Grandpa's Wilton C2 Vise - Restoration

For Labor Day 2021: A labor of love. This was my late grandpa's Wilton C2 combination bench/pipe vise. Like the previous tool rescue, the mini vise, this came from grandpa's partially collapsed workshop. He passed in 2008 and the building fell into disrepair. The roof failed, water got in, scrappers and thieves got in, and almost everything that wasn't bolted down was taken. This was bolted to his workbench so it remained, exposed to the elements for years, missing parts and unusable.
After nearly two months of work the vise is complete, restored, accessorized, and ready for many more years of service. I may revisit my choices from this project later, as I did not have a media blasting setup at the time and I was unable to address the wear on the key that holds the sliding portion into the keyway
Thanks to "autopts" on Ebay for having the necessary parts to bring this vise back. Check them out if you need Wilton vise jaws and collars and such: www.ebay.com/usr/autopts
Timestamps:
0:00 - Intro
1:57 - Teardown Begins
10:17 - Teardown Complete/Cleanup Begins
15:11 - Priming and Painting
17:00 - Bluing the Raw Steel Parts
17:45 - Ready for Final Reassembly
22:54 - Reassembly Complete
#restoration #vise #wilton #toolrestoration #rusty #tools

[@SunkCostGarage]

It's April of 2024, 3 years after I posted this video, and those other sets of copper vise jaws are STILL at that local flea market, vintage but priced at today's full retail for new ones 🤣

[@johnfix1]

A wonderful restoration on a great vise. Your grandpa would be so proud. It is now good for another 100 years.

[@jeffreybrianring6392]

Great restoration

[@jeffreyw9903]

I love a mechanic who keeps his bench and tools in good repair and neat and clean. And who uses the right tool for the right job.

[@whodoneit218]

Nothin but a good honest rebuild, the way I'd have to try to do it with my limited tools and messy workbench. Great job!

[@kiffer289]

Top score finding those pipe jaws and guards thanks for sharing

[@curtodell4154]

i have this exact same c2 vice in my shop at work . they are stupid strong . i have been beating and abusing it for over 20 years . still works like new

[@siriustraveler7083]

Nice restoration 👍 you’re grandpa would be proud

[@briansworkshop01]

Nice job looking great and I love the colour thanks for sharing your time and remember stay safe and make 🍺🍺👍👍🇬🇧

[@adnacraigo6590]

That must be a satisfying feeling to do a good restoration on a wonderful old tool with your family history in it. Good video..

[@gonzaloagejas8400]

Excelent. Wondeful job.

[@IraDuncan]

Just watched this on Labor Day 2022 :) Nice work. I just bought a C-0 last week from my SIL and I plan on making it as functional as I possibly can. Thanks for the great video. Very therapeutic :)

[@ronitsingh85]

lovingly restored, I love the design of a C type wilton vise, you get more use of it, deeper jaws allowing you to hold thing further down when needed and the look of the vise is totally unique!

[@jonbender9110]

The Delaware City Refinery has 2 of the c2s in the welding booth in the main shop we used when I worked there for the maintenance contractor. They are the only vises that you can buy today that are not Chinese junk

[@ronitsingh85]

@@jonbender9110I am always on the look out for a nice condition Wilton 1940s-60s vise as I love the design on them. I go to estate sales and garages sales very sat so fingers crossed!

[@McMackins2]

Hey there, friend! What a great restoration. Glad to see you're staying busy.

[@SunkCostGarage]

Hey there. This is my hobby lately to distract from the daily grind of the job.

[@tomrhea6655]

Great Job! It looks amazing!

[@MisterHarleyRider]

Your Grandpa would be Proud

[@MrJruta]

Very enjoyable video and wonderful old vise. Thanks for sharing

[@yt66228]

Cool vise! Love Wilton.

[@9Antonian]

Nice job, I enjoyed the restoration, thank you.

[@joserodolfoaguirre4937]

De vuelta al trabajo para esa noble herramienta !!!!! Felicitaciones por la restauración !!!!! 💯💯💯👏👏👏👏 Saludos desde Argentina 🇦🇷

[@theboss-be4er]

enjoyed every bit of the video vise looks great !

[@_BigLife_]

Very nice

[@Michagan_outdoorsman_James]

i did call wilton to try and verify the age of my vice. she said made in Chicago is the oldest stuff i think it must have been their first plant? the jaw covers are definitely super old, a very nice find!!! she told me the Schiller Park was circa 1957-70.

[@jamesalsup9135]

Excellent!

[@tomnorman5461]

Very nice work sir! Awesome find on those brass soft-jaws!

[@jozsefizsak]

That's very nice and most likely the approach I would have taken to the restoration. The music was initially pleasant but by 16 minutes, the repetition made it sound like a loop and it was as unbearable as a dripping faucet in a quiet room. I finally muted it to get to the end because I was touched by it being grandpa's vice and couldn't turn it off.

[@SunkCostGarage]

Thank you for the feedback. I agree that it gets monotonous. I needed a quiet "background music" kind of song for this one and the KZbin music library was somewhat limited in that regard. I hope to have a little more variety in future restoration videos, and some of my other "tool rescue" videos already don't repeat the same song more than once.

[@GT_Racer347]

Frikkin awesome 👌 😍 💯

[@howarddodson3510]

Nice work and good restoration. I think you will have many yrs of service out of that and you did it well enough to enjoy it, but (IMHO) you didn’t make it so perfect that you are hesitant to use it. Enjoy!

[@SunkCostGarage]

That was the goal. Preserve the character and keep it usable. Some channels restore vises to museum quality condition, better than factory, and they're so perfect that you never want to use it. This vise has gotten plenty of use in the past year and has lost a little paint but still works great.

[@bigbluepacific3950]

Nice work. Mahalo for the video. I see that HTR wrench. :)

[@matthewmaddox8582]

Thing of rare beauty

[@nelsonrich2268]

Nice job. I'm working on a c3. Removing nut (driving out those pins) is not going well. I've been looking at lots of videos for tips and tricks lol.

[@SunkCostGarage]

The method I found that worked had you put an allen wrench in with the short side angled down against the inside of the pin, and you hammer on the long side, which will drive the pin out from the inside. Once it comes out enough, you have to wedge something in there against the allen wrench so you can keep applying force from the inside. Once one pin is out, the other comes out easy with a long punch straight through. You can't just punch one of them to the inside, it's just too long. (Found that out quickly.) I think I linked the video at 8:19 in the message bubble thing at the top right.

[@Javier_FH]

Happy Labor day. Very relaxing and mesmerizing. One thing I was wondering is how these two rocks ended up there. Good job cleaning it.

[@SunkCostGarage]

Without a pipe jaw to block the hole, mud wasps were able to get in and build nests over time

[@valuedcustomer9614]

You might want to put some grease on the end of the spindle where it presses against the outer jaw assembly (just past the retaining ring groove).

[@tomnorman5461]

Next time your tool shopping (whoo-hoo) grab yourself some wire wheels with brass bristles...they are less abrasive so less scratching. I hope your wearing safety goggles when using those wire wheels, those bristles will come loose and take out an eye!

[@13Voodoobilly69]

I have a C0 Wilton from the 70’s (3.5” jaw width) unfortunately just like you mine is missing the pipe jaws. I called the factory and the don’t make them anymore. They have a new version for $180. I am probably going to just live without them.

[@SunkCostGarage]

Search for a seller called "autopts" on ebay. That's where I got mine. They have a pipe jaw for a C0. If you buy two, they are $56.06 each. $112 plus shipping is better than $180.

[@Michagan_outdoorsman_James]

i picked up my first wilton yesterday idk how old it is but it says 80178 under the wilton logo and C1 101169 up by the jaws its still smooth as butter

[@SunkCostGarage]

If you pull the movable jaw off the vise completely and look under it, there's usually a date stamp on the metal plate that keeps it from spinning in the vise body. "670" stamped on it would be June 1970, for instance. This forum post has a lot of good info on these older Wilton Vises. www.garagejournal.com/forum/threads/old-wilton-vise.118535/

[@Michagan_outdoorsman_James]

@@SunkCostGarage ​thank you my friend, u did a great job on your vice and im sure your pops is looking down all smiles that his vice is in the right hands. now that can be passed down to your kids and even their kids. hope you guys have a great weekend over there. subbed up BTW great channel

[@matthewscialdone8666]

Great work. Is there a part number on the bottom swivel base. I have the same vise and need that part number.

[@SunkCostGarage]

The bottom casting/base is stamped 101084. (Sorta visible around 16:18 in the video)

[@matthewscialdone8666]

@@SunkCostGarage thank you

[@garyjones2582]

Very nice work.. Ready for many more years of service.. Was it hard to find the replacement parts?

[@SunkCostGarage]

Surprisingly, not too hard. Found a store on Ebay that had the exact jaws needed. The same vise is still produced by Wilton today with a few minor updates to the casting, but the modern replacement jaws still fit the older ones too.

[@zm23f]

@@SunkCostGarage how much were the jaws?

[@SunkCostGarage]

@@zm23fI think it was something like $80 for the pair of main jaws and closer to $180 for the pipe jaws that were missing. (I saw this as a "buy it for life" kind of purchase since I don't see myself ever getting rid of the C2.)

[@ParthPatel-hb6du]

How tall is the C2? Great video by the way

[@SunkCostGarage]

From base to jaws, just under 1 foot. 11 3/4"

[@25sep49]

Great job on the restoration. One piece of advice though, your shop is a mess. Clean it!

[@SunkCostGarage]

The tiny garage shop was a mess because I was simultaneously restoring a large Wilton vise and this tool while working on vintage Jeep brakes and a master cylinder, plus doing a couple of woodworking side projects all at once. The barely controlled chaos was temporary and things are more neat again.

[@jorgetorres5128]

Sua bancada de trabalho é uma bagunça.

[@SunkCostGarage]

heh, if the workbench was clean, I wouldn't get any work done.

[@waynepennington2769]

First of all you need a bigger work area.

[@SunkCostGarage]

No joke. The limited garage size keeps me from doing a lot of projects.

[@waynepennington2769]

Your more or less like me just half assing stuff.

[@tomnorman5461]

OK, I see that you have Brass (12:47) wire wheels...sorry.

[@SunkCostGarage]

Yep! Brass when I don't want to tear something up or just want to gently polish it, steel when I want to remove rust or junk, or polish something after sandblasting. Safety glasses too unless I like steel stuck in my face.

[@Tatal.b]

Trabalho mal executado, bagunça generalizada, peça mal acabada, que pena, acabou com uma jóia rara, que é essa morsa

[@SunkCostGarage]

Thanks for the feedback. I'm still working to improve my skills, but I understand that I can't meet the high standards of some people. I will someday sandblast this vise and redo it again with better paint and overall finish now that I have more tools available to me.

[@zm23f]

Specify what exactly you didn’t like or stfu.

[@hongloanvo1453]

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