Shop Made Tools

[bborr01]

Hi Guys,

It is winter time for most of us on this board and a lot of us may have a little extra shop time on our hands.

During my career as a toolmaker and later a tool and diemaker, I made many, many tools for my own use.

Some of them are run of the mill stuff like 123 blocks and parallels and some of them are things many of you have probably never seen.

I have photographed many of them and would like to share them with the group if there is an interest.

I don't have prints for any of them, but the pics should go a long way.

Also, if anyone else has any shop tool ideas they would like to share, feel free to chime in.

I hope you like them.

Brian

[bborr01]

We called these spiders.

We had them in various sizes for different chucks.

When we would have a need to turn thin disk type parts, these made it easy to keep the disks parallel after parting them off.

They were also nice for keeping them all the same thickness.

Just make sure to gently tap the disks into the jaws to keep the spider from moving around.

[bborr01]

These were used in the weld shop for holding pieces in place when tack welding.

The angle plates were something I made when I went into the weld shop with a weldment clamped to a pair of precision angle plates I had made.

The welder told me I wouldn't want to use them for welding and should make a pair of rough ones for welding.

I was an apprentice at the time but now understand why he told me that.

[bborr01]

Made these when I was an apprentice. Made a mistake but finished them anyway.

Anyone see what the mistake was?

I drilled holes at the steps to avoid cracks and to give pieces with square corners a little clearance.

[bborr01]

One of the welders asked me to make some chipping hammers.

The head is M-4. Also known as machinable carbide.

I used a friends chipping hammer that was a lot like this but with the flat surface turned 90 degrees.

What a piece of junk. You couldn't slide it across a surface to remove spatter.

Good practice for turning a taper.

[doctor demo]

Made these when I was an apprentice. Made a mistake but finished them anyway.

Anyone see what the mistake was?

I drilled holes at the steps to avoid cracks and to give pieces with square corners a little clearance.

No mistake, just not a matched pair.

Steve

[bborr01]

Made these when I was an apprentice. No cnc's back then.

I made them out of gage stock. It was a bitch to work with but it was worth it.

I'm pretty sure I had at least 100 hours into them including all the lathe time.

As far as I know, they weren't commercially available back then.

I left two of them in an un-heated building one winter and they got a little rusty. I'm working on it now.

I bought a set of 4 many years later with copper plated threads to use in the weld shop. It saved a lot of wear and tear on my hand made clamps.

I left two of them out on a job one saturday and didn't realize it for a week or so.

Went back and asked if anyone knew where they were. Nope. Haven't seen them. Big factory with a couple thousand people at that time.

About fifteen years later I was working with one of my fellow toolmakers setting up a bunch of stuff for welding. We ran out of clamps.

He looked at me kind of funny and with hesitation and said he may have a couple more clamps in the bottom drawer of his tool cart.

I opened the drawer and there were my clamps.

I asked him where he got them and he said one of our recent apprentices made them for him.

I knew better. I had the only gage stock clamps in the plant.

I could hardly sleep that night. The next day I got to work and decided to call him rather than make a scene. (he was the leadman)

I told him I wanted my clamps back or I would go to mgt. to get them.

He said come and get them. His buddy just happened to be the set-up man in the department where I had left them.

Needless to say, I am not the president of his fan club.

[Black_Moons]

Good dealing with him, And I hope this doesnt ever drive you to buying an engraver :P (Unless you have some dials to make that is)
Im sure that rust will clean right up. maybe some phosphoric acid, or some of that 'to black' rust converter stuff.

[Walter]

Nice work!
The extra holes in the blocks were the mistake. I'd call it a feature

And to the guy who didn't return your clamps, well, you were nicer than I'd have been. Last time I had someone thief from me I broke both his hands.

[Peter Neill]

Nice work!
The extra holes in the blocks were the mistake. I'd call it a feature

And to the guy who didn't return your clamps, well, you were nicer than I'd have been. Last time I had someone thief from me I broke both his hands.

I would have said it's the mismatched steps at the ends, but who knows? Might be the holes.

Nice post btw, keep it up.