Shop Made Tools

[enl]

Another lathe part (I have a bunch... the lathe was originally two- a 36" and a 54" bed Atlas 10"'s, neither complete): Steady rest. At some point in the distant past, well before I ever laid eyes upon it, it was likely a Seneca Falls Star lathe steady, based upon the casting numbers and the star logo. It had been crudely sawn off, had holes gnawed through it by a long toothed rodent, and bolted to a second or third hand hunk of aluminum. Not straight, not centered, and made to fit I don't know what. I did the minimum I could to the casting given the prior abuse. No way to fit into my shaper, so filed and hand scraped the face I used for a seating surface. About a 20 or 30 thou lip for alignment. Opened the holes up and chamfered them to reduce cracking risk. Welded up the base to fit the Atlas. The base is made from 3/4X2" cold rolled. No need for full penetration, so the weld was prepped as a 1/8 chamfer for the bottom, and a 1/8 throat fillet on top. Then, it went into the shaper for the way clearances to be cut. Left about 5 or 6 thou clearance. No need for gibs. It's a steady rest. Square enough is square enough. The bottom plate is Atlas, snagged from a turret tailstock that I haven't used in years. The steady mounts on the baseplate on either side of the vertical section to allow options for clearance with the carriage, tailstock, stops, etc.







A few more accessories for this lathe, some fully be me, others modifications of others things or made from partial accessories (taper attachment base casting was with one machine, so I improvised on all other parts) Most are not works of art. They do the job, though.

[BMW Rider]

Needed a couple of tools to complete a repair on my motorcycle. The stator had burned out a couple weeks ago and the replacement kit comes with a redesigned rotor to correct the overheating issue that led to the failure. The rotor fits to the crankshaft on a taper and a puller is needed to pop it loose along with application of heat. I was not able to get a ready made puller for another couple of weeks and wanted to get back riding, so I made my own. Its a M22 1.5 thread which I had to cut. That was a first for me doing metric threading on my lathe. I used a piece of an old shaft to make the puller from, I had to harden and temper it as it takes quite a bit of effort to break the rotor off the taper as it is also secured with Loctite. I also had to heat it to 100 C as well as per the manual.

The second tool is much simpler. It is used to lock the crankshaft from turning to do the job.

[Dave C]

This one's not very technical, but it is something that serves a purpose. Every time I watch a you tube video of someone doing machine work, I notice that most are using some sort of cutting oil container and an acid brush. Lots of variations, from commercial plastic no spill pots, to old soup cans. Myself, I've been using an antique sewing machine oil can. It leaks, it's small, and I figure one day I will catch the spout is something and ruin it's antique value (probably less than $.50) So I decided to search U tube for ideas on making something that works better than a soup can, and that I can make rather than buy. A common complaint with the home built units is leaks from failing solder joints. Adding to that, the spill proof ones have no provision to keep out chips, dirt and other debris, and no means to clean the container out once it is full of junk. Their has to be a better idea. Here's mine:

In it's past life the can contained PVC cement cleaner. Since it was several years old, and had never leaked a drop, and was nearly empty, it seemed like the perfect item to base the oil pot on. All that was needed was a piece of 3/4" copper pipe, and a soda bottle cap to slide over the acid brush handle. Cut the hole for the pipe with a hole saw, chucked the pipe in the lathe and spun the flare, trial fit the pipe to determine the length from start of flare to 1/4" from the can bottom. Solder the pipe onto the cap, and it's done. The bottle cap just fits over the flared pipe and is a snug fit on the brush handle so it can be slid up the handle for daubing the oil. The can's cap can be unscrewed when cleaning is needed. What could be simpler?

[Hal]

Dave C

That's a clever idea. Thanks for posting. I'll have to build one.

Hal

[Dave C]

Thanks Hal. So far it's doing the job.

[Spin Doctor]

recently at work I've needed to cut internal grooves in some stuff at work due to the on going process of engineering changes. Found it was easier to just make up a tool holder to use cut-off blades internally. No dimensions, no sketch, just grab some stock and go. Cut-off blade has tapered top and sides. So the slot in the end of the tool holder was cut with the vertical angle and both the top and bottom tapers built in. Holder has a slot cut about 3/4s of the way from the bottom to allow the screw (M8-1.25) to distort the holder enough to clamp the blade. I thought I'd have to cut the slot deeper but it seems to work just fine. I think the holder is 4140 but I'm not positive. Some type of commercial shafting. Works well on 316 stainless at about 40 FPM





I will need to cut the top down a little as it is too tight a fit in the tool post right now

[Tim Aldrich]

BMW Rider, I can see just a hint of mushroom on the end of that puller. You must have had some serious torque on it to get the part off.

Spin Doctor, that's a nice looking tool and holder for just being whipped up. Necessity is the mother of invention, eh?

[BMW Rider]

BMW Rider, I can see just a hint of mushroom on the end of that puller. You must have had some serious torque on it to get the part off.

Yes, it took quite a lot of effort to get the rotor to pop free. The bolt that retains it to the crank has a large diameter of 16mm, so there is just a small ring of contact surface for the puller to push against hence the slight mushrooming. The puller I had on order finally arrived, so the home made one having served the short term need will likely not be needed again. The only reason I needed to remove the rotor at all was due to a design change to allow better cooling of the stator. Now that it's done I should not have to revisit it on this bike, however, my wife's bike has the same engine with the same old design rotor so I will most likely have to do it some day. I'm looking at making the modifications to my old rotor myself rather than have to lay out the $$$ for her bike. If it does not work out there is no real loss since it is currently a very expensive paperweight anyway.

[Spin Doctor]

Spin Doctor, that's a nice looking tool and holder for just being whipped up. Necessity is the mother of invention, eh?

Thanks Tim, I've got another trick I use a lot for indicating in the end of parts in a 4 jaw chuck. I'll take pictures Monday. One thing I have to do rather frequently is face grooves for O-rings right up against either an internal or external diameter. These require specially ground HSS tool bits in order to get the correct width and have side clearance so as not to bind in the cut. This stuff might be used in a professional setting but that doesn't mean people here can't pick up useful tips and tricks.

[Spin Doctor]

When indicating pieces in a 4 jaw chuck the end of the piece away from the chuck is often tapped around with a soft hammer to get indicated in. Even with a center you can't really on that to get it zeroed in. Rather than tapping the piece with a soft hammer it is far better when possible to use a screw jack between the chuck face and the part. This gives far greater control as far as your movement of the workpiece. But how to mount the screw jack. At first I used a 1/2-13 Hex Head Cap Screw drilled and tapped for a M8-1.25. The M8's all have a hole spotted in the head to accept a ball out of ball bearing removed from service. The ball is pressed in just past half of the diameter. This works much better than a flat head face on the screw. doing nothing to the screw face would ne the worst option. Second best would be to machine a cone in the Hex Head but you might lose too much of the hex that way Unfortunately this left too little meat in the 1/2-13 screw. Next step was a 5/8-11 or M16 Hex Head Cap Screw drilled and tapped. The head of the screws are just a touch loose in the tee slot in the chuck so they either need to be welded and milled or just make some special tee nuts that fit the slots. Of course another option would be to drill and tap a number of tapped holes in the chuck face.



These work really great on zeroing up faces too. Set of 4 of course

[mattthemuppet]

depth micrometer attachment for my digital caliper. A nice metric depth micrometer is on the list, but a long way down it right now, so this will suffice until then. Plus I wanted to use my woodruff cutters on something

[DEVILHUNTER]

Nice and simple atachment! Added it to my future projects list

[mattthemuppet]

thanks! you can buy them for not too much money, but, you know..

[_Paul_]

Nice useful tool.

[Prokop]

Well done!

But you made my todo list longer