Shop Made Tools

[gary hart]

Gary,

How long does it take to heat up the crucible will a full load of aluminum?

Got poor memory, don't recall. Did find some notes for the first time I used it.
Started about 9:30am and finished about 1:30pm. Used most of a 5 gallon propane tank for fuel. Melted scrap had and end up with with 121 lbs of ingots. That was using a steel crucible made from bottom part of CO2 fire extinquisher and coated with kiln wash.

More notes from first bronze pour. Took 27 minutes to get pool of bronze and another 17 minutes to get graphite crucible 3/4+ full and ready to pour.

[tumutbound]

I just wish there was a way to just save all the pictures without all the wording.

I just did this. (I'm using firefox under Linux so your mileage may vary)

1. Set the number of posts per page to maximum (40)
2. Select each page and then select Save page to some empty directory

This puts all the images in a directory/folder called showthread.php_files.
I then fired up Picasa and let it find the new image files.
I selected the new images and told Picasa to make an html page.

This creates a number of files under the specified directory which can be opened in a browser.
Problem is ordering the images. I've tried alphabetical order but it mixes up images from different posts. Date order doesn't work too well either as it relies on the date the images were downloaded to my system - all done in less than a minute.

I've done this on my website which is accessible at http://cnc.turkeys.net.au/HSM/

If this contravenes any forum rules or if anyone has a problem with this being posted, let me know and I'll delete it

[darryl]

Amongst other things of greater importance, I managed to more or less complete the follower rest I had contemplated building.










All pretty much self-explanatory. The last image shows the jaws opened to handle a 2 inch diameter workpiece. The bearings are shown bolted on to what would be the right side of the jaws, which puts the bearings inline with the support plate. If I re-mount the bearings on the left side of the jaws, they will open up to take a 3-1/2 inch diameter workpiece.

I went through a careful procedure to ensure that the bearings both touch the workpiece at the same time when the jaws are adjusted, and would do so for any workpiece diameter. The realization of that was done by adjusting the angle that the sliding piece makes on the support plate. It looks like 45, and it's very close to that, but those numbers are meaningless here- it's the final positioning that makes it all work. I won't go into all the details at this point because it's quite involved.

If anyone is interested in this project, I'll elaborate in another thread.

[Black_Moons]

Looks cool, please make another thread about it. seriously, blog extensively about it. Im personaly intrested in hearing how well it works in real work trials.

How do you 'lock' it into position anyway? One side you have bolts and the other side you have.. screws? Where did the nut go? lol.

[knudsen]

some negative rake insert holders made from 5/8" keystock.

I've got keystock, what am I doing buying tool holders? Thanks for the tip.

[Tim The Grim]

Most of these were my apprentice projects in my first stamping shop back in '76'
The idea was to have modular blocks with small vees and cranks to turn punches and pilots for tiny electronic preform stamping tools. All those small holes are tapped 10-32 the larger holes are straight through.
I did the micrometer frame and bench block there too. A photo of a setup with the blocks in my vice is shown.
The blocks and vice were all made from a 4x4x24 bar of mild steel that was used as a clamp to hold a split extrusion die together. The heater broke and the die blew apart so I got the steel for my project.
They were case hardened to an .060 case at Benedict-Miller in Lyndhurst NJ and then frozen for a month before grinding. That's what my mentor wanted.

The Improved 3R type Wire EDM vee block which is made from Stavax ESR and the mini vee block for a Harig type fixture, I did about 10 years ago when I still ran wires.

The lathe tool and two cutters were from my first tool room job in '73.
The two cutters got me a dollar raise when the job I made them for was a success. Unfortunately they got my trainer fired 'cause he had botched the job previously and then my ideas worked.
The lathe tool can work in either a lantern style or an Aloris type

Thanks to BillDaCatt for helping get my pictures sized right. Achhphhhfflrrrbbtt !!!

Thanks too all who posted their pics too.

[BillDaCatt]

Most of these were my apprentice projects in my first stamping shop back in '76'
The idea was to have modular blocks with small vees and cranks to turn punches and pilots for tiny electronic preform stamping tools. I did the micrometer frame and bench block there too. A photo of a setup with the blocks in my vice is shown.

The Improved 3R type Wire EDM vee block and mini vee block for a Harig type fixture I did about 10 years ago when I still ran wires.

The lathe tool and two cutters were from my first tool room job in '73.
The two cutters got me a dollar raise when the job I made them for was a success. Unfortunately they got my trainer fired 'cause he had botched the job previously and then my ideas worked.

I'm just not sure why the pictures came out so small.
Here's a link to the gallery.

http://s851.photobucket.com/albums/ab78/TimTheGrim/Shop%20Made%20Tools/

Thanks too all who posted their pics too.

Tim,
It seems you copied the Thumbnail Code rather than the IMG Code from Photobucket. It's very easy to do and I have done it myself. If you go back and edit your post and remove just the "tn_" from the filenames of each picture they will show up normal size. In other words you would change th_cutters.jpg to cutters.jpg and do the same for the other picture names.

I have modified your picture code in my quote of your post so you can see the result and I am also including a copy of the code if you want to just copy and replace to make it simple.

Hope that helps. I'll remove my changes after you have edited your post.

Edit: Glad to see you got it working. The original quote is now back to normal. I'll leave the instructions to help others in need. - BDC

[BillDaCatt]

Tim,
Apparently any IMG code counts as a picture even if it is enclosed in [CODE] tags so I had to post the IMG Code in this post.

Note: it seems the the code box does not work properly so I'll do this differently. I've posted the code below but I had to break it with some spaces in each [IMG] tag so that you would be able to see it. Just remove those spaces and you will be good to go.

[ IMG]http://i851.photobucket.com/albums/ab78/TimTheGrim/Shop%20Made%20Tools/blocksetc.jpg[/IMG][ IMG]http://i851.photobucket.com/albums/ab78/TimTheGrim/Shop%20Made%20Tools/visevee.jpg[/IMG][ IMG]http://i851.photobucket.com/albums/ab78/TimTheGrim/Shop%20Made%20Tools/setup.jpg[/IMG][ IMG]http://i851.photobucket.com/albums/ab78/TimTheGrim/Shop%20Made%20Tools/cutters.jpg[/IMG]

[Kirbot]

Earlier in the topic somebody posted about using a carbide circular saw blade for a cut-off tool, (sorry I can't remember who,and I dont feel like looking through close to 50 pages again to find out.)

Just wanted to say, Brilliant!
I just made one and tried it out on aluminum and it works great! And the best part? There Free!
Thanks for a great idea.

[Hal]

I think it was John Stevens that post the pic of "the cut off saw blade".

I wonder why one of the small 3 1/2"-4" battery powered finish saw blade wouldn't work. Use the whole blade and just rotate to a new tooth when needed.

Hal

[Ron of Va]

I think it was John Stevens that post the pic of "the cut off saw blade".

I wonder why one of the small 3 1/2"-4" battery powered finish saw blade wouldn't work. Use the whole blade and just rotate to a new tooth when needed.

Hal

Posted by "Peter" post#328 page 33

http://bbs.homeshopmachinist.net/showthread.php?t=39202&page=33

[Kirbot]

Thanks Peter!

I cut the blade with an angle grinder. You might even be able to do it with a hacksaw. I dont know, old all steel saw blades are to hard for that but the carbide ones might be a little softer.

Using a whole small blade is an interesting idea. I have a small blade kicking around somewhere, I'm not sure if its small enough but if it is I'll give it a try.

[darryl]

I haven't yet run across a saw blade that couldn't be cut with an ordinary bandsaw blade or hacksaw.

I've made a few cutters using just that process- in fact I just found an old saw blade that had several segments taken out of it. I've made cutoff blades from them, and also left and right hand turning tools. Problem is there's too much side to side flex, so if you control that appropriately you can end up with a pretty good cutting tool. The way I did it, I ended up with some back rake on the carbide piece, and they are ground already with side rake, so the only contouring I ever did was to create the threading cutter I tried. That was sort of hit and miss, as the tip likes to break off easily. With room to run out at the end of the thread, this would be less of a problem.

When I cut the segments out of the saw blade, I made sure the resulting blade segment would fit my toolpost and automatically place the cutting edge at center height, while at the same time giving a back rake angle on the carbide piece. Then I just put a pair of screws through the side of the blade into a chunk of steel that mounts in the toolpost. The hold-down screws touch both the blade segment and the steel piece, so the blade can't rock or become loose, and the side screws don't have to take the cutting forces.

Here's an idea that I had, but haven't yet tried- making a thread cutting disc using blade segments that would be driven by something like a tool post grinder. This would then be milling the threads. The cutter disc was to be made from two pieces of blade, and silver soldered together into a disc with two cutting chips on it. This was the original use in mind when I built my tp grinder, but it ended up that the blade I was using at the time needed more power and rigidity than my setup had. I did build in a way to angle the shaft with the cutter on it to the helix angle of the thread being cut so the thread would be right. Hmm, there's a project I should get back to again- it should work quite well, especially in brass or aluminum.

[Kirbot]

I looked for that small blade I mentioned, it was to big to use and it wasn't carbide anyway. Oh well
I tried cutting out another tool with a hacksaw and it cut like butter.

[knudsen]

This one again is not rocket surgery. But it sure makes a small QCTP and heck of a lot easier for us 11 fingered people. Actually the QCTP came to me with some of the knurled nuts unusable. Several were drilled at quite an angle making them impossible to use, and one was drilled off center making it annoying to use. I didn't want to hassle with shipping stuff back and forth since I had the materials and was just looking for an excuse to try a black oxide finish. Here they are:



The good:

The bad and ugly:

Couldn't increase diameter, but it seemed the taller I made them, the easier they were to use. Notice the girlscout knurling on the Chinese nut and the rather manly knurling on mine. LOL