Projects Ever build a shop tool that you regret building?

I am struggling with getting rid of a table affectionately known as "FrankenJig". I built it 10 years ago. The idea was a frame table that would double as a work bench, with a removable 3/4" plywood top. It morphed into an apparatus with vises and other things welded to it. It was built out of 12" I beam we happened upon at the scrap yard.

Now, it has such a large footprint, it's in the way. It weighs in around 750 lbs or better. I think I may throw it on CL or FB Marketplace. It's freaking huge.

 

Damn it, you know we like pictures!

 

Right now the shop is upside down, because I bought a new compressor. It wouldn't be pretty at this point.

 

I mounted my shrinker and stretcher units to a stand, welded to a furrowing disk base. Did the same thing to my bead roller. They take up a lot of room, about three feet around. I use them a dozen times a year average.

The large frame jig you helped build up here many years ago is now at my shop. The fixtures all unbolt from the top, the legs unbolt, and the main unit stands on its side up against my pallet racking shelves.

 

At the time, this seemed like a good idea. It's rock solid. I just get tired of looking for real estate to put stuff. This thing is like 12' long and 3' across.

I need to make a trip back up that way some day.

 

Around 2012-13, I went a little overboard with vintage tools as I was outfitting my shop, and enjoying the fruits of my labor as a working professional as opposed to a hard-up student. I bought a load of vintage cast iron shop tools; a 1957 Delta Milwaukee table saw and jointer combo, then another Delta Homecraft table saw, drill press, jointer, and scroll saw. Then a Craftsman jointer. Then a Craftsman 150 floor model drill press. I had a real issue haha.

Of those tools, the only ones I've ever actually used are the table saw and drill press. Both of which work flawlessly. In fact, I often find myself using the old belt-driven table saw over the direct-drive Hitachi job site model I've since acquired. The drill press also works flawlessly but is significantly overshadowed by my Bridgeport. I fully restored the scroll saw, and it works perfectly, but the reality is that modern tooling has simply made it obsolete, and it just sits there collecting dust and weighing a lot.

 

As you specified a built tool I would say no. If I am not using something that I built and it is taking up space I will repurpose it into something I will use or get rid of it. It served it's purpose when I needed it and now it no longer does.

 

I had a huge, two tier wooden workbench/shelf thing in my shop for a long time that I thought would be great for storage and work space but just turned into a junk depository/space waster and I felt bad taking it apart but it freed up space to park another car inside.

Empty space is often much more valuable (and scarce) than the stuff that's occupying it.

 

Nope it's to full of cars and parts that I went overboard with....

 

I had a buffer / wire wheel thing with a motor underneath, taking up a ton of room that I finally gave away after using it one or twice in several years.

A friend made an engine hoist that was way undersized, and had been bent during the one time he used it, besides being obviously very tippy. Thankfully he abandoned it during his divorce and it turned into a rusty (even more) piece of crap to be junked, before harming someone.

 

I made a rotating head for a rotisserie which I bolted to my cherry picker with the other end attached to my work bench. Not one of my most well thought out ideas. Came to the conclusion that I couldn't use it for both purposes at the same time.

 

Maybe I did... I think I forgot about it.

 

I have more or less moved stuff on for lack of use; taking up space. A couple regrets were template/model following pantographs. One used a electric grinder and could port cyl heads, do one port by hand and copy to the rest and the other would use the cutting torch and follow a template made from wood/masonite [anything!] for stuff like suspension brackets. I hadn't used the torch one for about 15 years so I left it behind when I moved [HEAVY Sucker] and the other sat on the floor under my lathe for 10 years and got tired of cleaning chips of it. What bothers me more is items that I know I didn't get rid of and can't find!

 

I made a 48-inch Sheetmetal brake that works, but just doesn't give me the sharp bends I wanted and is too damned hard to bend a full-width sheet of 18 gauge steel. I probably could beef it up just a bit more and get the sharper bend, but it is just too difficult to bend the wider sheets. It does fine on the narrower pieces, so I'm keeping it around for now.

 

I measured this thing tonight. It's 10'6" long and 44" wide. Pretty big footprint.

 

Root , that’s huge !!

Ive made a bunch of bushing n bearing drivers , pin punches , trans drum press fixtures and what not
Silly one time or so use tools that live in one of my smaller tool boxes along with my wentworth wrenches and other junk I can’t part with.


Can you put lockable castor wheels on it and move it around?
Maybe outside under a cover?

do you still use it for its intended purpose?

will you ever?

if not hack it smaller or get rid of it, no clue how big your shop is but that’s taking up a cars worth of space !

 

Been waiting to hear that all my life.....

 

The 44 inch throat on my e wheel may have been a bit excessive.

 

I've met a few tools I wish I hadn't, if that counts.

 

I built a hydraulic press it works great, but for some reason it took way to long to build and I don’t use it all that much.

 

I bend sheet metal on my 10’ brake for work and I built a couple of heavy duty 4’6”x10’6” benches for marking up the metal. I figured I would make one more the same size for my shop where I work on my cars. Biggest mistake ever! Turned into a catch-all. I’ve already cut it in half and used it somewhere else. Works great for the metal shop but no good in a mechanic shop-

 

i made the same mistake. had a truckload of big tubing, so i built the biggest i could with what i had, ended up somewhere around 4' deep throat and about 7 1/2' tall. considering i can mount my anvils in either direction, it's way overkill. too much work to cut it down, though!

 

There is always some monstrosity I conjure up to use ONCE.. did a bitchin' job, only it takes up a ton of space and I'm too cheap to toss it out.

 

That's exactly what happened here. I built it to fab up a 32 frame for my A coupe.

 

I built a heavy duty whirly Jig style auto rotisserie . It was great when you had a chassie on it but took way too much room when it was off. I also made the mistake that it didn’t brake down enough to store in the pallet rack. Needless to say I gave it away when I moved and have a few more things that need to go lol..

 

Ideal arc Lincoln 250 welder with an LN7 wire feeder on top. The damn things is on wheels so ya can pull it around and it is a multi process unit .....Mig,Tig and stick. It weighs a billion pounds and doesn't get used much anymore as its hard to beat the new ESAB multi process that replaces it. I walk around it and occasionally bitch about it and the space it takes up, but its kind of like that mongrel shop cat that used to lay around in the way....it pisses ya off and takes up space, yeah, but what are ya gonna do?

 

I built a spring spreader but did not but an arch or relief area in the middle. It is sketchy as hell to use and I cuss at it every time I use it but immediately forget to revise the design as soon as I'm done.

I also started on a frame table but never finished it and just finally cut it apart after tripping over it for like 5 years.

 

Built this brake from internet plans in a previous life. It worked okay, but wouldn't bend a straight line on a full width piece of 18 gauge. Got rid of it and bought a proper brake. It was a hell of a lot of work. Seemed like a good idea at the time, as I had way more time than cash.


I was using my shrinker stretcher stand like I built it about 25 years ago. It wasn't wonderful to use, but it got the job done. My buddy Tal designed this one, and built one also about 20 years ago, and I've been meaning to copy it ever since.
His is slightly different, but the idea is the same. Tal's is the blue one. I was a little skeptical at first, till I used it. He stated it was far easier to just spin the head, and keep standing in the same position to go from shrinking to stretching. What a difference.
Also, you can put this thing against the wall, or even in a corner to save space.


This is what mine used to look like. I used it like this till about a month ago, when I redesigned it. Works great now. I used a little heavier rod up through the middle, as you can see it looks like Tal's might have been bent at one time or another. I also used a spring from a small service brake pot from a semi ( no, not the big spring that will kill you when you take the brake pot apart). Tal told me, when he built his, the most important part of this design is bringing the vertical actuating rod back to centre after each stroke of the pedal. That is what the springs are designed to do.
So, you just push down on the pedal, and if you want to change from shrinking to stretching, let the pedal come up, spin the head, and align the vertical actuating rod with the lever on the stretcher, and push down on the pedal again.
No need to walk around the other side of the unit. Seems like a small detail, but once you use it you won't want to go back to the old design either.
I was also able to remove most of the "slop" in the actuating mechanism with the new design also.

And sorry, I have no idea why there are duplicate images.

 

just leave it out side. I have a heavy workbench with a vise I leave out side. works great when you are doing something either too noisy or dirty or if you just want to enjoy the day.

 

Hello,
When we moved into a new house with a three car garage, that was pretty slick. Now, there was room to build something and the area was so huge that we had floor to ceiling cabinets and tall closets lining two walls. It was so spiffy. We could not line the third wall as the fire sprinkler system, with its flashing lights, mini piping and gauges were taking up that whole wall, inside. The end of the wall was a giant red box with the lights and circuit map. (At the time, the whole house was wired for cat 5 circuitry, even the garage. It was new for the time and era...)

The tall cabinets were made to house all of the rolling tools, like a table saw, drill press, and a band saw. Plus the normal assortment of tall handle tools. The counters had drawers for almost every depth for the varying size tools and stuff. The big table saw was going to be my semi rolling base to move anywhere in the big three car garage when needed. It only had the mini flat legs it came with and they were a bust from the beginning. I actually moved the table saw with a few skateboards to the location for the rest of the day’s work.

After a few times of the skateboard moving of the table saw and counter, I thought I could make some corner wheels on a flat plate that would be easy to remove. Those wheels/plate would move the saw and be easier than the large skateboards. At the time, the big box stores did not have individual swiveling wheels. So, I decided that with skate board wheels, it could move in and out of the tall/wide cabinets. That lasted two tries as the table was too tall to work with the wheels and it was a hassle to lift the table off of the wheel plate.

Jnaki

My final discovery after taking that clumsy rolling plate apart was to use a normal steel dolly. I was able to lift one end of the heavy table saw, pull it straight out and set it down on its own legs. Now I had a secure table saw for cutting and a flat metal surface for the small drill press. I even clamped on a vise for those times when needed. The metal table saw top surface was my portable workbench, any where in the garage and yard.

Nowadays, there are swiveling wheels to attach directly to a table saw corners, to push down for movement and lift the wheels up for a secure base. Where were you 20 years ago?