Shop Made Tools

[davidwdyer]

Ipé wood is also very hard and I machine it. Sometimes use it in place of aluminum.

[Cenedd]

Oooo beautiful wood work! That is a skill I never really had....

Yes you do, you're just trying to think about it like a woodworker when you're a metalworker. Get yourself a nice hard wood (preferably one that has no known toxicity/allergy issues - check on The Wood Database by searching for the wood in the top right corner) and treat it like aluminium. I like Mopane as it's hard, looks nice and machines beautifully. Aluminium profile as it's sharper. Mill it, flycut it. As long as you can get it out of a single block, it's all familiar. If not, you're into the dark art of joinery but even then you can cheat with glue, screws or pins. Do make sure you've got some form of dust extraction or respirator though as the saw dust is liable to get you in the end otherwise.
I can't tell from the picture whether Roger's is one piece or a tray added in but it's much nicer than any of the options I've seen lately!

I need to find a way to store my ER collets, right now they simply sit out on the bench.

I want to do something nicer but my current stop-gap is a pair of round icecube trays (rectangular trays, round icecubes) someone on here (I believe) recommended. One's a bit flimsy but nested they work. Not perfect but a lot better than they were until I 'get round to it'!

[nickel-city-fab]

Oooo beautiful wood work! That is a skill I never really had.... up here we get humidity too, jammed in between the Great Lakes with a west wind. Camphor is the oldest trick in the book, and very effective. I need to find a way to store my ER collets, right now they simply sit out on the bench.

[rcaffin]

There is a problem with such holders, at least here in Sydney, Aus. If the humidity is medium-high, you can get a slight amount of moisture building up between the collet and the holder, and over time that becomes rust. Very distressing, and much effort needed to remove it safely.

I ended up with a more conventional 'rack' for the collets, made of hardwood and enclosed in a box also made of hardwood, with a clear plastic lid (well, moderately clear, as it was second-hand). Yes, wood could get damp too, but not when it has been soaked in oil! And I keep a block of camphor inside the box to further prevent any rust. The combination seems to work. ER25 set plus ER11 set.

Getting the sticky labels to 'stick' to the oily wood was the hard part!



Cheers
Roger

[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.

[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]

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.

[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.

[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.

[lynnl]

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

Wasn't this a Sticky at one time?

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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