My outdoor vise was protected from the rain by a lubricant container cut off at its side. Over time, the plastic material was showing signs of brittleness and had developed multiple fractures which had allowed rain water to reach the vise and so caused corrosion.
Making the ducting sides higher by bending the bottom up.
I happened to have some old steel gutter down pipe lying around that I had kept because I felt that there was still a lot of useful steel left in them. The outside surfaces still had a protective layer of galvanized zinc coating. Now I thought was a good time to change the cover for the vise.
First, there were measurements to be taken to make sure that the finished product would fit the whole vise assembly. In order to make the cover higher at the sides, I had to slice the bottom plate into half and then bend them back to extend the sides.
Bending the end plates and folding them using a wooden block and c-clamp
I also needed to cut the ends so that they could be folded back to form a box. The flaps were positioned so that the loose ends could be sandwiched and clipped in place. This again took some planning and measuring.
Essentially, I was treating the old steel ducting like a carton box, folding at the required place and bending the sheet steel edges to hold the pieces together.
The vise cover worked very well and was able to protect the vise from the rain for at least another 10 years or more because it will not deteriorate like plastic.
