A couple of years back, in a conversation about a Millers Falls vise, I posted a picture of my clamp-on vise herd:
Since then, there've been a few more that followed me home. Some interesting recent ones here.
This little vise has real style:
It also has an interesting retainer to withdraw the movable jaw when you open the vise:
I hope the picture is clear enough. A spring clip runs in a groove in the screw, and is retained by the two rods, above and below the screw. It appears to me that the hole for the groove is a keyhole shape, large enough for the lower guide rod to pass through. So the assembly order would have been: install screw in jaw, install spring clip, align spring clip with holes for guide rods, press in guide rods (perhaps they froze the guide rods to shrink them). More complicated than a simple E-ring or spring clip, but it has the virtue that there's no backlash in the mechanism. When you turn the screw, forward or back, it begins to move the jaw immediately. But...if this spring clip ever breaks, I see no way to put a new one on, even assuming the manufacturer still exists and still stocks the part. Alas, no maker's name on the vise.
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This cutie was offered by Prairie Tool Company of Prairie du Chien*, Wisconsin and still has some of its decal:
I have, until I donate it, an almost identical vise painted black, with no maker's name. Whether Prairie made it and sold it as a commodity tool, or whether Prairie labeled someone else's vise as theirs...don't know.
Prairie Tool made grinders, including some outstanding low-speed wet grinders, and hand- and foot-powered grinders, long after other American makers had deserted the farm and rural market. Their 10" wet grinder remains a lustworthy but uncommon find.
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I commented recently, on another forum, that clamp-on metalworking vises tend to use two guide methods: the twin rods shown above or a version of the shielded-screw guide, with the screw running inside the (usually rectangular/square, sometimes round) guide for the jaw. Bench metalworking vises, on the other hand, tend to use either the shielded-screw guide, or a solid rectangular guide below the screw. The second design shows up mostly on cheap Harry Homeowner vises. A month or so ago, I found a clamp-on vise with the Harry Homeowner design, made by a company that was proud to make it in the USA, but not proud enough to tell us who made it:
I used to wonder about these vises with no name, but the two nearly identical vises, one "by" Prairie Tool, the other "by" Anonymous Manufacturer, bring to my attention that many of these were probably made by a company that labeled them for various retailers/manufacturers, and probably also sold some unlabeled.
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*I've wondered about the town's name. I used to think the name had to do with prairie dogs, but the eastern reach of the prairie dog is at least a state farther west than Wisconsin. Thanks to the internet, I found out that the French trappers/traders named the area after the chief of the local band of the Fox tribe, whose name translates as "Dog;" the name translates from the French as "Dog's Meadow." My brain immediately spins off in several directions. First, I imagine this chief as a young man, hanging with his buddies, and being greeted, "Dog! Whassup?" At least he wasn't named the Fox equivalent of "Dude." Then I get to thinking about kids growing up in that town, and how grateful they must be that the English speaking settlers didn't translate the name when they pushed the French out. Imagine having to tell a young man/woman in whom you're interested that you're from Dog's Meadow. At least this way, you can hope that, if s/he took a foreign language in school, s/he took Spanish, German, anything but French.
