Ok I think I know what my problem is. This is probably a gift. It’s not for me. That’s why I’m more concerned about it than normal. Yeah it’s not jewelry, but if you’re doing work on something for someone else, the stakes go up dramatically.
It's actually a Wilton C0 rather than a 300. The 300 has 3" wide jaws and no pipe jaws. Yours has 3.5" jaws and pipe jaws.So I bought a vise years ago that I thought was worthy of the effort to clean up. I love old vises, but I generally just fix whatever issue caused it to be sidelined and use or give them away. I thought a Wilton 300 was worth a little more effort. So there’s 3 pics here. As found, stripped, and then painted charcoal gray. I’m going to mill the “anvil” still. But in my opinion, my rattle can paint job is garbage. This is three light coats. Other than not using a rattle can, is there something obvious in the image that points to a mistake in application? I think I’m going to strip it and just clear coat it instead. Any suggestions? Should I have bondoed and sanded? That seemed silly for a tool that seemingly exists to be tortured. Anyways I think it looks ten times better without paint at all. All suggestions/criticism welcome. Just looking for opinions I guess.
See my post above. It changed over time, but they were all some variation of green/blue/grey. Look at the date stamp on your vise to get the year it was made and I can give you a better answer. Unscrew the moving jaw all the way until it comes out, flip it upside down, wipe the key clean and you'll find a date stamp. That's when the vise was released for sale (castings often sat for months before being finished).What was the original color of the Wiltons ? I have a 6" that appears to be a greenish blue color . I believe the Starretts were a blue and the Littlestowns were a green . One of these years I would like to get to all of these .
Nice looking vise Ed ! Hm............I wonder if @G-ManBart has any Starrett parts ?Special thanks to G-ManBart for his generous deal on the needed parts.