home made tools and equipment...

There are a couple of threads on building/making louver presses. I did one when I built mine, Kiwi Kev did one on his. I think there may be a few more. Do a search and you'll be surprised at what you find.

 

I made a 12" disc from 3/4" plywood, epoxied (and screwed) an aluminum sheet on it (STOP sign), and screwed a 1/2" flanged pipe fitting on (drilled out to 5/8")...power-sanded the outside edge concentric...and sealed the ply with some old black enamel paint...

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Did you ever bend your dragster. Not enough to condem it but enough it bothered you and was noticable. You may have though the only way to straighten it was replace the tubes and you know that is a huge hassel.
As long as they are not kinked this little invention of mine will do it with simple hand tools in a matter of minutes. I made it to help a friend who bought a dragster (RED) which had crashed twice but really wasnt hurt that much (Airheart brake failure which we since replaced with a modern off the shelf reliable calipher set up) My pal despite the fact he poopooed the whole idea while I designed and made it told me it took less than ten minutes to completely straighten his chassis with this device. How good? Well it certified ten weeks later NHRA. I went ahead and made it, said nothing, just put it in his shop the next day on his desk and left. He said he thought what the he-- and tried it and much to his surpirise it worked perfectly.
I call it Der Dolmetsch Unbender

 

Dolmetsh, evidently your photo hosting site doesn't allow remote linking of images.

At least that's what I see when I look at your pic.

Sounds like a neat tool though.

 

http://seniordragster.bravehost.com/proj2.html
I am sorry twice it has been here but mostly not. Here is a link to the page . It is also messed up drifiting into the side column. I have fixed it twice but the hosting deal is wierd I guess. Anyway the tool is third picture down. At 7th to 9th picture down is a shop stove i designed and built with my friends the Vanderveldes It is called the Vandul because it was built by the VANderveldes and DULmages. It heats a shop 40 by 80 to 70 F and uses a baseboard heater thermostat to control the throttle. It uses only a reasonable amount of wood. It gets very cold here (-10F to -19F in winter)and their shop was not insulated and yet it was warm enough to paint and work in in T shirts and sometimes so warm you got sleepy if it was on manual over ride of the temp control. We built it winter of 86 and it is still going strong 22 years later with no repairs. It was recently moved to a new shop folowing a divorce and is doing great job there. Of all the things i ever designed this is by far the best working. Even has passed 22 years of insurance company inspections. If your shop is cold and you are handy with a welder this will work for you just fine.
Don

 

Keep the thread alive Great Stuff. Looking for a moter and parts for a disk sander.

 

Shows up now, thanks.

Nice stove, so you are using the T stat to control the air flow?

 

Yeah . It is made from a ford carb choke plate mounted to an L shaped rod with a stepper motor (28 volts). The t stat controls the stepper motor which is all open or on idle. That prevents ceasote buildup in the pipes from running like an air tight. I have seen it hold the shop to within 1 degree variation all day when on auto but my fresian friends are like women with T stats and think to get heat sooner you turn it up to about 90 instead of leaving it at 70F . I long since gave up with that and since I designed it for them and it is in their shop i dont worry about it now 22 years later. Main point is it heats their shop real well , uses not a lot of wood and never gives a problem. Shop ceilings at 10 feet so there is a lot of volume to heat. They run a body shop business in there and have for about 20 years during the farming off season. No one wears a coat , just a t shirt or a Madoc Dinner Jacket at best.(Checkered flannel shirt)
It has a stack thermostat and furnace fan in the back which blows air through the sides when the temp reaches a certain point or you can run it with the fan switch on constant because there is always hot air coming by when there is wood burning.

 

Thanks, sounds like a heck of a setup. Is there any kind of baffle in the firebox (to help draw out the heat)?

 

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Here's a super cheap panel edger I made out of some 1/2 flat stock.I used a cutoff wheel to slot it a bit off center so it can bend at 2 different angles,then round off the corners.

 

My home made drill press. Self feed is cool and I can slow it down to about 50 rpm for larger bits. I still need a bigger chuck though.

 

Nope the whole box is a heat exchanger. I did make a flame baffle in the pipe outlet from 1/4 inch steel that just sat in front of the hole on an angle so the flame would not go up the pipe but it was spaced out about 3 inches and was on a 45 degree angle. Heat is not a problem with it. It will cook you out if you want it to. Imagine doing good paint jobs in a pole barn (40 X 80 with 10 foot ceilings) style building with only 5/8 s chip board between you and the outside with the temp -19F.
Don

 

Brilliant!!!!!!

 

Here's a plan I posted elsewhere FWIW...

 

Yeah, I worded that poorly, I had an image in my mind of internal baffling to keep the heated gasses in the box longer to give it time to transfer as much heat as possible (and the baffles would transfer some as well, I suppose). Sounds like a good idea on the 'flame baffle'.

FWIW there are places here the sell 'doubble barrel' stove kits. two 55 Gal drums, one over the other, the lower one is the firebox, the upper just gives the smoke more time to give off some heat. Not as neat as your setup though.

 

Oh we have all the double barrel stuff and the guys with railway track inside and so on and so on. if you are comparing this to that you dont quite understand how well this works. It is as good as the very best industrial heating. In fact my pal thought he would switch to propane infa red shop heaters because someone talked him into it. Even though it was a big system it couldnt hold a candle to the stove. It did work out though as it provided weekend heat for when no one was there or if they were away on a trip. But when they are there they use this. This does not produce localized heat. The whole shop is comfy and warm like your granmothers kitchen used to be. I wondered when we built it of the air would move too fast but turned out not to be so. I never puts out cool air as long as it is burnng , even with coals in the firebox. I wish I could take you over there. They are using it right now and we are today about 20F with snow

 

Sorry I kind of copied.

 

I Don't think anyone will come and Kick your Dog for that,,, Nice Job.

 

I think everybody on this board who didn't already have a bead roller when he did that project has been looking for an antique wooden steering wheel and a big round base.
If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, he'll be one of the most flattered guys on this board when it's all over.

I just bought an Eastwood bead roller as a starter kit, and am having a real hard time not copying that great design.

-Brad

 

I saw all those homebuilt tool plans in American Rodder back when they came out in the early 90's. Always been wanting to make the disc sander and could never find where to get the friggin PLATEN. Well now I finally got the source. THANKS !!!!!!!!!!

 

Here are a few shots of a few of my home built tools.

The first are of a portable wire wheel/buffer. The arbor and motor were $1 at a yard sale. Everything else is scrap wood, including the tapered motor ways, sanded and painted. The unit simply gets c-clamped to the workbench, or to the next item shown.

This is an equipment rack rescued from some computer room. It is heavy aluminum construction. It's a great portable stand. I bolt a vise on it for certain uses, for example to hold my slip roll. If I unbolt the vise I have a nice flat surface on which to c-clamp the wire wheel shown above, or whatever.

The next item is my larger buffer. It is welded steel plate, square tube and strap. The motor sits in a piece of c-channel. I welded on a set of casters.

I often recycle old shopping carts into rolling engine storage stands. Here's one holding a Plymouth flathead.

Here is a shot of my heavy-duty Dremel. Not home-made, but it sits on a square tube frame I welded up. The frame has four heavy-duty steel casters and is topped with plywood. It is an underslung design to keep the overall height down.

With portables, I can often take the work outside (except the Bridgeport, of course), and that helps keep the shop clean. It also makes storage easier. I try to mount everything on wheels.

 

You can use shopping carts for almost anything,,, Makes it easy to roll a cab around for mockup.One of six in the shop.

 

What a great post..................
Here's a few tools we made. First a bead roller.



We mounted it to a planitary roller, works great.

 

Our shrinker/ strecher stand..................

 

How about a helve hammer.............this one uses a pneumatic motor.

 

I've posted this before but it should be in this post.......................Plasma torch handle.


We use this alot and it works great.

 

Lets see the elc. helve hammer.

 

here is one of our louver presses..
built this on from a mittler brothers.




johnny
www.baremetalrods.com

 

That's a heck of an idea, I'll have to try that the next time one of the homeles.. errr, 'Residentially Challenged' people leave one in my front yard.

 

My shrinker stand