Palmgren 410 restoration

[lazylathe]

Restoring a Palmgren No. 410 Vise

First with the formalities:
I do not have any affiliation with the products used in this restoration! ?
I used a product called “Rust Free”

And now on to the real stuff!!!

As most of you will know I bought a Clausing 8520 mill.
The mill itself is in pretty good condition and I am in the process of restoring it as well. It is a slightly bigger undertaking than the vise, but I needed a break from the mill and thought I would clean up the vise.
I was quite interested to see what I would find underneath all the brown dirt and grime.

I did not take much notice of the vise when I first looked at the mill as I was already on the lookout for a decent milling vise.

This is what I started with:


And of course the name of the vise cast into it:


I decided to start with a steel plate and some bolts and washers to see what results I would get from the product.
As usual when I start something I usually forget that the camera is right next to me and missed a few before pictures…

Anyway here the plate has been cleaned but the bolts and washers are still rusty.


A few sprays on the bolt and let it work for a few minutes and then a light scrub with steel wool and this is what I found under the rust!

And all done


The results were good with minimal work on my side! ?

I then turned my attention to the swivel base.
The underside was quite clean.
But the topside was a different story!


Even the graduations were rusty…


A few sprays of rust free and a few minutes to let it work and some elbow grease…

Clean and shiny now with easy to read graduations!



Moving on to the main casting!
This was a large one to clean and I thought there may be some pitting in the metal from the rust.
To start with this is what it looked like

Not pretty at all!

Spray, wait and scrub and this is what I found!


The name is nice and clear and clean now too!


And there was no pitting on the ways either!


Lastly I did the movable jaw. I forgot to take a before picture of this one… But here is the end result!


Finally a few pictures of the overall state of the vise for now.
I am trying to locate a set of jaw insert for the vise as the ones it has are pretty much destroyed. Just waiting for a response from Palmgren on the inserts.






Hope you enjoyed the restoration and cleaning process!!
I would recommend the product I used to anyone looking at cleaning dirty rusty parts!

Andrew