Tool Forum

[DSS]

Not too bad...$50.00
I'd have more in it than that in materials and time.

Yup. I wouldn't build that for $50. I made one out of a piece of angle iron, but methinks yours is easier to use.:msp_smile:

 

[little possum]

I had a drawing of that tool somewhere... Need to get ours built. Gotta prioritze and get the 044 rebuilt!

But nice tool ALE!

 

[Philbert]

Shop Rag Tip

If you work in a shop with a uniform/laundry service you probably get your shop towels (rags) from them and send them back. It is actually amazing how clean they can get those things. Small timers use rags from old clothes, etc. Sometimes, they get so greasy or messed up that they are just thrown away afterwards. If it is mostly dirt, sometimes they can be washed and re-used.

I have a tip learned from a friend to help get them a little cleaner without a lot of special effort.

When I have these rags, really dirty work clothes, or 'dog towels' (old towels used to wipe muddy paws) I put them in a plastic bucket in the laundry tub and let the sudsy water and the rinse water from the washing machine run through it a few times, letting everything 'pre-soak'. I might leave them in there a day or two, before running them through the washing machine. It's free, because I am just using the water and detergent from other laundry, which is always cleaner than this stuff.

The only 'trick' is to make sure that they don't clog the laundry tub drain and get water all over the floor.

Philbert

 

[promac850]

If you work in a shop with a uniform/laundry service you probably get your shop towels (rags) from them and send them back. It is actually amazing how clean they can get those things. Small timers use rags from old clothes, etc. Sometimes, they get so greasy or messed up that they are just thrown away afterwards. If it is mostly dirt, sometimes they can be washed and re-used.

I have a tip learned from a friend to help get them a little cleaner without a lot of special effort.

When I have these rags, really dirty work clothes, or 'dog towels' (old towels used to wipe muddy paws) I put them in a plastic bucket in the laundry tub and let the sudsy water and the rinse water from the washing machine run through it a few times, letting everything 'pre-soak'. I might leave them in there a day or two, before running them through the washing machine. It's free, because I am just using the water and detergent from other laundry, which is always cleaner than this stuff.

The only 'trick' is to make sure that they don't clog the laundry tub drain and get water all over the floor.

Philbert

Find any more magnetic parts dishes?

 

[promac850]

Went out to the barn to tinker around some more... got that big old B&D grinder working again. A couple weeks ago, I picked up some JB Weld... finally got around to 'welding' the slide plate back together yesterday, and today I got the trigger assembly back together and put into the grip... some wire hookup and a few screw turns later, the beast spun right up when I hit the trigger... sounds and feels very mean... I don't think I'll be running anything like a wire wheel on this thing... only a solid grinding wheel. Will have to get a pic of it later.


Also spent all of about 20 seconds looking at the scrap aluminum and came up with a way to use it... hey, I made a dial indicator mount! Someday I will have to weld something onto the little allen bolts to allow easy tightening and loosening for adjustment... not logical nor safe to weld in the barn right now, there's crap everywhere.

Also tore into the old Curtis LB 303 compressor... turns out there is nothing wrong with the bore (yay!) or anything like that... it was stuck due to the bearings (Babbits, I presume?) that the crank rides on were stuck to the crank. Possibly just from sitting. No damage to the crank or any of the other major parts. I used a cold chisel and a hammer to spread the bearings apart a little so they would free up. Worked like a charm.

It'll need some more work, mostly cleaning and some new gaskets, before I even attempt to run it...

Yes, that's three piston rings... each one is about 1/4" thick. Bet it has very little leak down when it's pumping up air.



Here are some of the handful of parts off of that Traub screw machine I babbled about earlier... a bunch of gears (extras of different tooth count are supplied to change speeds of the spindle, etc.) I'm trying to decide whether I need to keep them or not... maybe make a gear drive belt sander and a mini lathe and some other stuff?

 

[promac850]

Went back out and tinkered around, and found a 1/4 hp electric motor with a 1/2" shaft that the big buffing wheel would fit on... so I grabbed some scrap 2x4's, and screwed the motor onto them. Then I threw that buffing wheel on, and tested it out. Works nice... shines aluminum right up like nothing and will do stainless, and probably mild steel as well.

I will say it could use a little more hp behind it... so at some point, I might have someone machine up an adapter to fit onto the 3/4 or 1 hp motor... then it'd be unstoppable and really polish things up...

I just realized I have about 6 electric motors of various sizes on standby, lol. That's not counting any that are being used or are tied up in a way that a quick swap of attachments/parts would be possible.

Next thing I know, the damn shelves in me little shed will be holding electric motors instead of chainsaws... I need to get all of this crap sorted out, and soon.

List of things to do... not really in any specific order... just gotta get around to them sometime.

1. Build cabinets for tools and a few select saws
2. Hang more pegboard
3. Build new benches that are integrated with the wall, and have shelves under them
4. Put some more lights up
5. Run the air hoses along the ceiling to drop points, and place air hose reels there
6. Find places or new homes for the insane amount of little toolboxes that I have lingering around
7. Sell off some tools
8. Buy more tools
9. Buy another big roll cab box
10. Curb stomp some hippies
11. Put a fridge in
12. Put a two post hoist in
13. Build a compressor with the Curtis compressor pump
14. Install a ventilation system for welding and smelly paint/carb clean work
15. ???

 

[Brmorgan]

Wow, that's one heavy-duty compressor piston! I'm not convinced those are Babbitt bearings, the way they popped out like that; usually once they're poured in place they tend to stay put unless you really pound on them. And Babbitt is soft enough that if you spread it with a chisel it likely won't go back to its original form. Maybe they're Gunmetal bushings? Hard to tell from that pic.

As per your previous question, no, we don't have much for old compressors at work. The ones we use are all huge industrial screw compressors; in the planer I run a 30HP Gardner-Denver and a 40HP Atlas Copco (which is currently out of commission as it overheats all the time, can't figure it out). In the sawmill we have a 150HP main and a 100HP backup. Speaking of which, just before Christmas the sawmill compressor burned up on us; it was a major fire, had every fireman in town at the mill and we were minutes away from losing the whole place. I have a couple pics here somewhere, if I get time tonight I'll try to post 'em. It was a fun morning...

I do have a couple old piston compressor heads here at home; I have a smaller 2+ HP-rated Gardner-Denver that I found, and which needs a new conrod; it's brass and the piston end got all pounded out of round due to it being run without enough oil. Called and it's NLA, they haven't made 'em for near 30 years. Other than that it's a fine unit. I also have a larger 2-stage compressor head which is missing the high-pressure (smaller) piston, but otherwise is complete. I can get the parts for it but they would be about $200; not worth it. Sometime might look into machining a piston for it, but since I don't have an original it might be a bit of trial and error to get it right.

I brought home a ton of parts to get started on my lathe project tonight; gonna go downstairs after dinner and sort thru a few and take some pics, I'll be back later hopefully. Do you have a spindle/arbor in your lot of Traub parts there? Those gears could come in handy, but not worth it to ship them, I'd imagine.

 

[promac850]

Wow, that's one heavy-duty compressor piston! I'm not convinced those are Babbitt bearings, the way they popped out like that; usually once they're poured in place they tend to stay put unless you really pound on them. And Babbitt is soft enough that if you spread it with a chisel it likely won't go back to its original form. Maybe they're Gunmetal bushings? Hard to tell from that pic.

As per your previous question, no, we don't have much for old compressors at work. The ones we use are all huge industrial screw compressors; in the planer I run a 30HP Gardner-Denver and a 40HP Atlas Copco (which is currently out of commission as it overheats all the time, can't figure it out). In the sawmill we have a 150HP main and a 100HP backup. Speaking of which, just before Christmas the sawmill compressor burned up on us; it was a major fire, had every fireman in town at the mill and we were minutes away from losing the whole place. I have a couple pics here somewhere, if I get time tonight I'll try to post 'em. It was a fun morning...

I do have a couple old piston compressor heads here at home; I have a smaller 2+ HP-rated Gardner-Denver that I found, and which needs a new conrod; it's brass and the piston end got all pounded out of round due to it being run without enough oil. Called and it's NLA, they haven't made 'em for near 30 years. Other than that it's a fine unit. I also have a larger 2-stage compressor head which is missing the high-pressure (smaller) piston, but otherwise is complete. I can get the parts for it but they would be about $200; not worth it. Sometime might look into machining a piston for it, but since I don't have an original it might be a bit of trial and error to get it right.

I brought home a ton of parts to get started on my lathe project tonight; gonna go downstairs after dinner and sort thru a few and take some pics, I'll be back later hopefully. Do you have a spindle/arbor in your lot of Traub parts there? Those gears could come in handy, but not worth it to ship them, I'd imagine.

I'll get pics of the rest of the parts I did pull off of the Traub sometime tomorrow.

As for that old compressor pump that you have, why not just machine a new rod out of some scrap 4130 or similar? With a low rpm compressor, you shouldn't need anything real resistant to pulling apart. If shipping weren't so much, I'd buy it from you, lol.

 

[Brmorgan]

Yeah, once I have the capabilities and tooling, I will make something up. Hopefully this lathe project turns out well... If it does, I'm gonna move on to building a milling machine, or building an overarm milling head to add on to the lathe.

Here's a couple pics of the lathe stuff so far:

OK, so here's the bed frame and headstock I've come up with for now. I plan on building one bigger and heavier than this ultimately, but for now I figured I'll start smaller and see if I can make it work. I don't anticipate it'll be extraordinarily accurate to ten-thousandths of an inch, but I think I can make it do what I need. And it's something I'll be continuously adding to and modifying as I get new ideas and skills. The bed frame is a welded box I found at the scrapyard made of 1/2" plate steel, a little over 8" wide, 4-1/2" deep, and about 3' long. I forget exactly. I have no idea what its original purpose was; it has a bunch of extraneous stuff welded to the head end to the left. Some of it I'll be removing, some I'll probably leave to see if it can be incorporated into the headworks and gearing etc. I know the purists will balk at the use of a steel bed rather than a solid cast piece; well, I can agree with that, but beggars can't be choosers, and finding a big chunk of cast like that is not easy. I've already put a 3' straightedge on it, and it's poker-straight, can't even see light thru it. I'll be beefing it up significantly anyway as I go along, and as I said, as long as it's reasonably accurate for smaller stuff I'll be happy. I'm not gonna be turning a 3' long shaft that needs to be within .0001" over its length. Heck, I'll probably end up doing as much woodworking stuff like bowl turning as anything else...

A closeup of the headstock. It's actually a worm gear reducer housing I found. I do have plans of making a much more substantial headstock out of those Cyclo housings I have; but making a spindle for that one is going to be more of a job than I thought as far as having the Morse taper machined in the nose. For now, I tore the spindle out of my secondary drill press that I never use, just because I wanted something with a MT2 taper for this smaller build. I happened to find two good bearings for it (much beefier than the ones in the press, mind you) that fit perfectly into the bearing journals in this gear housing, so I figured I'd see what I could figure out.

Just a view of the nose end of the headstock assembly. I just have the drill chuck on there for now for the pics; I don't own any lathe chucks at all yet. The main problem with this spindle is that it doesn't have any threading on the nose, nor enough material to really machine one. I'm going to try to find a MT2 adapter with a 1" x 8TPI nose so I can at least mount a smaller chuck on it; ultimately I'll get a new spindle made that has a thread and a through hole for a drawbar. That's if I don't get around to building the bigger headstock first; though even then I may build a whole other lathe frame around it if this build goes well.

This is one idea I had for the ways and carriage slide. I found a few pieces of 60° dovetail; thought I could use a couple beefier pieces for the ways and the smaller one for the slide. I'd also machine two more clamp pieces for the outboard edges of the ways. That shouldn't be too difficult; I can just put a chunk of steel bar on the big knife grinder at the mill and set the angle to match the dovetail, then hone them with some sandpaper later so they make a perfect mating surface. I'm going to have to surface grind the dovetails with the knife grinder anyway to get rid of any irregularities so they're identical in all ways. It should bring them within a few thousandths of perfectly flat, which I can fine-tune later. I was thinking to lock the carriage/saddle down, I could build a cam-lock system that would lift the center dovetail piece up, binding it tight against the ways.

Here are a bunch of the random gears etc. that I've collected over the years. Many are from transmissions I've salvaged parts from. I have no idea if I can make use of many or any of them, but it can't hurt to have 'em on hand. I even have some small worm gear pairs (one is at center of this photo) and some Acme threaded rod to use for the lead screw and cross-slide mechanisms. It'll take some figuring out, for sure, but I think I can do it.


So anyway, there you go; that's my project for the foreseeable future. I think it's gonna be fun. Probably spend some time tearing my hair out now and again over it, but overall it should be a great learning experience, and hopefully I'll have a good, serviceable machine out of it. Still LOTS to figure out and many parts to acquire and build, like a good tailstock and cross-slide, but all in good time...

 

[Brmorgan]

A couple other things - I spent Sunday afternoon getting the old Yates knife grinder up and running. You guys may remember me posting pics of it back in the summer of 2010 as I tore it down and restored and painted it. Well, it's sat in my basement for 18 months in mechanical working order but with no driveline to speak of. The original motor was outdated and massive, not to mention 3-phase and seized up. So I had to build a jackshaft and motor hanger assembly to both get the drive ratio correct, and to use the weight of the motor to help tension the belt. It worked pretty well; though I forgot to take a picture of it. Will do tomorrow. Here's the grinder though:

The 1 HP, 240V 1725 RPM motor I put on it turns that big stone like nobody's business, even with the old and half-worn-out babbitt bearings. I mounted my little angle vise to the cross-slide to hold things for now, but there's no limit to what I could put on it. I can also run a 6" stone or buffing wheel etc. at the other end of the arbor. No cross slide there, but it would be a great station to build some sort of jig for sharpening wood lathe chisels and the like.

Here's a case splitter I welded up a few months back, and have yet to use. I can't remember if I ever posted photos of it before.

I based mine off of a homemade one I borrowed from my friend here; I honestly had no clue there were OEM ones like it. It's essentially the same idea, only mine doesn't have a solid back. Instead I added a handwheel mechanism that lets me pull the tips of the jaws in or out for working on different sized saws. I certainly don't have near $50 into mine; found all the materials for free and it took me a bit over an hour to make.

Cheers guys, gotta head to bed now.

 

[promac850]

Here's that buffer I was talking about last night...

As for Traub machine parts, this is about all I have. There is one or two more parts laying around in a bin somewhere... haven't gotten to them yet. Well, this and the bin of gears, which I think I'll be keeping.

I can't figure out what the funny clamping thingy on the right of the Traub part is in the second pic... anyone happen to know what that is used for? Or what it fits on? I'm fairly sure it doesn't go on a Traub.


And here is something that some people really like... an Albrecht Classic keyless drill press chuck... the jaws are a little worn on the tips, but otherwise this chuck is completely functional and works fine. Book price: around 380 bucks when it's got a shaft attached to it... I found it in the scrap bin when I was working on the organizing and cleaning of that room.

Might use that chuck on my mini lathe project... who knows? I doubt I could get half what it's worth selling it with the worn jaws, so might as well keep it, right?

And speaking of drill chucks, my mini benchtop drill press chuck unseated its taper a couple of times while I was drilling that aluminum scrap for the dial indicator mounting arm... oops.

 

[promac850]

Along with some extra long cutting burrs, I've got some lapping compound headed to my doorstep...

I'll be using it to lap the valve on the old Curtis when it's time to do that. I want that sucker sealed up like the anus on a real anal retentive guy that washes and waxes his car every day after driving it... 800 grit and 3000 grit. Yep, I'm gonna get it to seal real well...

 

[WesternSaw]

ProMac

Just wondering if you got my last PM? great photos you have been posting!
Thanks
Lawrence

 

[promac850]

Just wondering if you got my last PM? great photos you have been posting!
Thanks
Lawrence

The one regarding the shipment of the boat stones? Yes... but I haven't gotten the envelope yet.

The stones are boxed up and ready to go once I slap your shipping address on it, and bring it to the post office.

 

[Metals406]

The one regarding the shipment of the boat stones? Yes... but I haven't gotten the envelope yet.

The stones are boxed up and ready to go once I slap your shipping address on it, and bring it to the post office.

What did you decide you needed a piece for them?

 

[Somesawguy]

What Size Vise?

I'm trying to set up a shop in the basement. I have an old 3" vise, but it's pretty useless since the inserts were worn out by the previous owner.

What size vise do you guys like for your workbench? I'm thinking that something in the 3-1/2 to 4 range might be good for most of what I do. Is bigger better?

Thanks

 

[Warped5]

I'm trying to set up a shop in the basement. I have an old 3" vise, but it's pretty useless since the inserts were worn out by the previous owner.

What size vise do you guys like for your workbench? I'm thinking that something in the 3-1/2 to 4 range might be good for most of what I do. Is bigger better?

Thanks

I use my vise to hold the saw while I sharpen the chain. I have a 5" now and wish I had something slightly larger; I need to get it just right so the chain does not get caught up in the casting underneath. Just my $.02 ..

 

[Somesawguy]

I use my vise to hold the saw while I sharpen the chain. I have a 5" now and wish I had something slightly larger; I need to get it just right so the chain does not get caught up in the casting underneath. Just my $.02 ..

Good Point. I didn't think about clamping a bar in there to hold a saw while it's being worked on etc.

 

[Philbert]

I have a 7 inch woodworking vise and a 4 inch machinist's vise mounted on different work benches - it is a multi-purpose shop. The woodworking vise is nice for holding bars when filing the edges. A bigger vise will help you hold larger things, but is sometimes too big - gets in the way of working on smaller parts. I also have a variety of smaller vises or clamps for holding smaller things.

Some guys will mount their machinist's vise on a piece of wood, with a 2X2 inch cleat underneath, and just clamp that into a woodworking vise when needed. You can also use those types of cleats for temporarily mounting tools like a chain grinder, or a chain spinner or breaker securely, without them always taking up work space.

Philbert

 

[promac850]

Well, I got my extra long carbide burrs and valve lapping compound today.

Shipped out of Ohio... no wonder it only took two days to get here.


Made in USA stuff, very high quality (at least looks to be so... we'll find out for sure sometime soon) and I will definitely look there the next time I need burrs or otherwise.