Is it my turn? Anything to do with lathes, mills and other shop tools

Several years ago my old neighbor downloaded some plans off the internet for a bike lift. Basic structural steel and one air/oil cylinder from Harbor Freight.
Material pricing being what it is, it was not much more to build two so I bought a cylinder as well, the angle iron, tread plate, bolts/nuts etc. and fabricated two, one for him and one for me.
Discovered later that I could have bought one from Harbor Freight for about the same money and it had a rear wheel drop out plate, DUH!!!!!
Still have it and it works great
 
One disadvantage to the "fold 'em/store 'em" cranes is that with the boom all the way down in storage position, it takes a LOT of pumps on the long ram jack to get the boom up far enough to extend it
I'm guessin' mine came outta the same Chines factory they all come out of. I discovered years ago that if you grab the boom by hand and lift it up to where you want, count to 5 and let go... it'll stay where you put it. Much easier than pumping forever....
 
Dug this one out of a barn the other day.

wouldn’t turn on when I got there. They wanted a grand for it when I got there - it left in my truck with my wallet $200 bucks lighter.

got it home - pulled the motor and found exposed wires shorting out. 15 minute rewire and it runs like a champ.

still gotta pull it all apart and clean and paint it but that’s easy work.

a few chucks - tail stock - a few steady rests - live/dead centers. Tons of cutting tools and boring bars.

ways are nice( no ware spots), carriage and cross feed work nicely.

once clean I’ll stick a quick change tool post on it.

C5018866-8153-4A43-B370-4E2153C5EF37.jpeg
 
Bargain! A couple of side jobs, and you'll have gotten it for "free"! It's for you, but you can make money on it. Good score! :thumbsup:

haha the list of little projects I’ve passed on or paid someone else to do is much to long to list. About time to start recouping my losses haha.
 
"Shouldah, wouldah, couldah!" My father had a Hardinge milling maching with a Bridgeport head. I used it as a kid to make nylon rims for my "Model Motoring" cars. (I was a nerd in 8th grade and was in the Model Motoring Drag Racing club). My dad was a "Tool and Die" engineer for Bendix Aviation and would collect machines and work benches that were being removed from service. He would moonlight in the basement making small parts for various companies. I was part of his work force. I wish I knew 1/10th of what he knew about machining and metal.

Anyway, my brother sold the Milling machine. Shouldah kept it. Indexer and all the accessories. :banghead:

I do have a turret lathe annd a bunch of other things. Picts to be shown soon in your area!
 
Yeah, back in the 70's as a young apprentice spent some time on a Hardinge DV59 second operation lathe with turret tail stock.
Spitting out small bits, shafts, nozzles etc. you could knock out a bunch of carb jets if you had a notion. :laughing:
 
Last edited:
Yep! Made 50,000 of these little caps, ~1" tall, ~3/8 diameter and threaded. All on a turret lathe fed with 16' bar stock. Made em in ~30 seconds. Your may be wondering, how does he remember this. Well, after you've made about 10,000 of these things, you can do it with your eyes closed. But of course, my Dad would hit me on the side of the head if I took my eyes off what I was doing. "You wanna lose a finger or an eye?" "Watch what you're doing!" "Never take your eyes off what you're doing!"

Hmmmm! I remember that too!
 
Yes, and they were built like tanks. To continue, after making thousands of these little parts manually, my Dad finds what I remember as the OOG machine, but it was an Automatic Screw Machine. Pre-CNC, it made these parts automatically, but all cuts and procedures were performed by cams that he learned to cut to determine the tool and speed.

https://www.brogan-patrick.com/blog/the-history-of-automatic-screw-machines/

That was his thing. Setup took days or even weeks, but when he got it going, he would stand and watch and measure every 20 or so parts and empty the bin occasionally. I was replaced by a machine in the 60's.

I wonder if there is anyone alive today who could make that thing work or who would want to?

automatic-screw-machines.jpg
unnamed.jpg
 
Yeah, back in the 70's as a young apprentice spent some time on a Hardinge DV59 second operation lathe with turret tail stock.
Spitting out small bits, shafts, nozzles etc. you could knock out a bunch of carb jets if you had a notion. :laughing:

Yes, the nylon rims I used to make were sometimes smaller than a carb jet. Making those tiny threads would be difficult! It's Friday! :cheers:
 
Got into machining quite by accident, living in the north all jr. and sr. high schools had shop class back in the day. Took shop in 7th grade, half year metal, half year wood, HATED metal shop. From 8th grade on took art class instead. My dad worked for Govt. Printing Office in DC so I thought I might get into printing so took print shop last two years high school. Affirmative Action poo pooed getting a govt. job so right out of school got job at small print shop and didn't like it.
Did other things for a few years, lumber yard hand, brick helper, then got into electronics assembly at a defense plant in MD and did wiring/cable harnesses for AWACs planes and Navy Destroyers, then some satellite stuff and finally medical equipment, kidney dialysis machines and blood centrifuges.
Wasn't making much money after several years at that but while there it was the early days of water based machine coolants and the machine shop there switched all their equipment to the new stuff. About a dozen guys, proved to be allergic to it and symptoms ran from a mild rash to open sores.
The guys would have to take temp disability to get cleared up, come back and within a few days would break out again. Some they managed to clean out their machines and switch back to soluble oil, some they offered jobs at a sister company a few miles away and some went elsewhere. At any rate it opened opportunities for new hires and apprentices.
To come in as a beginning apprentice from wiring was a lateral pay move and it gave me opportunity to make bike parts on the side.
Finished my apprenticeship and company started to downsize so I moved south, went to work for company that did industrial specialty welding, remote welding systems for hazardous environments, Nuclear plants, boilers and pressure vessels etc. While there I attracted the interest of the Eng. manager who was impressed by my ability to design fixturing/work holding and understanding of machining so pulled me into engineering to help design and build remote operated machining tools to support the welding jobs. Kept my hand in making chips though.
Now I'm designing and building automated testing systems for a large aftermarket manufacturer of heavy truck parts, mostly oil, fuel and water pumps.
Not at all where I thought I'd end up.
 
Got into machining quite by accident,
- - - Not at all where I thought I'd end up.

Hi RC4MAN.
back 'ome (1950s UK) they wouldn't let an apprentice into the design office until he'd worked 3 years on the shop floor.
Alas no such rigor in Canada. Had a new start (1st job after drafting school) draw up a radioactive materials tote bucket.
( 1 gallon s/st can with 1/2" thick lead lining)
His design had a 10 gage wire carrying handle.
"What's that thing weigh ? HTF you gonna pick it up?
"I did the stress analysis. that handle's good for it"
"without it cutting your fingers off?"
"Oh."
 
Back
Top