Tuesday, April 2, 2013

One of my vices is vises: Erie Tool Works

I picked up this Standard No. 3 for $10 recently.  Originally very rusty with flaking paint and old dried grease, I sandblasted it and then painted it.  The frame is a foot high and capable of holding 4-inch pipe, so it has now eclipsed my Holland Mfg Co. pipe vise (coincidentally, also made in Erie) as the largest pipe vise in my shop!





The Erie Tool Works was founded in Erie, Pennsylvania in 1902 by Frank Bacon.  For many years, they specialized in hand tools and vices for the plumbing trade, and for more than 30 years they produced a line of plumbing tools for Sears.  In the early 1950's, they acquired Lakeview Forge.  The family sold the company to Textron (the same company that bought Parmenter & Bulloch) in the late 1960's, but it came back under family control in 1973. Later in the decade they sold off the hand tool business, and since then they have focused on defense contracts under their new name, the Lakeview Forge Corporation.

Below, a pic of a large vise made by the Erie Tool Works taken from David's Knowledgebase (which is a great general resource for images of a wide variety of other vise makers).  



The old Erie Tool Works should not be confused with the more recent Lake Erie Toolworks, which makes lovely maple wood vise screws to be used on woodworking benches. 

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