Restoring another Dawn 150mm cast iron engineer’s bench vice today:
This particular vice has had a black paintjob at some point, and overall looks to be pretty lightly used.
Evidently a previous owner had not bothered to disassemble the vice to paint it black, as the dynamic jaw still had the original red where it was obscured by the static jaw:
14mm bolts held in the jaws from the rear:
The usual Dawn arrangement – washer, spring, washer, split pin:
Fresh paint:
As you would expect from a sizeable Dawn vice, it’s heavy and feels like it would be impossible to break without using a very long cheater bar on the handle. The clamping action had no slop at all. I do like the Dawn 150’s method of affixing the jaws better than the 6SP/HP/etc. – through the back with hex headed screws rather than from the front – as it results in far fewer stuck or stripped jaw screws in my experience.