Shop Made Tools

[madwilliamflint]

Scratch built lathe and power tapper - both really nice projects !!! Thanks for posting guys ! [:-)

I'd love to see pics of those if you've got 'em. This would sure be a great thread for it :-)

UPDATE: Whups. Sorry about that. My brain is positively poached this week.

[Ron of Va]

I didn’t have any brushes on my band saw, so I made a holder out of a piece of aluminum and a couple of old toothbrushes. They are held in place with rare earth magnets.

[Ron of Va]

Aerosol can recharger.

This adapter can recharge aerosol cans. The cans with stems and those without stems can be recharged.
The O-ring seals the can at the base along with pressure from the air guns rubber tip at the top. The through hole is a couple of thousandths larger than the stem. It uses the can’s own one-way valve to keep the product inside the can; otherwise you would get a face full of product.
Simple, but effective. All the cans I have measured have the same size stem collar for the O-ring.

If I see them on ebay, I want a cut.

[BillTodd]

Mixing air with solvents etc. under pressure like that, will make a pretty effective bomb so please be careful

Bill

[Ron of Va]

You are right. I forgot to mention that you can feel the pressure of the can like a bicycle tire and you have to be careful not to over inflate. You inflate just enough to get the last bit out of a can when you need to. It doesn’t take much. I have never popped a can, but I don’t have a two stage air compressor either.

[Harvey Melvin Richards]

I won a large Noga magnetic base on Ebay. I made a bolt-on accessory base for the top and now I have a small magnetic vise farm.

[J S Machine]

Here's a small tool vise I made. I think it is S7 if I remember correctly. It has a throat depth of about 1.75".

[J S Machine]

I made this tool box in the picture and on top you can see the knurled handle. It is aluminum. The box is 300 series stainless. I bought the latches and the lock from McMaster Carr and made the rest. I have always fussed about the prices of tool storage, and one day I want to build a full roll around box with drawers. After building the smaller box, I have to say it was a complete pain in the rear qand I fully respect the R&D that goes into the major boxes you can buy in the store.. It was an experience, and I likely won't try it again. Too much work



Also, in front there is a little hammer set I made. All these have very fine knurling on the handles. The smallest one looks rough because I use it pretty often in the Wire EDMs I run at work. The handles are made from tool steel round stock - A2 or D2 probably, and they they tend to rust. Wish I would have used stainless there. I do have some with aluminum handles, but they are pretty beat up from use. The heads are brass.

[J S Machine]

Here are some other tools I found digging around this morning. Some of these are just handy for things, others were just little projects.

To the left is a fly cutter. It has about a 2" body. The body is tool steel of some sort, but untreated. I stuck in the oven at around 700 degrees I think to get the cool purple patina.

The next is a center drill holder. It is basically an aluminum body with an alluminum cap. it is supposed to house 5 center drills, 1-5. I didn't have a #1 at the time, so the #1 hole is still marked but has never been drilled, ha.

next over is a cutter I made for our CNC mill, to cut a large radius. That didn't work, by the way..it didn't do anything but a whole lot of chattering..

and last is a speed handle for a kurt vise. Works good when you have a lot of parts to take in and out of the vise. It has a 12 point socket on the inside which was turned to fit in the hole bored in the hub, and it is held by set screws. The three bolts on the outside tighten to the vise screw to hold the handle in place.

[Tony]

greets all.. sweet thread!
long time no-post, but have been checking in and reading like a bandit.
(?) -- time to contribute. in no particular order:

most often used tool i've ever made:


pictures don't do it justice.. the wood handle is pretty nice if i do say
so myself. shiny things I can't get good pictures of. O1 tool steel, 3mm
thick, scandi grind, homebrew heat treat (so far holding up well, I got lucky!)

but to make this, i needed one of these first:







used some pallet jack replacement wheels.

to be continued..

[Tony]

had a bit of a 'wood' phase, put together a router plane. no CNC.. manual
milling and lots of die / angle grinder work:





turns out aluminum leaves black marks on some woods.. added a brass
sole.

latest shop addition, hossfeld clone.. still working on tooling as I need it:



oh, since I have my pictures handy.. a chainsaw mill.. the MS290 is a little
small for this job, but so far so good:

[J S Machine]

Knucklehead: That's a neat blade grinder setup you have - as well as the knife... If you have seen some of my threads, you would not believe it if I told you but I don't have a blade grinder (a 2x72). I'm actually going to pick up a broken treadmill today to see if I can build one. A few people have used treadmill motors.

Is yours a 2x72? I can't tell from the pics. What kind of drive system do you have?

I have no idea what I am going to use for a contact wheel, other than buying one, but I would like to have one 10+" in dia. to do hollow grinds that look almost flat. I just really don't want to spend the money that contact wheels bring..

I've seen people make the smaller ones out of alluminum hubs wrapped in pieces of radiator hose. That seems to work well.

I'll be building mine soon, I'm excited about it.

[Tony]

love this picture.. lesson: always wear a face shield.



the drive wheel is a rubber coated 3" wheel i scavanged from an import
benchtop belt grinder. ditto for the aluminum tracking wheel. i have an 8" contact wheel, too..
all the wheels are replacement wheels for pallet jacks.
urethane, aluminum hub, and two bearings for only a few bucks a wheel.

yes it handles 72" belts. local weld shop only had short belts at the time
and thats whats on there.. maybe a 48"?

the drive is a big motor hanging on a pivot, two belts,
two pillow blocks. i hope you can see them in the picture.

for what its worth a belt grinder has been the best addition to my hobby.
my traditional grinder sees very little use and one wheel is now (finally)
dedicated only to tungsten grinding.

[J S Machine]

Do you have variable speed, or is it just fixed speed?

That's the reason I'm after the treadmill motor. After running everything at one speed I am about to get sick of it. I really want the versatility of being able to change speed.

They sell step pulley kits to change speeds, but those are just aggravating in my honest opinion.

Another blacksmith Gentleman I know sells the motors and variable speed setups for the best prices I have found anywhere. He charges $448.00 for the variable speed and the 1.5 three phase motor is $225.32. That is still almost $700 for the variable speed drive unit, and that is if you have 3 phase. A phase converter would cost you more..He also sells single phase motors, but you can't use a variable speed with them and are stuck with step pulleys.

So where do you get the pallet jack wheels? Do you have a link or a source?

[Tony]

fixed speed but have a stepped pulley.
I don't recall the speed but it was selected based
on belt manufacturer recommended.

No link/source for the wheels, picked them up at a local
industrial supply. McMaster has some for about $35.
Mine were probably 1/2 that price.. most likely "import"

Mcmaster also sells contact wheels but they're spendy.