Shop Made Tools

[Bruno Mueller]

Size comparison with the original lathe chuck.




Lathe chuck fitted on the Bosch lathe.

[Dan Krager]

New to this site and have learned greatly from this thread. Thank you to all for sharing. Lifelong woodworker venturing into metal with a fairly well equipped metal shop for small stuff. Question: some posts refer to photos but they do not seem to be present. I wasn't logged in at the time. Do I have to be logged in to see the "missing" photos? I see all the Photobucket stuff and many that are not. Thanks in advance for guidance. I have a few things to share here as I get better at this site.

[Bob Engelhardt]

... Do I have to be logged in to see the "missing" photos? ...

Yes

[Dan Krager]

Thank you, Bob. Here is a Rube Goldberg setup I used to make the aluminum base for a wood lathe Longworth chuck. (not pictured because it's wood!). I have it set up on a vintage Fox Supershop. The chuck on the indexer wouldn't open far enough and the jaws don't seem to be reversible, hence the double chuck routine. This was for me a milestone transition project....my first (relatively) precise venture into machining in spite of having much of the tooling. My "training" consists of 3 years of watching expert machinists where I worked as a computer programmer. There wasn't room for the X-Y table so positioning was the "loose bolt" method. Only one position was needed for the ring of holes. I loved using that old indexer...the math is intriguing to a math major. The plate itself and the dovetail mounting step (for a Nova woodturners chuck) on the back was done with (ahem) woodworking tools. The fun part of being this ignorant is not knowing it can't be done this way.

[Dan Krager]

I'm continuing my education by going through this thread slowly, but even after being logged in I can't seem to see some pictures. For example, I'm sure post #234 has a picture but I can't see it.

DanK

[Toolguy]

Welcome to the Forums, Dan! I think you'll like it here. Most (not all) of metalworking math is the usual +,-, x, and divide (don't know how to type that symbol), and a goodly amount of trig and geometry. You will likely find out anything you want to know here. We have some very capable (and culpable) forum members. Some of the pictures have been lost over time. We will never get those back.

[BCRider]

Welcome Aboard Dan!

A lot of the missing pictures from the early part of the thread were hosted at Photobucket by a lot of us. And when they drove us out with their sudden attempt at a cash grab a lot, like I did, deleted our accounts along with the pictures. But sadly it left the old threads like this with no pictures.

[Joel]

Plus - some of the pictures were on the posters own servers, and some of those people have left the forum (like Evan, who posted a LOT of pictures). Others have died.
The pictures can now be hosted on/by the forum itself (but still, not everybody does that), so the problem should be greatly reduced going forward.

[nickel-city-fab]

I just wanted to say "thanks" for bringing this thread back up to the top. It's the reason why I joined in the first place.

[lynnl]

...... "thanks" for bringing this thread back up to the top. .

Wasn't this a Sticky at one time?

[nickel-city-fab]

Wasn't this a Sticky at one time?

Yeah, there was a big debate about unsticking it. Some people didn't appreciate having to trawl through thousands of posts to find the one they wanted. As for myself, I tend to read everything from start to finish, so this was a non-issue.

[Dave94Lightning]

Surprised I'm not seeing more 3D printed stuff as this thread enters the 21st century. It's really useful for work holding or positioning jigs for irregular shaped workpieces etc... Here's a quick Collet turntable I designed because I was tired of having them laying all over my mill table.

[Cenedd]

Surprised I'm not seeing more 3D printed stuff as this thread enters the 21st century. It's really useful for work holding or positioning jigs for irregular shaped workpieces etc

Also good for prototyping things so you know you haven't had some sort of brain-fart with the design of the dimensions. Nice. Might have to adapt your idea of the R8 collet holder for ER32's. Have seen R8 racks like that and have been 3D printing.....but haven't put the two things together yet.

[reggie_obe]

Surprised I'm not seeing more 3D printed stuff as this thread enters the 21st century. It's really useful for work holding or positioning jigs for irregular shaped workpieces etc... Here's a quick Collet turntable I designed because I was tired of having them laying all over my mill table.

What's the life expectancy of the plastic? Is it affected by: temperature. moisture, UV?
I'd hate to see my 5V or B&S #9 collets which aren't made anymore dumped on the floor due to plastic degradation..

[Cenedd]

What's the life expectancy of the plastic? Is it affected by: temperature. moisture, UV?
I'd hate to see my 5V or B&S #9 collets which aren't made anymore dumped on the floor due to plastic degradation..

Depends on the material Reggie. The 'default' is PLA which is nominally biodegradable....but isn't unless you stick it in an industrial composter apparently. PLA is fast to print, rigid (also a bit brittle) and cheap. PETG is a bit tougher and also less rigid - but the bit of flex in it can also be useful. You can also print ABS but it can be a bit noxious so you really need extraction and also it prefers being enclosed as temp changes can make it warp and then the layers can come apart. Plenty other engineering plastics like nylon and carbon fibre laced stuff for strength. I suspect that a lot of what we're printing will still be around long after we're gone....which is both good and bad.