I bought a 4" heavy duty vise in a garage sale for $5. It was made by Paramo
in UK.
I cleaned it and derusted it like someone here suggested. I found that
underneath all that grime it had been blue once. So I painted it fiery red
'cos that was the only can of paint I had.

The issue is with the jaws. They are a bit chewed up, but not badly. They
were held on by 4 1/4-20x3/4" flat head screws and not well at that. The one
jaw was OK, just needed tightening. The other two screws were completely
chewed up. I managed to re-thread one of them without problems. The other
for some reason became hard to do and when I decided to back out the die,
the head snapped clean off. My attempts to remove the residual screw shaft
from the die have so far proved unsuccessful. The little stub sticking out
just chewed up my existing vise, resisted all vise grips and even file did
not seem to want to touch it. I managed to grind it somewhat flat but even
so I cannot get it out.

I went on to spark test it and as far as I am concerned it is mild steel.

So the questions are as follows:

1) Does anyone know how to get Paramo spare jaws? I did a search and
understand that the company has gone under some time ago.
2) Are 4" jaws pretty standard dimensions, i.e. would Irwin, Wilton or such
like fit?
3) Is there any reason why the screws holding the jaws would be hardened
screws? I propose to replace the massacred one with ordinary screw.

And a final message:
I am convinced that the die mishap is simply due to the fact that the die
just became dull after the first attempt. In that it behaved like other dies
from the same set. Never ever buy tap and die sets from Canadian Tire!

--
Michael Koblic,
Campbell River, BC