Shop Made Tools

[rcaffin]

Caution: using a diamond wheel on steel is not a good idea. The steel (iron) absorbs the carbon from the diamonds and degrades the wheel.
Yeah, seriously. Save the diamond for carbide tooling.
If you want to work on steel, you will need CBN: cubic boron nitride, instead. You can get almost identical wheels in CBN from ebay. It does HSS steel very nicely. Go softly.
I made my own T&C grinder, and use both diamond and CBN.

Cheers
Roger

[ezduzit]

C--looks very useful.

[Cenedd]

Finally something that fits the category! I saw a Joe Pieczynski video a while back on diamond grinding HSS on a mill. Obviously that went in my shopping basket and obviously I've done nothing with it for the last 18 months. Now, I've bought myself a nice set of 8 chisels for a project and standards aren't what they were in the 70's (when the other two 'identical' chisels I've got were made) and the backs need a LOT of flattening. It's still taking too long even on a 120 micron diamond plate (that's approx 140 grit). I know there are shortcuts involving a tiny back bevel but partly I want these as perfect as I can get them - they have sort of inherited sentimental value as they replace the missing ones out of my dad's set - and partly the back is so bad that one entire corner is unusable as is. Clearly the overkill solution would be a surface grinder....and I did look! There was even one of the mythical bench size variety available...but collection only from three hours drive away....and it's been very difficult to get fuel here in the UK for the last week of so. It would have needed work anyway as it looked like it was someone's self-build project. So I suddenly remembered I had this resin-bonded diamond wheel that just needed an arbor. One chunk of EN8 (roughly 1040 equivalent) later and here we go. Turned the shank first and then held that in the 20mm collet that it'll be running in to do the other side.



Runout was....far from what I'd hoped it'd be. I'm not sure how much was my failure and how much was in the wheel but it clocked in at 0.3mm on the outside of the cone and the edge of the flat at the bottom. So I just chucked the whole lot back up in the lathe and trued it inside and out - the arbor's dedicated to this tool anyway so it won't be coming back off.




There shall be some unimportant test piece tried first, of course....and much covering of things shall be done first
What grit is it? Well, I guess we're going to find out as it's unspecified. Could be about 200-ish as other "D12A2" wheels seem to be. Gotta give these things a try.....even if it's just to find out that they don't work!

[Bruno Mueller]

I made a little video about the possibilities of the Bosch-Combi lathe.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5xJEtpNKyQI&t=177s

[Cenedd]

Think I found the video. https://youtu.be/AZkP1uiMzJk?t=156
I'm sure there's been a follow up with more info on stops but it gives you the gist Also found a blog post on the mini pallet: http://oxtool.blogspot.com/2012/12/c...nists.html?m=1
Hope it's of some help/interest. Plenty of other interesting/useful stuff on his channel too.

[Cenedd]

I'm about to make this simple tool but wanted some opinions before building it.

You might want to have a browse through Tom Lipton's YouTube channel Ox Tools as I'm sure he's done just this using a mini pallet. The key point in his design was a stop to prevent over-rotation - partly to prevent taking a chunk out the face you don't want to damage and partly for safety if it grabs. Mini pallet is definitely on my round toit list - for the rotary table mainly.

[Dave94Lightning]

I'm about to make this simple tool but wanted some opinions before building it. It is an idea I had for a simple radius cutter for some aluminum axle blocks that I fabricate on my mill. The jig would be plastic (3D printed) with an aluminum locating Pin and Aluminum handle. The bottom of the locating pin would be placed in the vise jaws and thus allow the jig to be rotated horizontally via the handle. The part to be cut (Blue) would be placed in the jig and the handle rotated to allow the endmill to cut the radius. Let me know if you think this would work well.

[Dan Dubeau]

Here's something a little different. A swing weight scale I just finished last night.





While I know it's a stretch to be included in this thread, It is a tool, and I did make it in my shop .

For those who don't know what it is, it's a scale to measure the "heft" or "swing weight" of a golf club. This is a copy of Dave Tutelman's design with a few changes to suit material I had on hand. All the design and engineering info can be found here if you're interested. he can explain it much better than I can. https://www.tutelman.com/golf/measur...eightScale.php

This all started because I told my (6'5") Nephew I'd build him a set of golf clubs to fit his height. While researching I learned that if you extend clubs, you must counterweight them to maintain the same swing weight. Well, how can I maintain swing weight if I can't measure it*......so here we are.... I also machined a mold to pour lead counterweights. Don't have a pic of it, but will take some when I pour the weights. Hoping to have the club build wrapped up this weekend. Next build is a loft/lie machine to check and bend clubs. It's a slippery slope I tell ya. But it's fun.

*There are other ways to measure swing weight, but none as fun and time consuming as building a specialized tool for it. One way is here https://www.hirekogolf.com/golf-club...ght-calculator

[pensioner]

Noitoen thanks for the idea!
I have already made such a demagnetizer, just now, I just cut off the magnetic core a little, added a switch and placed it in the body of the old adapter. Works

[Noitoen]

The other day I needed to use two wrenches to tighten a bolt holding a part onto my faceplate so I grabbed a wrench out of my tool box to use in conjunction with the one I keep right at the lath. I set it down in the swarf tray and when I picked it up, it was fuzzy with chips! Somewhere the darn thing had gotten magnetized. Don't know where, don't know when, but it was a PITA. I really do not like anything magnetized around my lathe or mill.

Newer washing machine pumps have a "U" core with 1 coil and a magnetic rotor inside a plastic housing without shaft seals. If you remove the rotor housing, you are left with the bare core with a slight gap. This makes a very good demagnetizer.

[Arcane]

The other day I needed to use two wrenches to tighten a bolt holding a part onto my faceplate so I grabbed a wrench out of my tool box to use in conjunction with the one I keep right at the lath. I set it down in the swarf tray and when I picked it up, it was fuzzy with chips! Somewhere the darn thing had gotten magnetized. Don't know where, don't know when, but it was a PITA. I really do not like anything magnetized around my lathe or mill.

[rcaffin]

Oil on the metal items will soak into the wood holders and never dry. This is fine. But said oil also holds onto dust and grit. So it's wise to finish the wood in a drying oil such as boiled linseed or . . .
Ah yes, sand and dust. Sadly, I have that.
But I avoid most of that with the plastic lid. I wipe the collet when I take it out of the box and before I put it back. That seems to work fine.

With Australian hardwoods, which are not highly absorbent, I prefer to have an unfinished surface, loose oil and a slightly loose fit for the holes.

Cheers
Roger

[Cenedd]

I like the idea of the embedded magnets with non magnetic surrounding. That way the chips that stick to the magnets allow the swarf to be wiped away off the sides. Otherwise I don't like to use magnets around my machines due to the difficulties in keep them clean.

I can see how it might work if you're only doing aluminium (or exclusively anything non-magnetic) but I think I'll pass. Slowly trying to get rind of anything magnetic that I eagerly put in previously. Partly I do steels and as BCRider says, it causes a right pain....but also everything you have ends up magnetised. Softjaws held onto the vise with magnets? Magnetised hacksaw blade covered in swarf. I think the mag-bars that I (try!) to keep my regular use spanners (like collet holder and clampdown nut sizes) on will stay but the softjaws got replaced by a high-infill PETG print that slides on from the end of the jaw and wraps around four sides of it to stay in place.

[BCRider]

I like the idea of the embedded magnets with non magnetic surrounding. That way the chips that stick to the magnets allow the swarf to be wiped away off the sides. Otherwise I don't like to use magnets around my machines due to the difficulties in keep them clean.

[Dave94Lightning]

Aw Dave, what are you doing to my 'when I get round to it' list?! You've set the bar pretty high too. Have you thought about adding some sides to the top face so that the things you probably shouldn't be putting down on the table, but do, don't roll off? The screw heads might already be enough, but just a thought.

Haha. My list is super long too. The prior versions of the table covers I built were 3D printed plastic with Inset neodymium magnets that held the covers to the mill table. The power of the magnets would hold any endmills, collets or tooling that I placed on the table very securely. It works really well having the extra magnetized workspace and since I only really Mill aluminum it didn't create a mess.