Shop Made Tools

[darryl]

I've made a lot of very simple tools over the years. Many of these are made from spokes from both bicycles and motorcycles.



A closer look at the business ends



A couple of these are made from music wire, drill rod, silver steel- these are chisels basically, forged a bit into a spade and sharpened. They have been ground around into some hardening powder while red hot, done a few times, then hardened. The two legged white thing is a fuse puller- directly opposite that is a center punch. I included that just to say that this is made from a valve stem, and is the sharpest, longest lasting pointy thing I've had the pleasure of making dimples with in any material.

Right beside that to the left is a pair of robertson driver bits coupled together with a piece of music wire. It folds for compactness. Originally it had a philips and something else on it as well. Amazing how useful that has been for me. On the other side of the center punch is a dimple prepping tool. It's a piece of music wire with a drill bit shape ground on the end, and a loose cap on the other end. When needed, I use that to enlarge a center punched dimple so a drill bit can get a good start and won't wander off. Put some pressure on the cap and spin it with my fingers-

If you keep looking clockwise there's a philips driver bit cut very short with a piece of music wire fastened into a groove made in it. So often I've needed to drive screws is very tight places in electronics equipment, and this tool has saved me a lot of time and effort. There's various hooks, pokers, prybars, wedges- around ten o'clock or so is an enamel stripping tool. It's used for removing the coating on copper wires in prep for soldering or making other connections. Music wire again- pinch it over the end of the wire and pull, rotate wire, do it again, etc. Doesn't take long, and the wire is clean, not burned.

This is probably about half or maybe less of the similar tools I've made. I've modified a fair number of pliers for other uses. One which I just had in my hand has a pair of holes drilled in the ends of the jaws, and a piece of - you guessed it- music wire inserted into each hole. Talk about needle nose pliers- these were specially made to help remove the cover from circuit board relays without having to unsolder the relay.

My cameras batteries died, so this is all you get for now.

[Glenn Wegman]

Cutter arbor for a metric involute cutter


Pullers and installation tools for 5 1/2“ bushings


Grinding wheel puller for the surface grinder


Various bushings for the end of my lathe spindle to center stock.

[Glenn Wegman]

Various special sockets, fixtures, and pullers on what seems like a daily basis


Working on a couple of sine bars. Got them roughed out of A2 tool steel and ready to pop into the oven. Then off to the grinder to finish them.

[gary hart]

I keep trying to make good parts with dull tools but, darn, I'm just not good enough. So have to resort to sharpening.

Made a home made carbide grinder and decided rather then have a table that adjusts for angle would make holders to set the angle.

Carbide parting inserts should be touched up at first sign of getting dull because not much can be ground off them. Touching up can double the life of these spendy buggers.




Putting finger on swing arm holds insert in place for grinding.

[TGTool]

Scientists have said that man is a tool making animal.

From the looks of all these pages, we must be the manliest of all the animals.

Actually, in a news item this week, there's evidence that guys with tools are sexier. No kidding! Evidence from the distribution of genetic changes through Europe shows that DNA passed through the male line is dominated by that from farmers from the middle east. DNA passed through females shows no such distribution. So that means that the tool users were getting more women and thus passing on more of their genetic traits than the hunters and gatherers.

At least that's what the evidence shows statistically. I can't say my tools have made me notably successful. Maybe I just need a few more.

[Tony Ennis]

there's evidence that guys with tools are sexier.

Or, interpreted differently, a man who better controls his environment (by fashioning rather than finding) provides greater security (ultimately what women want) and thus gets more.

Or, a useful artificer will be protected by his tribe and have more opportunities.

Or, an artificer will craft a superior bonking stick and remove the unskilled from the gene pool.

Or, the artificer is smarter than normal and will use his intellect to make sure when the bonking stick is applied, he's not involved. Thus he'll have more opportunities.

[Tinkerer]

Maybe it just the terms we use... 9 - 12" swing Ridged columns.. tight tolerances and smooth finishes. That perks their attention.

[McNeillMachine]

my contribution

First off, Wow! Lots of inspiring stuff on this thread.

These are just a few things I came up with. The first is a micrometer carriage stop. very handy as I have no DRO and the compound screw is pretty worn.


The second is a high speed spindle I made from a die grinder and an ER8 long shank collet I purchased from Hardinge. The spindle housing fits in a 3/4 collet, so its aligned with the spindle of my BP. Not particularly controllable, but fun to make, and useful when working with tiny endmills. The second picture is of the spindle cartridge itself.



Lastly is a spherical radius measurement indicator I built when I wanted to mill a dome shape on something. if you know the locations and diameters of the tooling balls, you can use CAD (SolidWorks in this case) to determine the correct indicator value for a given radius.


Lots more I'd like to make for myself, but since it's usually work related I buy what I need and get on with the job.

[bborr01]

Quill Handle

Here is a quill handle I made out of re-bar to replace the hex bolt someone had welded to the hub. Evidently, they couldn't get the broken stud out. I did. That hex head was bad on the hand.

It didn't thread all that bad. The knob was from Grainger.

The shiny spot in the second pic is where I belt sanded the weld off.

Brian

[gary hart]

Drill press vise improvements. Stepped vise jaws so parallels not needed and notches cut to cut hold disks. It is quick and easy to enlarge hole in a washer. Using a Unibit makes it easy to make hole bigger round and chamfer. Flip over and chamfer other side. Much quicker then using lathe.



Making a transfer screw. Find a short set screw. Drill hole in center, don't start in hex side as that usually doesn’t work very good. In this half by 13 set screw, I drilled a small hole with carbide drill and then pick a drill smaller then cup in setscrew. With heavy down pressure and slowest speed and a little cutting fluid will help. This works for me but got foot switch on drill press and put heavy down pressure and then start the drill press.

Something tapered pushed in the set screw hole will grab good enough to use as a screw driver for inserting and removing. Have transfer screw set just high enough to leave a mark when work tapped from above.

Using a drill bit smaller then cup circle left by transfer screw and using eye ball aim for center of hole. Drill just a little bit and most likely the hole will be starting of center. by tilting the work the drill bit can be encouraged to work it’s way to the center and it is easy to see when your close 'nuff to being on target.

[Kibby]

Ti Anodizer

Here's an anodizer I made for titanium.



I bought an old variac on ebay, and made the cabinet and mounted a Simpson Dc voltmeter.



Works pretty good!



This is a tapper for anything #6 and smaller.

[Kibby]

Here's a few more...



Here's a burner I made for my parkerizing tank.

[vpt]

How thick is a parkerised coating normally? Like say if there were etching on a gun barrel, would it show up after coating?

[gary hart]

Used to hate rotating bench vise. Loosen two bolts and juggle vise to rotate and retighten the two bolts. Was over at a friends and he showed me this vise, think it was Italian. Anyway it used a cotter that loosened easily with quarter turn of handle and swiveled easily with one hand and locked back into position easily. Copied that design shortly after that and have been happy that did.







Not needing the old lock down bolts they were replaced with new extension bolts so could have table behind vise.

[Kibby]

How thick is a parkerised coating normally? Like say if there were etching on a gun barrel, would it show up after coating?

Minimal. Its rarely ever thicker than a coat of paint. Here is a Romanian AK47 I built from a demilled kit. The phosphate coating bonds with the freshly-sandblasted metal to form a tough coating - toughest you can get. A common practice is to parkerize a firearm BEFORE you coat it with Duracoat, or KG Gunkote. The parkerizing provides an extremely solid grip for the coating. It really is the best of the best.



Here is an old Savage 24 in .22/.410 that I found in the pantry closet of an old farmhouse that my daughter bought. It was in pretty sad shape, but I rebuilt it, reworked the poor old stock, and parkerized the receiver and barrel. I also installed new springs and firing pins.



In these pics you can make out the barrel numbers, and I know its not a closeup, but I assure you they are fully-legible and nice. Parkerizing kind of "stops" when its had enough. When the piece you put in the tank stops fizzing, its pretty much parked as much as it can get.