home made tools and equipment...

^^^^^^Wow!^^^^^^^

 

X2 ^^^^^^^ WOW!!!

 

lakester47,

I thought I new pretty much all of what Harbor Freight Tools had to offer.

At that price I think that I will just buy a couple of sets and be done with it.

Thanks for the heads up.

Dick
.

 

Nice work. Looks to me like someone has been watching Ron Covell's dvd's..

 

Wow
Metal bucks, all the bucks I ever seen were wood!!!



Ago

 

Or has Ron been watching his?

 

Nope I watched the dvd on building the '36 fender and buck. I don't have much in the line of wood working tools. I also had 3 pairs lined up to do and I didn't think the wood would hold up to the task.

 

Dawford,

I enjoy your posts a great deal. I was planning on building some of these clamps myself until I walked in HF and there they were. So cheap, I couldn't resist. I have found a lot of things HF has are carried by others for more $$$. I have also noticed HF quality increases, but their prices also are increasing almost daily. As I said, I enjoy your projects and posts a great deal. Just thought I would pass this along.

Lakester

 

In the spirit of recycling wouldn't you rather your sander was this? Reuse some pipe, formica, faucet handle, protractor, wood scrapes, and just stuff. Makes the world a more beautiful place. By the way it tracks and works great.

 

Great.Thanks.

 

i just finished this last night. 4x riveter style planishing hammer. waaayy more powerful than i thought it would be.

 

Nice hammer. Does your foot pedal geometry allow a soft start? My 4x gun hits pretty hard.

 

yes, the ratio is about 4:1 so it is fairly easy to creep up on the throttle. but the gun hits so damn hard even at part throttle i think i may try adding an air regulator. its got enough power to overcome both the dieholder adjusters pinch bolt, and lower threadlock.

 

I have a 3x on my hammer with a smaller less substantial frame. It hits hard enough that an inline regulator was needed and it made a big difference. Nice work, your c frame looks good and beefy.

 

thank you! thats good info, im going to have to try the regulator for sure now. do you have any pictures of your hammer?

 

Sorry, no pics. I'm on the road with the wrong computer for that. My hammer is just one of those c frames you see everywhere, about 22 inches deep. It had a china muffler cutter gun. I modified it to accept the 3x Ingersoll I bought at an aircraft flea market.

 

What brand gun are you using? Just started shopping for one.
Set up looks great!

 

I Found this article while looking for homemade tools. Thought I would share. It is a homemade way of stretching and shrinking metal.

Article can be found at :http://www.gasserhotrods.com/forum/showthread.php?197-Stretching-and-Shrinking-without-equipment

Stretching and Shrinking without equipment

Hi Guys
A few comments have been made on my shop equipment and how cool it would be to have it at hand to tackle the jobs at hand.
I just want to say Thank you for the comps and I am forever blushing
But I have to say there are more times than many I don't always use the largest quickest newest coolest tool.................. So I thought ya might like to know how to do the same thing without all the hoopty lah
Be warned it may be lengthy...............................
This will help you make bends and curves in flat metal with common tools.
This is a 1 inch strip of 18 gauge cold roll 1008 series, notice the bottom that touches the bench is as flat and in full contact..
Now to create a smooth curve in this we will stretch the the bottom edge.<table width="400"><tbody><tr><td class="td1" width="20">
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I'm holding the metal down on a hard metal surface this don't have to be an anvil it can be a the back of your vice a length of angle iron anything hard enough to stretch with.
I hit on the very outer edge of the metal which thins it out rapidly,as it thins it spreads out side ways and seeks the least resistance .
After several hits 20 or 30 or so here are the results.<table width="400"><tbody><tr><td class="td1" width="20">
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They are obvious....<table width="400"><tbody><tr><td class="td1" width="20">
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Now lets go the other way by hammering on the opposite edge<table width="400"><tbody><tr><td class="td1" width="20">
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<table width="400"><tbody><tr><td class="td1" width="20">
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Now this is by stretching the outer edge and easily done, but what happens when you want to shrink..........Next

OK so we know to stretch we have to thin out so to shrink we have to gather.
Gathering is a tiny bit trickier<--------is that a real word)) to gather you will be thickening the area which will draw the metal from the surounding areas.
Now to do this with out a shrinker we will have to make a ruffel in our metal.
I used my vice jaw slightly opened and taped the very edge with the chisel end of my hammer to make a sort of dent, I continued to make a few more.
Now that I have the ruffels I want to trap them, this was done simply by clamping it to a piece of angle iron so the outer edges can't move back out.
You can already see the two very outer edges near the clamps have moved closer to each other. Now we need to drive the ruffels back into themselves.
The important thing is that wwe don't hit them to hard restretching the area.
I like to do this with a home made slapper. <table width="400"><tbody><tr><td class="td1" width="20">
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sorry for the poor photo but any way the arrows dictate the direction of blows by my slapper. I drive each ruffle which looks like half an icecream cone starting at th pointed end and with side to side slaps they thicken.
Here are the results.

Now we can step it up a knotch and lets do it with a 90 bend in the panel
<table width="400"><tbody><tr><td class="td1" width="20">
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Same as before we are concentrating on the outside edge of the panel.
<table width="400"><tbody><tr><td class="td1" width="20">
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You can see results very quickly..................
<table width="400"><tbody><tr><td class="td1" width="20">
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This is just one way of moving the metal to fit panels without having to cut and weld. It dose take practice and finding were you have to shrink or stretch is easy to find by using paper, which I will show in another post.....




Thanks Steve

ProMetalShop
4431 Snydertown Road
Danville PA.
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i believe its an ATX. i bought it off ebay for $125. i saw cheaper ones, but they looked cheesy. they probably would have worked fine cause this thing is almost too strong.

 

wickedawesome metalworking tips,something everybody can use,one of the best tools-sharing knowledge.

 

you got the intraweb computer thingy right? everybody has a web site now, including hf. saves a lot of time just getting the hf crap. On the cheap stuff anyways. I don't know about you, but I don't have a lot of free time, or money for that matter!

 

I did that for many, many years..........until I actually used a good foot operated shrinker/stretcher. It does work with a hammer, and works well........but maybe that's the reason my elbows and wrists are shot...just sayin.

 

That is cool for sure making this one! Thanks for the idea.

 

I found this on the HAMB's sister site GarageJournal. This may have been an item that was made by a company or by an individual I am not sure but I thought that it could easily be made. Check it out:



An interesting idea for a tool box replacement. I guess you would call it a cart. In any case, it was found by a gentleman on The Jalopy Journal. He found it at the Kalamazoo Air Museum where it serves their general repair man. Kind of a neat idea…

you can check out the article here:

http://www.garagejournal.com/2011/12/air-zool-tool-box/

 

whats a 3x hammer? whats a 4x hammer?

 

here is the one i built....i actually cut the trigger off and use a foot pedal.

 

They are basically an air hammer made specifically for riviting. The higher the number, the more powerful it is to handle peening over larger rivits.

 

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Thanks for posting this.

 

Your welcome. Some of us work with penny sized budgets so I thought id share it as it was very valuable to me as I cant afford a shrink/stretcher. Im currently unemployed.

Thanks,
"Skrach"
My Vintage Blog:
www.VividlyVintage.com
My 55 Chrysler Worklog:
www.Pop's55.com

 

I want to make my own parts washer. I am not exactly sure what to use for the sink area of it, but I know I will be using a metal drum for the tank, and a 12v fuel pump for the pump, and I have one of thos air nossel hook up part washer wand things I may be able to use. Or maybe just use a air tool cuppler male fitting onto a threaded fitting with a flexible hose? Any suggestions? Anyone make one?


Here is the engine washer wand thing I have.