This vise dates from the 1950's and was inherited by my father from his. Fortunately dad had a lot bigger vise', so this was spare.
Here I've already cleaned most of the 60+ years of dirt and grease off it with degreaser and given it a good rub down with a drill and wire brush attachment:
It needs to have the mechanism seperated now in order to fully clean it, ready to be painted again.
Disassembly is a simple process, but a little awkward at the same time.
On mine, the locking pin seemed to be just a little too long to knock through, and too tightly bound to be pulled out, so I had to snap off one end of it and then hammer it through. I'll need to replace it with a suitable cotter pin.
Parts disassembled and ready to be given a full degrease:
Given another pass under the wire brush:
I think the handle is going to need some emery paper to get it polished up, also the grips on the vise need to be removed - they're really quite badly pitted and worn. It would also be better to paint without those fitted.
Did a little vinegar bath for the smaller components and the handle to try and get some of the heavier rust spots and deep gouges a bit cleaner:
The parts were left in for ~24 hours. There is an improvement, but not it's still not brilliant.
Red primer:
Clear lacquer on the handle - unfortunately it's so pitted and heavily scratched that polishing it all out is just not feasible. I cleaned it up the best I could without going crazy, then gave it a coat of clear lacquer to try and stop it going rusty and brown again:
First coat of red enamel gloss applied: