Shop Made Tools

[mars-red]

Beautiful, mars-red! Did you design it yourself, or are there plans available?

Chuck

Thanks Chuck! It's my own design but I mostly just made it up as I went along. I would recommend the traditional design for anyone wanting to build one. My design is the result of organic growth and offers no benefit I can think of to offset the extra difficulty in making it. If you're just looking for a frustrating protect though, I'll happily do up some drawings for it, haha.

[mars-red]

Beautiful, mars-red! Did you design it yourself, or are there plans available?

Chuck

Thanks Chuck! It's my own design but I mostly just made it up as I went along. I would recommend the traditional design for anyone wanting to build one. My design is the result of organic growth and offers no benefit I can think of to offset the extra difficulty in making it. If you're just looking for a frustrating project though, I'll happily do up some drawings for it, haha.

[Carm]

Cute little booger it is.

[ksierens]

Beautiful job Mars-Red, you should be very proud!

[chucketn]

Thanks Chuck! It's my own design but I mostly just made it up as I went along. I would recommend the traditional design for anyone wanting to build one. My design is the result of organic growth and offers no benefit I can think of to offset the extra difficulty in making it. If you're just looking for a frustrating project though, I'll happily do up some drawings for it, haha.

I'm just looking for a small(under 2") boring head to configure as a ball turner.
But I do like yours...

Chuck

[jhe.1973]

............. Afterward, I got to thinking ........... It was complicated somewhat by the fact that I had this clamping screw running right through the center of the tool, exactly where I'd want to be placing the nut for the adjusting screw. My solution was an offset nut. ............. As needs arise, I'm sure the bottom section of the head will be further machined to accomodate different arrangements.

Max:

Outstanding, as usual!

I enjoy your posts because your workmanship and attention to detail is always inspiring. However, I feel the two greatest contributions to this forum (and others you post in) are:

Your creative problem solving (thinking outside the box)

The discipline/determination to see it through.

It reminds me of one of my favorite Einstein quotes:

Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.

[mars-red]

Max:

Outstanding, as usual!

I enjoy your posts because your workmanship and attention to detail is always inspiring. However, I feel the two greatest contributions to this forum (and others you post in) are:

Your creative problem solving (thinking outside the box)

The discipline/determination to see it through.

It reminds me of one of my favorite Einstein quotes:

Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.

Thanks very much, Jim! The creative problem solving I think is somewhat hereditary and is exercised regularly as part of my day job... I guess it just fits in naturally when I'm in the shop. For every idea I post up here that pans out halfway decent, there are several others that get given up on after things don't work out (usually repeatedly). As far as seeing things through, well, it always seems hit or miss from my perspective. If I get something stuck in my head that really really interests me, I'll develop a case of short term mania to get it done, staying up all night, skipping meals, etc. If it's something that doesn't interest me much, or that I lose interest in, I'll procrastinate as long as possible (and sometimes longer, lol).

Thanks again for the encouragement, my real goal (other than having fun and being occasionally useful, of course) is to show people that not only is it possible for a person to make things they might not have thought possible, but that it can be done with deceptively simple tooling, especially if you're willing to put your creative mind to work for your hands. Case in point, when making the boring head I didn't have a way to index the 25 divisions for the graduations on the adjustment screw. My old shop made dividing head is out of commission until I make a spindle adapter and/or modify the spindle. My watchmakers lathe has a set of indexing plates, but none of them give 25 positions. I've been known to index against the bull gear on my Rivett lathe, but that's 90 teeth so no help there. I was close to making some parts to adapt a 200 tooth saw blade to the back end of the lathe spindle, with a pawl to index the teeth, but ended up deciding to try a paper scale instead. I took one of my unhelpful indexing plates from the watchmakers lathe, did some math to determine the correct arc distance between 25 divisions around the OD of the plate, then laid out that scale on a piece of paper (actually I used some photo editing software to print it out, but it could have been laid out by hand without much trouble) and glued the scale around the OD of the plate. That low-tech solution, with a laughable looking makeshift pointer arrangement, is all it took to get the graduations I needed. I sure would have used a fancy dividing or indexing arrangement if that was an option, but it certainly wasn't necessary.

[Carm]

" If I get something stuck in my head that really really interests me, I'll develop a case of short term mania to get it done, staying up all night, skipping meals, etc."

That's the 99% perspiration part.

[Tim Aldrich]

Tool height gauge modeled after one I saw in this thread.

[sarge41]

WHAT, no engraved numbers on the graduations of the crossfeed screw! And no vernier graduations?

Seriously, Mars-red, nice work.

Sarge

[tompas11]

I don't know if this is the right thread for this because this is not actually a tool. Moderator is free to move this post if not.
I have repaired some teeths on the reverse gear on my Blomqvist lathe. The lathe is a swedish clone of a South Bend lathe.
I have also made a new gear in brass for my lathe spindle. The new gear was brazed to the spindle.
Here are some pictures that shows before and after and if you would like to see more: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMn...rrKf5V2SVGivIw

[mars-red]

I don't know if this is the right thread for this because this is not actually a tool. Moderator is free to move this post if not.
I have repaired some teeths on the reverse gear on my Blomqvist lathe. The lathe is a swedish clone of a South Bend lathe.
I have also made a new gear in brass for my lathe spindle. The new gear was brazed to the spindle.

Great work! I am in love with that Aciera mill you have, by the way.

[tompas11]

Thanks mars-red. Yeah, that Aciera of mine is really a nice little machine, love it to.

[varjag]

A slitting saw arbor I turned a while ago from a piece of stainless (for lack of other steel):

[Yondering]

Nice!

That's a very interesting little table in your first pic too, looks pretty handy. So does the one on the lathe in your second pic. Did you make those, or buy them?