And you thought I was talking about adding to your casting/reloading/shooting addictions .... shame on you.

I was talking about a little clamp-on hobby vise like I used to have many years ago. It was a cute little cast-iron thing with 3 inch jaws that clamped onto a kitchen table and allowed you to do small work like sanding a bolt handle. Easy to set up, easy to take down, plenty strong enough for the light duty jobs it was asked to do and "just the right size" too.

I inherited mine from my wife's carpenter grandfather (I pillaged his old junk at a family yard sale many many moons ago). Unfortunately, I didn't keep said little vise in a drawer up with my gunstuff in the gunroom but instead I left it out in a cabinet with the plumbing type stuff out in the garage.

My wife remembered seeing it at a couple of family garage sales, so when she "cleaned out" the garage it went into the yardsale box again and I knew nothing of it until that old green wonder vise was GONE.

I have looked for years for some new-style plastic gizmo that could do what that old cast-iron vise could do, but to no avail. I spend some money on a few but was never happy with what they could actually do. Big, bulky and useless .... compared to the little green clamp on kitchen table vise that is.

Guess what I found at Lowes today, made in China of chinese cast iron with threads and ways that haven't been worn smooth by generations of use. The exact same little vise.

Lowes and Wilton Vise is selling the little vise under the Columbian brand name for $13 and I suspect since the things are actually being cast in china you will start to see them all over the place with a variety of brand names applied to them at an even more reasonable cost.

You bolt guys need to get one, it is dandy for strip sanding the ugly off those bolts.

Oldfeller

[ 09-15-2003, 00:11: Message edited by: Oldfeller ]

I have one of those clamp on cast iron chinese vices. I won it as a door prize at some meeting ten years ago. It lived on the edge of my loading bench for years. Last year, I replaced it with a Palmgren swivel base machine vise that mounts on the edge of the loading bench. I still keep that clamp on vise..just in case. A very handy tool.

.........I'm not always successfull, but I make every effort to avoid buying anything made in communist china. Just me.

............Buckshot