troythompson•1mo agoMost Upvoted

Spent a whole weekend trying to get a clean twist in some 1/2 inch square stock

I was making a set of fireplace tools for a client in Boise and wanted a tight, even twist for the handles. No matter how I heated it or held it in the vise, it kept kinking on one side. I must have tried it fifteen times over two days before I realized my vise jaws were worn unevenly on the left side, putting a weird torque on the piece. Anyone run into a simple tool issue that wasted a bunch of time?

3 comments

3 Comments

the_iris1mo ago

Honestly, I used to be right there with @taylor668 thinking it was always the heat or the metal. Tbh, I fought a twisted piece for a whole afternoon once before my buddy pointed out my bench itself was out of level. Ngl, it makes a huge difference if your setup isn't square. A worn vise jaw would totally put a sneaky bend in the work before you even start twisting. Sometimes the simplest tool problem is the real one hiding in plain sight.

taylor6681mo ago

Actually, blaming the vise seems like an easy way out. Couldn't the heating technique be the real problem if it happened that many times? Sometimes you just have to accept the material itself has flaws.

elliotadams29d agoMost Upvoted

Used to be on the other side of this argument, always blaming heat or metal quality first. But after dealing with a similar issue on a set of gate handles, swapping to a fresh vice pad and shimming the jaws straight fixed the twist problem completely. The vise can absolutely screw up your work in a way that's easy to miss if you're only looking at the flame and the steel. That experience flipped my thinking hard.