Antique Watchmaker Vise - Restoration

In this video i’m restoring a very rusty and stuck antique watchmaker vise. Sometimes I spend a lot of time just scrolling through the antique section of eBay without seeing something not even close to be interesting. It was exactly this case a few weeks ago, but then all of a sudden this little watchmaker vise appeared. I knew right away that I want it. I really like the small size of it with all the details and the old school design, so I bought it for $20. It had really a lot of rust and I was sceptical at the beginning if I could get rid of all the pitting and put a nice mirror polish on it, because it is very thin at two spots. It turned out to not be a problem and it worked very well. The jaws themself looked still very good after removing the rust, I’ve only pu a little bluing liquid on them and that was it. The bolt and the wing nut on the other hand was a big issue on this project. The thread had way too much play, the thread in the nut was not straight and it was a non standart thread size. That means I had no tools to cut this exact thread. So I need to make at least a new bolt and put a same size metric standart thread on it. With this new thread the nut doesn’t fit anymore on the new bolt. If I want to repair the wing nut, I’d have to close the old thread with welding and cut in the same metric thread as on the bolt. I talked to a professional welder to close this thread, but he told me that the diameter of the hole was too small compared to it’s lenght to be able to close it, or it could be that he melts the whole nut while trying to weld it. For that reason I decided to make a new one. Even though it is just a simple wing nut, this part was one of the most complicated parts I’ve done for this channel so far, but it turned out perfectly. I also had to replace the wooden handle because it had some cracks and the holes have become too big. At the end it turned out very great in my opinion. With the polished steel, the polished brass and the stained wood it has a very classy look and I really like it. I hope you like my work and the video. Huge thank you to all of my Patreon and PayPal supporters and specially to: Noelle Sophy Armands Satrovskis Afreeflyingsoul Bryn Gilbertson Adel AlSaffar Alan Hanson Amanda Taylor, Esq Andreswara Hermawan Andrew Phillips audi4444player Courtney Maleport Dan Williams Gregory Hunter R. Jonas Richartz LVE Mellissa Marcus Nick Cannon Paul Ambry Paul Mampilly Shawn Daniels Trevor Kam TRG Restoration Vince Valenti Zachary Grimes Timestamps: 00:00 preview 00:42 disassembling 01:52 showing all the parts 02:07 cleaning the parts with the parts washer 02:32 removing the rust 03:05 removing the bolt 03:29 restoring the main part 04:55 bluing the jaws of the main part 05:16 polish the inside with selfmade tool 05:41 explaining the issue with nut and bolt 06:16 making a new bolt on the lathe and milling machine 07:45 making a new wing nut on the lathe and milling machine 10:58 restoring the small washer 11:22 making a new wooden handle 12:37 stain the wooden handle 12:47 apply linseed oil on the wooden handle 13:02 restore the brass ring 13:30 restore the eye screw 14:05 showing all the parts before reassembling 14:19 reassembling 15:16 showing the finished restoration 16:08 final test Time and costs of this restoration: I was working on this project for 1 week $20 watchmaker vise $2 ash wood for the handle My camera: Panasonic HC-V180 If you have any questions about the process, machines i’m using or other stuff, just ask me in the comments. I read them all and i try to reply as soon as possible. Sorry for my bad english, it’s not my language. I try my best to improve my technical english. Subscribe for more of my content. I’m uploading videos about mechanical stuff, as new creations and buildings and also restorations. Thank you for watching :-) my mechanics T-Shirts: My Second Channel: My Patreon Page: