The Armour Archive

Are bench vises heat treated in any way? I've got a project that I may need to use one to hold metal that I need to heat a very small portion of, and wouldn't want to damage the vice.

Most bench vises are plain cast iron and so are not heat treated.

If you are worried you can cut out a couple pieces of haeavy angle iron and use those to cover the jaws and spread any heat that hits them

Thomas

Not all but most have treated jaws and screws with a cast body. I use my vice to hold stuff that I am welding all the time. It depends how close to the jaws your going to be heating and for how long.

Aside from possible damage to the vise, if you used insulating jaw covers I should think it would allow the piece to be heated up quicker, since the vise would not be sucking away all the heat.

Maybe two blocks of pumice from the Bath Accessories section of a drug store? Tiles from the space shuttle?

As Thomas suggested, angle iron should work, the heavier, the better. If you want additional heat-sink, you could clamp a couple of steel (or better yet brass*) bars to the work above the vise. Mass is good! Or you could just wrap a wet rag around the base of the work down by the vise; it will start steaming around 212 degrees, well below any temper change.**



*...or for the ultimate in heat transfer, large silver ingots; which will be ruined, but you can send them to Thomas or I for recycling.

** Some methods used in dirt-floored, coal burning blacksmiths shops may be deemed inelegant and messy, but they sure work for me!

For large enough ingots we have a collection service---especially if you are withing raiding distance of navagable waterways...

I think he wants to use the vise as a nail header and so will head the head portion with a torch to soften for hammering. bench vises not being suitable for hammering I have suggested a nail header.

Thomas

Cap'n Atli wrote:As Thomas suggested, angle iron should work, the heavier, the better. If you want additional heat-sink, you could clamp a couple of steel (or better yet brass*) bars to the work above the vise. Mass is good! Or you could just wrap a wet rag around the base of the work down by the vise; it will start steaming around 212 degrees, well below any temper change.

I think the idea is to minimise the heatsink effect, and keep the heat in the piece being worked on, hence the insulating jaw covers.
Otherwise, it's like trying to solder copper plumbing with a little pen-type soldering iron. Less mass heats up faster. If it heats up faster, then the clamp holding it does not get subjected to as much heat.

Hmm the only semi insulating jaw covers I could think of that would thake the hammering these will se would be made from Ti---are there others you had in mind Hew?

Good Idea though now to get my stock of large Ti milled for jaw covers...

Thomas

Thomas Powers wrote:Hmm the only semi insulating jaw covers I could think of that would thake the hammering these will se would be made from Ti---are there others you had in mind Hew?

Hmm... hammering wasn't specified in the design spec.
That could be tricky, since a lot of candidates are ceramic, granular, compressible, or flammable.

Good Idea though now to get my stock of large Ti milled for jaw covers...

Titanium?
From http://www.reade.com/Particle_Briefings ... etals.html
Material ---> Thermal conductivity, in (cal/sec)/(cm^2 C/cm)
Aluminum = 3.00 (popular choice for electronics heat sinks)
Iron = 1.32
Copper = 4.83
Lead = 0.396
Titanium = 0.312

You might have something there, for a choice of metal.
See http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hb ... thrcn.html - lots of non-metallic materials, like insulating brick are way lower, but are otherwise unsuitable (helium? water ice? cork?).