Parker Eclipse 107 Rebuild

[wcunning]

I have a Parker Eclipse no. 107-6 vise (or at least that's my ID based on sizes) in need of several repairs. I'm mostly taking it on as a series of welding and machining challenges.

1) The rear slide needs to be welded up, since it has a deeply unfortunate crack running about half the length. No good pictures of just the crack, I got in a rush and vee'd it out before I got taking many. I plan to do this weld with Crown no. 6 cast iron rod and cast iron flux, and I've already done a practice run on a Parker main vise body which was in 2 pieces, acquired specifically to be weld practice.

2) The nut dovetail in the fixed jaw/main body has been broken out. Reading around online, it sounds like this was likely the result of a fall in some previous life. I'm leaning towards using cast iron rod and cast iron flux to build the broken out areas back up and then file them back down to fit the nut snugly. This will be a deeply annoying amount of work, but it should result in a decently strong and sort of original looking repair.

3) The jaws are nearly smooth, so I will be needing to build a new set in the machine shop. I'm leaning towards using up some of my weird collection of tool steel on them, but we'll see, since I'm not sure I'll want to send them out for hardening. I'll need to figure out getting the old ones off first, but that should be eased somewhat by the process of preheating the entire vise to 1000*F for the welds and slow cooling the entire thing.

Cheers,
Will









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[mikey]

I love Parker vises. Good luck with this ambitious repair.

 

[francist]

I had occasion to do a bit of work on my Chas Parker vise a bit ago. I was pretty worried about getting the jaw liners off too, but was pleasantly surprised when they came free without incident. If yours are the same, there are two spiral pins per jaw, you need to drive those through first and then the jaw liners should tap off. Maybe try a bit of penetrant in the pin holes first just in case, but I really was surprised at how easily mine came out.

Here's my post in POTD a few months ago about it should you care to look. Good luck!

-frank

Edit: ok, not sure how these links to a post go. It's the right page, my post about the vise is just a bit further down at #994

2018 POTD Thread Archive

No worries Robert, sometimes is hard for me to understand the meaning of a sentence, is it positive or negative because english is not my native language.

www.hobby-machinist.com

 

[mikey]

The link worked perfectly, Frank. Took us right to your post. The vice came out really nice, and those jaws retain their unique "patina". Really hard to beat a good Parker vise.

 

[wcunning]

I think my vise has the original taper pins in the holes. Driving from the bottom looks like the least-worst solution, but that didn't seem to work in the first dozen or two hard hits with the drive punch and brass hammer. I think I'm going to wait until I've done the welding before I try again, since that's a free heating cycle. Might even concentrate on the jaw liners some with the rosebud tip.

Cheers,
Will

 

[mikey]

I think my vise has the original taper pins in the holes. Driving from the bottom looks like the least-worst solution, but that didn't seem to work in the first dozen or two hard hits with the drive punch and brass hammer.

I had the same experience when trying to remove my taper pins. I got pretty aggressive with a punch and big ball peen hammer and they didn't budge. Luckily, my jaws were in pristine shape so I left them alone but I remember hitting with enough force to feel like I was going to crack the casting and no joy. Hope the heating helps you.

 

[wcunning]

Well, I got the big crack welded this morning. It's still cooling in the ~100 lbs of sand that it's buried in. I didn't quite get as much build up as I wanted, and I'm going to be curious to see the penetration on the back side of it, but I have some hope. The real test will be taking a face mill to the top of the slide and seeing how nicely it comes out. If I need to, I'll take another pass at it, though at the cost of my own gas this next time, since the community college class I was taking on brazing has officially ended. Pictures to follow tomorrow as I inspect further.

 

[wcunning]

So, this is becoming somewhat more of an adventure than first anticipated...

The weld turned out quite well, all things considered. I definitely spent enough time sweating during the preheat that I was a little dehydrated at the start of the weld, and it wasn't any better after feeling my hands over heat a few times despite the extra heavy gloves. Despite all of that, penetration could have been a little better down in the very bottom of the crack and especially in the stop drilled holes. If I had an easy time setting it back up, I'd probably *attempt* to do some welding from the back side, but the #4 tip has an unfortunate tendency to pop back if it gets too hot and 3" down, surrounded on three sides by the slide, which has been preheated to 1000*F is definitely in the danger zone for that.

The other adventure is that the slide has a dip or a bow in it in about the middle third of the weld. Not in my build up (though probably also there, to a lesser degree), but in the slide top surface itself. I'm tempted to mill the whole thing down to level, but it looks like that's going to take quite a bit off that I wasn't really intending to. I'll have to measure it on a surface plate and decide what it'll take to get it leveled off.

All of the adventure aside, I'm pretty sure that this weld will hold. At least at the stop drilled end, milling off flush doesn't show any lack of melding at the edges of the weld puddle, and there's no new cracking from the cool down. The new material also cooled to something akin to grey iron, given how easily it machined with that Chinese facemill in the picture below. Overall, I'm declaring victory on this part at least.

Cheers,
Will