Armourers Vices

What size were armorers bench vices? 3.5" or 4" jaw widths? I've seen a likely looking 'Dawn' vice for sale.

I'd love an old fashioned leg vice but they are hard to get.

Roy

We were issued with standard engineers vices. Never saw anything else in all of the places - and Countries - that I worked in

Vices? If you think Armourers have vices, you should meet an Assault Pioneer Platoon; they'll show you where the vice is versa!.

Ok let me rephrase that.

Bench top engineers vices made by Record, Woden, Dawn etc. and used by armorers in conjunction with a horse and leather or cork lined clams to hold a rifle butt, did they have jaws of 4" or 3 1/2" width? Perhaps either were used and maybe there were other sizes too.

Hi, from my research on Australian Armourers Field Repair Kits, we had the 4 inch Dawn vice fitted. There are several WW2 pictures with this vice been used. The 4 inch is the correct vice to fit into the storage section of the Armourers kit and the distance between the mounting holes to fit to the box when in use is correct for a 4 inch. The 3.5 inch is narrower and will not mount on the box or correctly fit in the compartment.

So the correct one for Australian use is the 4 inch Dawn.

As for the armourers horse, again from some research, the English one was a one piece "s" shaped support, but from WW2 pictures of Australian ones, we had a 4 piece "H" shaped one, screwed together.

From the scale of the pictures, i have guessed that the size of the Australian 4 piece Horse, this would have also fitted into a compartment of the Australian Armourers field repair kit.



I hope this helps.

Cheers

Hi Roy here is a couple of pics, sorry for the vice colour but this is how I found it. It is a Dawn 4 inch.

Hi again Roy, here is a couple of pics of the vice in use. Not the armourers tool kit where the Bren repair is occurring, has a hand operated grinding wheel attached to one leg.

The third pics is of my armourers tool kit.

cheers

that armours box makes me weak at the knees.

the cost of filling it though, makes my wallet break into hysterical laughter.

Hi Henry, yep the cost, well way to much. I am still missing a few bits and they seem to be the hardest ones to find so they to will be a lot of these$$$$$$.

The pics are old ones taken some time back and there is more in the box now. Some of the tools are not period correct but are still for gun repair.

cheers

Any drawings of these boxes around and a list of typical contents? I would like to build a display model for re-enactment. Some of the guys need their screws tightening..