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Spring vices: do I need more than one?

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what breaks them is vice grip over compression of the spring.
 
This has been a very informative thread. Being a bit of a tool nerd, I've ended up with two mainspring vises (vise vs. vice... Different words for different things...) as well as the frizzen spring vise shown by rickstyl . The plain old, military-issue mainspring vise that I have works better than the fancier modern version. The frizzen spring vise was expensive, around fifty bucks when I bought it some years ago, but is handier for for its intended purpose than vise grips or the conventional mainspring vise. I was participating in some events that required having a flash guard on the flintlock muskets at that time, and the frizzen spring vise worked well for installing or removing the guard.

I did not know about the vise made by Tom Curran until reading this thread. Thanks to the brother who posted the link to Tom's website! This looks like a great tool, versatile and sensible, but also compact and easy to carry in a tool kit for the field. I like his ramrod scraper, too. These look like good tools, purpose built for specific tasks. Not likely to be "borrowed" out of the tool kit for other jobs, so they should be there when you need them.

Best regards,

Notchy Bob
 
I have several spring clamps that I like to use for the main spring. For the frizzen spring I use the toolmakers' parallel clamps I inherited from my father. The toolmakers' clamps offer better control than vise grips, but are quite expensive.
 
Dixey Gun Works gets their frizzen springs from Peter Dyson in the UK. Dixie was out of stock and I bought it there. Nice people.
 
You can just remove the main spring from the spring vice once it's out. Then use it to remove the frizen spring. That's what I have been doing anyway.
 
I always remove spring from the vise, or when I used a vice grip
I never had a problem with a vise grip, and used it for years, but relax it ASAP
 
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