Repairable?

Are there any welders / machinests on here that can tell me if this is repairable before I bother trying to find someone locally that think they can? Its a discontinued, Holland Michigan made Yost vise that was $465 twenty five years ago. I got stupid with a cheater on the handle. I tried to get a replacement handle from Eastwood out of Pennsylvania, the company that bought Yost, but they are no longer available.

 

I don't know if that's repairable or not, but a machine shop should be able to turn down a new one. Even if you could dowel and weld it up, it's still going to need rethreaded on the lathe. At that point you might as well just have a new one made.

 

Personally I wouldn't want to weld repair that. Too many load/unload cycles might make it fail depending on the alloy its made of. You can buy acme threaded rod from McMaster Carr and cut it to the appropriate length. That would be much preferred to threading a piece of round bar stock. What machining needs to be done to the ends?

 

That's what I was thinking, or buy acme rod and have the handle put on.

 

If it was a new acme rod, it would only need the fat end drilled out and the acme thread rod welded in. The original looks to be all one piece. Machining would be needed if cutting threads through a repair. It looks hardened to some extent. Maybe case hardened.

 

Doesn't sound like much of an undertaking then. It's definitely worth fixing too!

 

I've been without that vise since before Christmas as I was getting the run around from Eastwood until they finally told me the part was discontinued. I had to resort to this yesterday to file rakers. Lol

 

I agree. They started making the new ones in China a few years ago, then Eastwood purchased them. No idea what's going on whith them now.

 

I need to put calipers on that screw to find exact diameter. Then hit the internet.

 

I have a buddy locally with a machine shop thats going to tackle it once his flu is gone.

 

That's right up Screwloose's alley.
Personally, I'd think having a new one machined would be the best.

 

Just buying some rod and put the handle back on it is the easiest. Although a lot of acme rod is cut from 12L14 or other free machining steel that doesn't weld very well.
Preferably rolled from something with a bit of carbon.
You can send it to me and I can copy it from a solid bar although I will have to cut the thread. Rolling the thread adds a bit of work hardening for wear resistance.

 

I might take you up on that. I appreciate the offer. Once my buddy looks it over and decides if or what he will do, I'll report back here.