Wired

Wire brush, that is. Having sought advice on the matter, I applied the twin attack of hot air gun and wire brush on a couple of bits of The Vice to remove the grey paint with a view to doing a complete refinishing job. The results are mixed.

The vice screw cleaned up and the grey paint removed. A little bit of primer is still lodged in the casting here and there, but nothing to cause any trouble when it comes to repainting.

The dogs from the front jaw. Top is one as it came - painted. Yeah, it looks a lot better, but... It explains why I had such a time getting the dogs to come out; there's just not enough room for a layer of paint, however thin. Plus there was some rust under the paint too, so come off it has to. I'd rather have a smoothly working set of dogs than pretty ones, and with a bit of extra work with some abrasives and a coat of wax, I reckon they'll look perfectly workmanlike.

So The Vice parts look fine after this treatment - but my arm, long used to doing nothing more strenuous that pushing a mouse about a bit and tip-tappiting across a keyboard now and again, had totally forgotten what it's like to actually have to do something physical. And it's complaining about it. Quite a lot. If I'm ever to lift a pint again, I shall be considering more powered means of progressing, methinks...

I think I should probably be knocking some expectations about the proposed bench on the head too. Better to nip them in the bud early, what? ;) At present the only Schwarz-ified aspect will the similarity in build construction to that of a brick privvy. Viz: sturdy. Seems to me that with 86lbs of vice - plus whatever the vice is holding - on one end of a bench, mass becomes even more vital. Currently no crochets, sliding deadmen, twin screw or leg vices feature in my plans. Dog holes may be an option, but let's not go mad. Okay, so I may have remembered that somewhere around here I have a metal face vice - which may or may not be a Paramo, but it's so long since I've laid eyes on it, I really don't know - that, maybe, possibly, might lend itself to some sort of tail vice thing, but there's absolutely no hurry about it. As it stands, I'm just thinking of a ruddy heavy table on steroids and that's about it.

Because I know what I'm like, and if I start to get ambitious, nothing will happen at all. Simplicity is the watchword, folks. And I look forward to you reminding me of that in several months time when it's all stalled because I fancied a shaped edge to the front stretcher but can't decide what would go best with the barley-twist legs...