home made tools and equipment...

My wife does metal sculpture and as her projects got larger she really needed a decent sized welding table...and she wanted it moveable. I had enough iron laying around to do the frame, had the steel supplier take a 4x8 sheet of 3/8ths steel and lob off two feet to make a 4x6 top. Thicker might have been better (I was worried about getting it out of the truck and onto the frame) but there are two big anvils and a two inch thick reject die plate to use for "real" hammering. I added outlets at each corner as well as a piece of angle to on the six foot sides to hang grinders from. I "engineered" wheels on one end and a trailer jack on the other so I could move it around. She suggested a "shelf" under the table and also suggested that we use perforate steel for the shelf so the dirt sifted through. I also added two inch recievers on three sides to accept what ever tooling we might want to use. That includes a vise, ring roller and tubing bender (think Hosfeld) The only time that frame moved was when I rolled it up to the truck to unload the 4x6 sheet It worked great

 

re the sculptures --you know what they say here..... pic's or it didn't....!

 

@patsurf here are three pictures, I knew it happened and now you do too

 

quite the wow factor!...nice

 

A very talented lady.

 

Very good work.NO!Excellent work.Very talented Lady.Thanks for posting.
Good luck.Have fun.Be safe.
Leo

 

This has to be the quickest, easiest and cheapest bead rolling fence/guide ever. 1”x1/8” flat held with vice grips. Just run the guide along the edge of the dies.

 

Another bead roller upgrade....

Started with this bead roller that I bought at the Fall Carlisle show several years ago; fortunately we had also bought a car to ship back to the UK at the same show, so this got put in the back for the journey home.

Despite being made of quite thick plate steel, there was noticeable flex when using it.
It really needed a stand too, so I fabbed this up from some scrap.

It was mildly irritating to need to lever up the top roller to release the work because the stock setup just pressed on the bearing block. I machined a block from a piece of Bronze to retain the head of a turned down caphead screw. The bearing block now gets lifted as well as pressed down.

The moving bearing block just relied on the retaining bolt being left slightly loose, I found that the bolt often needed to be fiddled with whilst using the machine. Bushing down the M12 hole and fitting this machined from Bronze "top hat" bush which sets a few thou' clearance seems to have fixed that.

As I seem to have worn out my welcome for handle turning from Sue, my partner, I decided to motorise the bead roller with a 24V reduction geared motor which came off a stairlift.

The output shaft rotates at about 24 RPM, which is too fast IMO for a bead roller. I used two sets of timing gears from a 1950s BMC engine to slow down the rollers.

The two pairs give 4:1 reduction with the jackshaft. I fitted a PWM (Pulse Width Modulation) speed controller as well. the actual operation of the rollers is by a foot switch which hangs on the frame when it's not in use.

 

Very nice. Good job.

 

Well done. Motivating I hope.

 

I modified my HF bead roller into this

 

Mike very well done.

 

Thank you. I have since added a table and an adjustable lamp.

 

that looks great, wish i could find time to do this with mine ..

 

Table and lamp, have you got a good book to go with it?

 

WAY TO GO BUD

 

I just made a gas gauge, for a T with a cowl tank. A special tool...and it has another purpose, if you check the bottom end and think about checking the oil level.

 

Nicely done, Jim. Killed two jobs with one tool.

 

I was struggling to pull a repro early Ford brake spring into place. I was told you can get special pliers for the job. I've never seen any before.

I woke up the next morning with an idea.

A discarded broken pair of loppers, 15 minutes and a piece of scrap metal strip and I had a perfectly serviceable heavy duty pair of brake spring pliers, specifically suitable for Early ford Brakes, with the pesky over strong repro springs.

The handles had been shortened to about 18". They provide plenty of leverage with good positioning control of the spring end.

I heated the sharp blade to soften it, bent it and put a notch into it.


Here you can see the tool doing it's job.


The metal strip gives the pliers somewhere to pull against.


"It worked for me" as they say.

Mart.

 

That looks about like the ones made to do that look. My original has the end that goes on the shoe side has a point so it stays put on the shoes.

 

Had a pair of those since 1962.

 

Got mine in 1965 one of the tools we had to have in Mechanics trade school. Still have them and the are long maybe 14 inches in length to get the leverage needed.

You ever have a spring stretched to "just about there" and something happens and the spring slips off and goes flying across the garage? Scared the crap out of me LOL.

 

the point was to fit into a rivet hole. when used on a bonded shoe they cut into the pad and have always drove me crazy making a mark in it. I like marts idea

 

A tiny divot would be gone after a few times around the block

 

Yep the six or eight rivet holes sure didn’t hurt anything on the old shoes!






Bones

 

That's 1 neat idea Mart

 

Router bit valve seat repair.
So this is super low-buck but for my old 49 Cadillac that needs a complete engine overhaul, it will suffice for trips to the ice cream shop with the grandkids.
When I got it running a few weeks ago, it seemed that 3 cylinders or so were not firing. They had spark but low or no compression. So tore it down and found 4 of the exhaust valve seats were in bad shape. One looked like it ate something, the others were burnt/bruised/pitted.
Went to the local Home Depot, picked up a 1 1/2" Diablo 45 degree carbide router bit. Cadillac spec is 44 degrees and no seat insert.
Welded (I use that term loosely) a piece of 3/8" hot rolled steel to the end. Chucked the smart end of the router bit in the lathe, and turned down the 3/8" rod to the valve diameter.
A little oil, medium speed with hand-held drill, a half dozen light passes and looked pretty good. Bit still looks like new.
Lapped the valve and checked with "prussian blue".
The pics are from the worst one.

 

A truly excellent job.
Mart.

 

Hope this will pull my 39 ford hub off , will use a muffler clamp rather than the hose clamp in the pic.

 

My handy dandy tubing bender. Built to use anyone's die sets.

Hopefully have the strength to handle at least 2-1/4"

Lower shoe die pin floats so I can adjust up or down to fit any die set...