Shop Made Tools

[bborr01]

Gary,

She's a little beauty, nice work! Would you mind sharing some construction details? I happen to have a few unused heads from a Lockformer power sheetmetal notching machine which would make good frames for such a unit. The throats aren't real deep, but for the right kind of work they might be perfect. What do you make with yours?

Bob

Bob,

You beat me to it.

Nice work on the hammers Gary. I'm just not sure what they are used for.

Any examples of work you have done on them?

[camdigger]

I couldn't believe the claims of a sheet metal brake with no length limit. http://www.wuko.at/english/pdf/wukobenderfamily.pdf

Turns out it's a crimper style bender that uses ball bearings. An afternoon in the shop and a waltz through the "inventory" and presto!



Seems to work.

[S_J_H]

I built this portable mill/drill head from a old drill press and mini lathe DC motor. Similar to Evans.
I tossed the original mt2 spindle and machined a new spindle which accepts 3/8" shank tooling.
It uses a variable speed DC drive, has 2.5" of quill travel and better bearings and works real well.



Steve

[John Stevenson]

Just an update post with a couple of pictures.

My bed stop.



Nothing fancy and I didn't even make it, just two pieces that were laying about.

My chuck back stops.



The lower one is for the TOS and the upper one for the CVA / 10EE clone.
Just a short taper to fit the spindle and a long length of studding that goes all the way thru.
This allows to to adjust the lengths to suit various jobs without having to remove the chuck to get access.

You can screw larger stops onto the end if needed.

.

[John Stevenson]

Cheating a bit here as I didn't make these but got them in China but I'm sure they are imported.



Bending breaks to fit a vise, they have magnets fitted in the back so they stick on the vise and don't fall off. Made in sections so you can bend closed boxes [ never done that ] but so quick and handy and easy to replicate from the pic and this one of the rear.



Very useful tool.

.

[gfphoto]

So far only one holder.



Gary

[gary hart]

Gary,

She's a little beauty, nice work! Would you mind sharing some construction details? I happen to have a few unused heads from a Lockformer power sheetmetal notching machine which would make good frames for such a unit. The throats aren't real deep, but for the right kind of work they might be perfect. What do you make with yours?

Bob

Bob, I'm not sure what a sheetmetal notching machine is. The throat don't necessarily need to be deep. The hammer dies can be on an angle and usually are, so long work can miss the frame. Guessing your talking about the bigger hammer. This was build using the Kinyon plans as a starter and changed as found metal at the local scrap yard. Frame is 7/8" thick steel and base for the hammer die is 6" round shaft. Plans for the Coleman controls was figured out from looking at You Tube video's

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vfnqb48fSiQ

Small hammer is a Stuart Model and about the most it can do is crack walnuts.

Only have used hammer for one project and that was making some trestles for a nephew. Half-inch hot roll was flattened on ends for some fake leaves and textured a little. Sections of pipe were drawn down for taper and welded together.

[bborr01]

Step Mic

Stepping back a few decades, I went to look at a set of B+S micrometers.

1-3 inch in a velvet lined case. Carbide tip tenth mics. $75 in new condition.

What a bargain, even for a starter apprentice. Still got em.

The retiree I bought them from also gave me a Starrett 0-2 inch micrometer barrel.

I brought it into work and had no idea what to use it for.

One of the journeymen suggested I make a step mic.

He had a factory made one, I believe a B+S.

I used this one more times than I could count. It was especially nice on a blanchard grinder. Didn't even need to turn the magnet off.
Just clean off an area next to the workpiece and stick it down. To remove it, just bump it sideways and pick it up.

I also made a plate for the bottom but don't remember ever using it.

Brian

[gary hart]

Told the wife, no need to go to the dentist. I can take care of that tooth.

Slide hammer welded to Vise-Grips. Could work for other hard to grip things also.

[vpt]

Finally got my unimat and made a mount for it.

[Marc M]

I liked the idea of the "Zero-Set" style indicator holder and thought it would be a fun project:


For my small lathe, I initially bought a set of Chinese 12" calipers to use as a 'poor man's' DRO. I wanted to make them fast and easy to install and remove so I came up with a cam-lock style mount for the way and a simple block mounted to the carriage and a thumbscrew to retain caliper.


I wasn't really happy with the calipers. The primary drawback is the slow rate that the display updates at. It forces me to slow the feed way down at the end of a pass so I don't accidentally pass the stop point before the display updates which is undesirable for a number of reasons. It's worth noting that both of my Mitutoyo's displays update faster than I can detect. Because of that, plus the ability to interpolate between divisions and judge the distance remaining until the end of the cut, I prefer using an analog dial indicator anytime the work is within it's range (2"). This is my take on a dial indicator holder for the lathe. It's based on the same cam-lock design I used for the caliper mount. Just snap it over the way and turn the knob to lock it in place. It only takes a couple of seconds to install and remove, yet it's rock solid:


Back when I was a machine operator, one of the parts I ran had a bunch of chamfers that had to be measured regularly. The majority were spec'd for depth rather than diameter. The quality department procedure described the use of the depth rod on a pair of calipers. This was not only clumsy and time consuming, it was not very accurate. I searched the internet for weeks looking for a gauge designed to measure depth, but only found gauges designed for diameter. So I designed this:


Measurements were far more accurate, repeatable and took a fraction of the time.

[Timleech]

Stepping back a few decades, I went to look at a set of B+S micrometers.

1-3 inch in a velvet lined case. Carbide tip tenth mics. $75 in new condition.

What a bargain, even for a starter apprentice. Still got em.

The retiree I bought them from also gave me a Starrett 0-2 inch micrometer barrel.

I brought it into work and had no idea what to use it for.

One of the journeymen suggested I make a step mic.

He had a factory made one, I believe a B+S.

I used this one more times than I could count. It was especially nice on a blanchard grinder. Didn't even need to turn the magnet off.
Just clean off an area next to the workpiece and stick it down. To remove it, just bump it sideways and pick it up.

I also made a plate for the bottom but don't remember ever using it.

Brian

Can I borrow that today please?

I'm grinding some piston rings to thickness, it would save a lot of messing about.

I'll add it to my list of 'that'll be handy to make when I've nothing pressing'

Tim

[EVguru]

For my small lathe, I initially bought a set of Chinese 12" calipers to use as a 'poor man's' DRO. I wanted to make them fast and easy to install and remove so I came up with a cam-lock style mount for the way and a simple block mounted to the carriage and a thumbscrew to retain caliper.

I wasn't really happy with the calipers. The primary drawback is the slow rate that the display updates at. It forces me to slow the feed way down at the end of a pass so I don't accidentally pass the stop point before the display updates which is undesirable for a number of reasons.

There are some hidden modes in those Chinese scales that can be selected via the data port. One of them is a fast update.

http://www.shumatech.com/support/chinese_scales.htm

[Bob Farr]

Bob, I'm not sure what a sheetmetal notching machine is. The throat don't necessarily need to be deep. The hammer dies can be on an angle and usually are, so long work can miss the frame. ***
Small hammer is a Stuart Model and about the most it can do is crack walnuts.***

Thanks for the info Gary. Lockformer is a brand name and here's a link to what the multi-head sheetmetal tooling is normally used for:

http://www.lockformer.com/products/power_notching_machines/

Here's a picture of an individual head. They are cast-iron, fairly rigid, about 30-lbs, with the top and bottom plates already tapped for attaching dies or mounts of any type. The lower end has a recessed "fork" so that punched out slugs can pass through it. I have four, and I think they'll be very versatile backbones for something like a minature version of your hammer.

Thanks for sharing the links for the pnumatic control system. I've thought of setting up my frames for planishing work using a re-purposed air hammer. A frame for a ring-roller setup also comes to mind. Riviter, edge flanging, automated CNC thumb crusher: lots of possibilities!

Bob

[John Stevenson]

Soft jaws

I use soft jaws a lot to hold special parts and / or parts that need to be very true that collets etc can't hold.

Soft jaws are used a lot in industry but have the reputation of being for one job, long runs and the home shop guy doesn't usually do these or they are put of by repeatedly having to turn away what is basically a good set of jaws.

So how about a set that can be used for one off, delicate work of all sizes ?



Typical one piece soft jaw lying on the bed, not expensive to buy when compared to the price of hard jaws which are often 95% the price of a new chuck.

These have had a tenon machined on them and 3 tapped holes with counterbores put in, you can see these in the second pic better.

The jaws are juts lump of large hexagon from the skip of a firm that makes big hydraulic fittings, faced to length, bored clearance and the same counterbore put in then 3 grooves to match the tenons machined across each face. Last job is a small tubular dowel is loctited into the jaw.



Better pic showing the build up, now you need to stamp the number of the jaw all the way round the hexagon and then stamp 1 to 6 on each point. These are to help setup and also you can keep a sheet of screw positions and hex numbers to suit jobs that crop up often.

Going back to the first picture you can get two and even three lives out of each point so that can give you a minimum of 18 positions and if you can get 3 lives , a maximum of 54 holding combinations from one set of jaws.

They will close up to virtually nothing for small jobs and open out for large if you use the outer set of screws. because they stand out a fair bit from the chuck face you can get deep items in and also items with bits sticking out like thermostat housings.

They are not too hard to make and surprisingly versatile, i keep mine setup in a chuck all the while as on my TOS it's easier to change chucks than jaws.



Some of the chucks for the TOS.

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