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Home made workshop tools

1M views 362 replies 161 participants last post by  richbob 
#1 · (Edited by Moderator)
Just wanted to see what kind of homemade tools and stuff you guys have... I've already heard of a few.

One guy said a washing machine motor for a buffer.

Also saw a drill in a vice and a grinder become a lathe.

What else ya'll got?
 
#240 ·
I hate getting abrasive dust all over my shop so I built this trolley to get my various dust generators outside where they do less mess...
Same idea, but I used a truck rim and a piece of pipe. There's a foot lever in the base that lowers 4 swivel casters; this raises the unit 1/8", just enough to unload the weight. One handed move with the landing gear lowered...

 
#237 ·
Another great source for inexpensive casters, that already come with a platform, are Harbor Freight car dollies:

http://www.harborfreight.com/2-piece-vehicle-dollies-67511.html

I own several sets and have built all sorts of mobile crap using them.

Also, anybody local to me that is interested in HEAVY, stable bases for building stands, I have several 18-24" diameter, 3-4" thick pieces of steel that are drops from scatter shield burnouts, that I would part with.
 
#242 ·
Well, seeing as how you brought it up...

 
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#249 · (Edited)
Thanks, i did the wrench in a black smith course i took a few years ago, its forged with hardened steel.
The sliding capilers of this kind you may know, i#m measuring /marking everything with them.
The threader is extreme, its a M50x2, I need it for repair of cylinderheads, there is no space for a normal holder, even not for the normal threader. So I had to grind it down and build the holder from inside

I didn't use the idicators in the first picture anymore, it was a nice idear, but they are to "nervous"
 
#250 ·
I recall that a while back we were talking about using small hand-held type grinders in conjunction with a lathe as sort of a poor-mans tool post grinder. I had a small laminate trimming router that I adapted for that purpose which eventually smoked itself. I needed another one to do some O.D. grinding on a star hub inner sleeve so I scrounged around in the shelves and found a old Roto-Zip which looked like it would do the trick. Took the original handle off of it and bolted a piece of flat bar in it's place so I could clamp it in the tool holder. It will never take the place of a real tool post grinder (like a Dumore), but it works pretty good. The on-off switch is in a handy position too. Don't forget to wear your googles :).

Geo.



 
#255 ·
In addition to what knuckleworks said, you can work on material that's too hard to cut. You could surface a brake rotor that would be likely to chatter with a cutting tool. With a fine enough grit of grinding stone, you could get a finish not possible with cutting tools and accurate to a size not possible with polishing. Once you figure out how to hold it, and with a coolant flow, you could grind the edge/radius of a glass lens to make it fit a smaller light housing. I'm sure there's more.
 
#258 ·
You can also use a tool post grinder or old.wrench's Roto-Zip setup in a lathe to grind some material from the base circle of of an XL cam. You have to very carefully rotate the chuck by hand through the limited arc required and sequentially feed the carriage between strokes but it does the job. I saw this done back in the early '70s when guys were trying to "Hot Rod" their Sportsters on a budget.

Of course it provides extra lift and duration but not a scientifically designed cam profile.

My lathes is always wrapped in plastic bags when I use a grinder on it to keep abrasive off the ways.
 
#261 ·
For all you wheel builders on a budget.

Once you've got your wheel laced up, it's time to true it.
There seems to be a trend towards using dial indicators for this purpose, but I prefer to use a simpler approach, just a simple pointer. The end result is exactly the same - a trued wheel. I know that there are a lot of balancing/truing stands similar to the one in my pic. They are real simple to build, all you need is a base, two legs, some bearings, and a few bolts and nuts. Then, what you need is a simple way to hold your truing indicator in place. I got tired of clamping a make-shift arm in place, so . . . I wanted something simple, solid, and adjustable; plus I wanted to able to get it out of my way easily if I was using the stand for something other than truing. I prefer to true to the bead seat so here's what I came up with, a simple truing gizmo -





It couldn't be much simpler, a piece of 3/8" all-thread (about 18" long) with two offset bends, a support plate for the pointer (short piece of tube welded to a scrap of sheet steel), and some 3/8" nuts and washers. The pointer is a scrap of steel with the point high-lighted with a little red paint for easy visibility. Drill a 3/8" hole through one of the stand's legs, and bolt the arm on. You can easily adjust the truing gizmo to match the wheel diameter (by adjusting the amount of extension with the nuts) or wheel width (by swinging the arm up or down).

Geo.
 
#262 ·
RidingHood inspired me, so I made a little forge from stuff I had around. It even has some Triumph parts on it...

Right now I have a simple exhaust bend brazed to the bottom with a blower on the end to stoke the fire. I have to figure out better fuel (charcoal is fine just for messing around) but it got that wrench up to yellow heat pretty quickly. I can see a bigger setup coming already...

 
#263 ·
Here is a bit I whipped up to speed a little production project I had. It is three 1/4" slabs of aluminum, welded together, then die grinded back down. Then I turned both sides to true it back up.



It acts as a stop for small stock, and allows consistent lengths to be cut.


I had to make eight of these, and they had to be exactly the same overall and shoulder length. It's not motorcycle related, but you get the general idea of the potential.


The end products were glued to a slab of 1/2" thick glass, and located the glass to the steel structure through 1/2" holes, to complete this art table for my wife and son to work on.


 
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