Shop Made Tools

[thaiguzzi]

My Fibromyalgia is getting no better and its a real struggle to use the drawbar on the Bridgeport so I made a simple power drawbar, like many other home made types it uses a 3/8" "butterfly" air wrench.

Seems to work OK so far all it really needs is a decent automatic oiler, I did fit an in-line one but it wasn't a success.









Paul

Been away for a month's holiday with the family to the Motherland. Paul; absolutely stunning work and finish, as per usual.
Mike.

[RichR]

... absolutely stunning work and finish, as per usual.

He's right, now you just need to buff up that shroud says Bridgeport so it matches your shiny new power drawbar.

[_Paul_]

Gentlemen thank you very much for the kind words, my cheapo oiler has finally turned up from the far east so I now have to make up some bracketry and do a bit of plumbing.

Regards

Paul

[ezduzit]

Except for a couple slotted bolt holes, this is my first project for my ancient Index Super 55 mill and my even more ancient self.

Required was an L-shaped welded framework of mirror-polished 316 stainless steel, schedule 40, 1-1/2" pipe. The short leg of the L was to be curved to match an existing feature. To create a fair curve, I traced a pattern of the existing shape I had to match. The chord was 1-1/4" over 24" long. Available was an HF hydraulic pipe bender I'd bought on c/l a couple years back. One of the bending dies was very close to the correct size, but I needed to carefully relieve the die, using a die grinder, so the pipe would fit all the way in without binding. This modification was smoothed out with sandpaper and covered with masking tape, to avoid marring the mirror polish.

On the HF bender the outer pivots are V-grooved, cylindrical pivots. These would likely put tiny dents in the point contact of the polished surface. So I determined to replace these steel rollers with steel saddle blocks that would distribute the load over a large area. On hand I had a large block of steel, a pair of which I'd picked up at auction, 2" x 4" x 12". One of these I cut in two on the horizontal bandsaw; the cuts needed only a light sanding. The 4" dimension I cut down to the required 3-3/4" (to match the HF frame) by making multiple passes with an end mill (you'll see the marks created from the mill not yet being setup). One of the flat sides of the steel blocks had been beaten up a little, so I fly-cut this surface on both blocks. Then drilled a hole in the center of each block, and enlarged the hole, by steps, to my largest available drill bit, 7/8". By steps I opened this up to the maximum capacity of the boring head that came with the mill, 1-1/2". At this time I also cross-drilled the blocks for the HF axle pins and deburred the blocks. Here I cheated and paid a friend to open them up to 2.08 ", so they could be used for 1-1/2" pipe and 2" tube, by adding either 1 or 3 .03" aluminum shims, which prevent the steel die from marking the polished pipe/tube. I then made a couple finish fly-cuts to precisely center the bores. Then I slit each block in two, again on the horizontal bandsaw, right in the center of the bored hole, creating 2 sets of matching saddles.

To make the bend I clamped the bender vertically on my workbench. First I marked a centerline, the length of the pipe, by laying a felt marker on a wood scrap with the pipe and scrap laying on my bench. Along the centerline I marked off, at 1" intervals, emphasizing every 2", and re-emphasizing every 4". Also I marked the exact center of the saddles, so I could keep the pipe precisely positioned as I moved it longitudinally through the bending process. For this I first made a few trial bends at the 4" marks, to determine how much force it took on the jack handle before a noticeable bend was created. And so, by a series of barely perceptible bends, an inch apart, continuously checked against a simple wooden pattern, I was able to sneak up on a very precisely matched curve.

With that challenge behind me I setup to cut very accurate fish-mouths for the frame's welded joints. By transferring marks from a full-size pattern, I laid out the miters and fish-mouths. Even here I made use of the saddles I had just produced to hold the work while making the miter cuts on the horizontal (mitering) bandsaw, as shown. Limited by the size of my mill vice, I used a conglomeration of things to setup and stabilize the most difficult compound fish-mouth, cutting all using a heavy duty (but not enough) carbide hole saw and arbor. Even though being very careful manually feeding, I managed to break a tooth off and snag one of the teeth enough to bend the tooth and the 1/2" shank arbor. I was able to bend the tooth back, using a punch. And I got the arbor straight enough, on my 50-ton press, that I could finish the job. (note--the hole saw was used with no center drill or guide pin) In the last photo you see the hole saw arbor being held by a 1" end mill holder; the quill is retracted.


All comments welcome.

[cucvzuz]

Very nice setup.
One thought on the hole saw grabbing. I have done a lot of DOM tubing work building a rock crawling buggy. Spin the hole saw faster than you would think, I like to spin an 1-5/8" at around 3-400 Rpm in 1.5" OD x .188" Wall 4130. I did an entire chassis with probably a hundred cuts on one saw and its still good. If you spin it slow each tooth grabs and pulls and breaks teeth. the higher speed allows the teeth to cut rather than rip. Very thin tubing (.065) requires even more speed to keep from grabbing. Heat is not really an issue because there are so few teeth in contact at once.

Also for coping thin or large dia tubng that may be difficult to get to the mill. Try this: http://metalgeek.com/static/cope.pcgi

I had to cope some 16Ga 3" OD SS exhaust tubing at a 45' angle. This worked very very well. Just punch in your job and print out the parabola, cut it out with scissors, tape it around your tube and cut the tube on the line.

[ezduzit]

Thanks for the link; I haven't tried that yet.

And I think you're right about needing more speed. I set the mill's speed based on what I seemed to remember was good for HHS on steel, 100 fpm. But I could have perhaps doubled the rpm for carbide.

[_Paul_]

Bought some Brazed Carbide tooling for my new (to me) Gamet Boring & facing head, the quality of which seems less than spectacular.... so decided to make some boring bars to suit 5/16" HSS tool steel, this is the first one made from some "spare" EN8 major dia 1.125" minor 0.749" & 6" long.









Paul

[mattthemuppet]

paul, a set of multi tool diamond disks from HF and a diamond hone will work wonders on getting those brazed carbide cutters sharp and with the correct relief. I did that on some junk brazed bits and they cut very well now.

[DICKEYBIRD]

Some forum members asked that I post the homemade QCTP drill attachment I made for my ORAC CNC lathe here in this thread. More details in the original post: http://bbs.homeshopmachinist.net/thr...s-live-tooling. If anyone has further questions, fire away!

[TGTool]

Yes, saw it in the other thread and it's a creative solution nicely executed. Glad to have it added here.

[Prokop]

Honda clutch nut tool.

It can be purchased for 20 - 30 dollars, but I had fun making it Used a chunk of 4140, not sure if I should heat treat it or not.

[DICKEYBIRD]

Cool tool! How'd ya make the square hole for the ratchet?

[Rosco-P]

Cool tool! How'd ya make the square hole for the ratchet?

Seeing as the tool is black except for the machined areas, my guess is it's made from a sacrificial impact socket. A socket bought at a tag or garage sale or from a set purchased at Horror Freight.

[Noitoen]

Seeing as the tool is black except for the machined areas, my guess is it's made from a sacrificial impact socket. A socket bought at a tag or garage sale or from a set purchased at Horror Freight.

Used a chunk of 4140

[Rosco-P]

Used a chunk of 4140

Looked at the images, didn't read the text. Bet a socket would work just fine.