My old vise was slipping on a tricky scroll bend, so I tried wrapping the jaws with a strip of old inner tube.

The extra grip was perfect, and I finished the piece in half the time. Anyone have a better fix for a worn vise that doesn't involve a full rebuild?

3 comments

3 Comments

diana2016d ago

Wait, you had an old inner tube just lying around? I haven't seen one of those in years since everything went tubeless. That's some serious old-school garage hack right there. What did you do, save it from a bike tire in like 1998? Does the rubber leave any black marks on your workpiece?

hunt.quinn16d ago

My buddy actually found a whole box of them in his dad's garage last summer, all dried out and cracked. He tried using a piece to protect a table edge while clamping, and yeah, it left these awful black smudges that wouldn't come off. Had to sand the whole surface again. So Diana20, you're right to ask about the marks, because that stuff can get messy. He said the rubber just crumbled and left a real mess.

sam_murphy398d ago

Yeah that black smudge thing is a real pain. Old rubber gets brittle and the carbon black they use in the mix starts to rub off. If you ever need to use an old tube, wipe it down really good with rubbing alcohol first, and maybe even wrap it in a bit of cloth. Saves you from having to sand everything after. What kind of project were you working on?