Record No. 53E Vise Clean-up - Part 2

Cleaning up the vise part by part was labor intensive, but worth the effort.  Thank goodness for wire wheels in a drill.  Aside from that, I used Simple Green (a degreasing liquid) to soak parts before cleaning with an old toothbrush.  Also used a citric acid bath to remove rust from the tommy bar and lead screw head.

All the small parts cleaned up

The half nut cleaned up nicely with a toothbrush getting into the threads.  Couldn't fit a wire wheel in these, but I used that on all outside surfaces.  To get before and after pics side by side I had to make them small.  I hope they will be normal size when you click on them.

Half nut before cleaning

Half nut cleaned up

The half nut bracket cleaned up exceptionally well using toothbrush, then wire wheel.

Before

After

The spring came out nice, too, even though I couldn't get in between the coils with the wheel.

Filthy!  Disgusting! (Said with a French accent -
 reference to some cartoon of my youth)

Much nicer!

The screws, washers and pin also came out nice.  So did the quick release lever and the end bracket that keeps the back end of the screw and rods aligned.  Oh, and the quick release rocker bar also cleaned up nicely, but I got no pics of that.

As for the two painted jaws, I got all the gunk off but they still don't look great.  I'm not going to repaint.  There was an assortment of dried glue and tape adhesive that I removed.  But there was also something that I tried to scrape off - not sure what it is - you can see it in this picture.

Mystery yellowish coating

For the guide rods, I couldn't get them separated from the front jaw, so I used sandpaper (if I could have separated them I would have used citric acid).  Started with 220, then 400 and finished with 600 grit.  They feel really nice now.  The rust was superficial and there was no pitting.

Rust on guide bars

Another rusty shot

These cleaned up very nicely

I gave the tommy bar and the head of the main screw three or four hours in a citric acid bath.  Then I used the wire wheel.  What a difference!

Before

After - yowzah!

OK, so now it was time for the real challenge - the threads of the main screw.  The threads of the Record vise are interesting.  One side of the thread has a sloping angle and the other side is a little bit under cut.  The Lee Valley vise by comparison has Acme threads (angled the same on both sides and a flat top to the thread).  Scott Landis in "The Workbench Book" calls the Record threads "buttress threads" and says that even though Acme threads are plenty strong, when tightened the buttress threads lock down in the deep grooves and are less likely to jump out of the nut - even after some wear.

Record "buttress" thread

Lee Valley Acme thread

For the cleaning, I gave the screw a bath in the kitchen sink (don't tell the wife) with comet cleanser and a toothbrush.  This got a lot of junk out of the threads, but not nearly enough.  Next I used a dental tool to pick out and scrape the bottoms of the threads.  You can't see it in the picture, but this tool has a couple of angles on it before the point and this helps to get into tough places.

Using dental tool to clean out gullets

This worked well, but didn't really clean them.  So I got creative and found a piece of string and ran that through the threads all the way into the bottoms.  This got great results down deep.

"Flossing" the threads with string

Finally I used a wire wheel to clean up the sloping angle of the threads until I was happy.

Before

After

Reassembly went smoothly until I got to the quick release mechanism.  There was a bit of trial and error before I got the rocker bar into the right grooves in the spring adjusting nut.  I lubricated with light oil per Landis' recommendation - behind the main screw head, in the QR trigger mechanism, on the slide rods and on the main screw and half-nut.  Seems to be working quite smoothly.

Now I have to decide - do I just put the Record vise on a shelf until I need it on another bench?  Or do I replace my Lee Valley large steel vise that is on my current bench with this one.  I think they have the exact same mounting hole locations.  If so, that sure would make it easy ...  And I like the QR mechanism on the Record much better than the one on the Lee Valley.  Hmmm ...