassembling

- 15:53 showing off the finished product

Rain Noe

Rain Noe is a writer and industrial designer based in New York City.

5 Comments

paul beard

4 months ago

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are penetrating oils not available there? or are the different formulations of WD-40? It worked, but I'm not sure how much was the WD-4 and how much perseverance. Nice work, though.

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Luke Haney

5 months ago

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Great video! Relevant to starting to collect items for a shop. I have been looking at vises lately, this makes me not to worried about getting an older one since I have access to the machinery to repair it. I think that green metal paint was neat to see, didn't know there were coatings like that.

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Luke Fabis

5 months ago

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Z

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I’m sorry, but how is any of this relevant to industrial design?

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- Alastair Tilley
  
  Luke Fabis
  
  5 months ago
  
  Z
  
  Z
  
  Reply
  
  Well, I for one learnt what heat treatment is.
  
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- Rodrigo Lauret
  
  Luke Fabis
  
  5 months ago
  
  Z
  
  1Z
  
  Reply
  
  maybe your setting a small workshop for model making and testing your concepts
  
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