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

FBS1.jpg


FBS2.jpg


The metal cutting bandsaw conversion is officially complete. Decided it would be easier to just buy the correct blade rather than dick around trying to weld my own. I'll still try that for the experience, but at least I can cut metal while I'm experimenting.

Original driven pulley was 12" and that was TOO slow. Ordered a 6" off McMaster and a suitable belt and that seems to be about the right compromise between cutting speed and heat.

FBS3.jpg


Motor is adjustable left/right and forward/backward to align the belt to the gear reduction. Gearbox is adjustable in both planes as well to align the belt with the driven pulley.

FBS4.jpg


Bronze blade guides came out well. Only thing left is to try and find a new upper wheel to replace the one that's been brazed back together and flops around like a wounded duck. With new tires on the wheels and a the proper tension, the blade DOES stay on the wheel, so it could be worse.
 
Ok, my turn... Logan Model 820 circa late '40's-early '50's. It was in truly awful aesthetic condition when I bought it, but in reasonable mechanical condition. Restored 12 years ago or so, as a working lathe, not a museum piece. QCTP upgrade, some basic collets, shop-made collet drawbar, shop-made indexing attachment, shop-made toolpost-mounted drilling attachment (orientable to drill either the face of the workpiece or outer circumference). No pics of the attachments, but can take some if there is an interest...
Lots of other shop-made stuff; mini hydraulic press, sandblasting pressure pot, band roller, lathe accessories, and so on. Besides the lathe, shop is equipped with a compressor, bandsaw, several drill presses, MIG, oxyacetylene, blast cabinet, abrasive and carbide chop saws, mechanical hacksaw, shear, various sanders/grinders. Two big missing items are TIG and a mill. TIG is probably next on the list. Just passed on what would have been a suitable mill, because its too much of a new rabbit-hole to dive into ($ and space).

2022_12_07_1.jpg
 
It is cool.
When I was a teenager an old guy in town had Stieber's Machine Shop, the equipment ancient and overhead shaft driven. I believe he had a large 3 phase motor running the shafts when I knew him in the early 1970's
I had him do a few minor things for me but it used up a lot of teenager' patience to get him to do it.
"Teenager patience!" I had to have a lot of that with my Dad! When I needed something, we didn't go out and buy it. We would just go downstairs and he would make it. He was a "Tool & Die" engineer for Bendix Aviation in Teterboro, NJ. The place is leveled now. Yep, my kids never had, or so it seemed, as much teenager patience as I had.
 
Definitely for special purposes. I once visited the Kværner hydropower machine shop while they still were in Oslo. Their vertical turret lathe must have had at least a 5 m (16-17 ft) table diameter. They used it for turning the shaft coupling and labyrinth seal surfaces on big Francis hydro power turbine runners. I believe the largest Kværner turbine has 350 MW output. (close to 500 000 horsepower) Indeed big machines.
Don't you want his in your shop, even if there is no conceivable reason to own it?
Described as a vertical turret lathe.

View attachment 234500
For scale that table is 52" across.
 
Not a shop machine, but it’s a tool. Picked this up today. Mac Tools 1/4” drive torque wrench. Torque range 10-50 in lbs. now I just have to find something to use it on.. lol.


View attachment 234847View attachment 234848
Got any old Cummins Diesels that would work for adjusting the injectors in them but only the cold setting as most need a bit over 50 inch pounds when set hot!
 
Not a shop machine, but it’s a tool. Picked this up today. Mac Tools 1/4” drive torque wrench. Torque range 10-50 in lbs. now I just have to find something to use it on.. lol.


View attachment 234847View attachment 234848
Nice.
I picked up a couple of Tekton torque wrenches recently, the 1/4" and 3/8". They're not top-range, but feel quite good in use and certainly seem to be accurate enough when I've tested them.
I really wish I could get my classic dial S-O 3/8" torque wrench back into play, but any commercial / industrial recertification house is looking for far too much to justify its use on a purely personal level. It's a nice unit, with a bit of history, deffo WW2 vintage and probably came out of one of the factories knocking out fighters, bombers, etc over here.
 
Last edited:
Nice.
I picked up a couple of Tekton torque wrenches recently, the 1/4" and 3/8". They're not top-range, but feel quite good in use and certainly seem to be accurate enough when I've tested them.
I really wish I could get my classic dial S-O 3/8" torque wrench back into play, but any commercial / industrial recertification house is looking for far too much to justify its use on a purely personal level. It's a nice unit, with a bit of history, deffo WW2 vintage and probably came out of one of the factories knocking out fighters, bombers, etc over here.
That would be a cool tool to have and use. Click type torque wrench calibration around here costs about $100. A Snap On torque wrench is $4-500 now so recertification is still worthwhile. You can check it for reasonableness yourself if you have a torque wrench of known calibration or if you can find a digital wrench to borrow you can use that as reference too.
 
I just had a dental implant installed and they used a mini torque wrench to set the seat and post of the tooth. I was surprised at the amount of torque applied to set the threaded seat in my jawbone. Guess it was better to use this precision tool rather than cranking on it until you hear a crack, then back it off 1/8 turn. Hope they used a better one than this.
0F038D60-13E9-4AB5-825B-D66DB60D6B0D.png
 
I've had a Craftsman drill press that was given to me in nearly complete but rough condition 20+ years ago. It had belonged to my friend's uncle who used it in a starter/alternator repair shop for decades. The uncle had retired and was going to pitch it but my friend knew I like old stuff, so it went to me. It needed a bunch of things but REALLY needed new bearings to get it operational, so I did that and used it in that condition until I decided recently to put everything right. Among Craftsman drill press folks this model is known as a Mohawk because of the belt guard. (which always reminds me of the Cylon's helmets in the original Battlestar Galactica TV series) It was only made for about 18 months or so in 1942 and 43 at which time (I'm guessing) war needs put an end to production, which makes parts scarcer and more expensive than other Craftsman drill presses.



The first order of business was replacing the quill return spring and knob, which is frequently broken on this model drill press and costs about $100 used on eBay IF you can find one. I couldn't find the correct width spring but did find springs half as wide on Amazon so used two of them and made a knob from aluminum round stock on the lathe.





Hurray! No more using the quill lock to keep the running bit from slamming into the workpiece.

The other major thing I didn't like about the press was it only had two speeds, too fast and too slow...OK it actually had four speeds but you get the idea. The biggest problem was the slowest speed being 600 rpm which was way too fast for big bits or big holes using a hole saw. Other Craftsman presses had a multi-speed(MS) accessory that could be added to provide twelve speeds, but they never made one for this press and they cost around $300 when you can find one. The biggest challenge would be fitting everything under the very narrow and low belt guard which barely had enough clearance for the existing pulleys. I made an intermediate pulley mount which fit into the tubular column and allows a four-step pulley to be added between the existing pulleys but there isn't enough room to allow any adjustment like the MS accessory. The motor has adjustment built into the tilting base so I made a spring-loaded idle roller to tension the quill belt. The idler can spin over 10,000 rpm at the highest quill speed so it needed good ball bearings in the idler. Here's everything completed and there is just BARELY enough room for everything to fit under the guard.

full


Now it has twelve speeds and most important the lowest speed is now a touch over 200 rpm.

The other major annoyance was not having a convenient comfortable place to use it so I made a rolling stand with folding side tables and plenty of storage underneath.



I also disassembled the old reluctor motor and cleaned out 80 years of crud and regreased the bearings so it now runs SMOOOTH and quiet and also added an on/off switch up by the return spring. (sorry, no pictures)

The quill handle had one missing and one broken ball end so I replaced those and discovered there was supposed to be a spring-loaded shoe behind the handle to keep it in place so I dug the old spring out from behind the handle (nice that it was still there) and made a new "shoe" from nylon on the lathe to provide the drag to keep it in place.



I checked total runout using a 1/4" piece of ground rod in the chuck and it was 0.003" which I found amazing for an 80 year old drill press!
 
Had a Dunlop (sears) drill press I inherited from dad. But sold it on when a bud gave me an industrial drill press.
Been fuddling around in the shop, finally got the mill making chips after puzzling over the Chinese VFD manual for a while. :umm: :whistle:
Nothing like thousands of dollars of tools to make parts for the tool's tool............... um, say what?
The little aluminum do-dad in my hand, a sliding parallel I ginned up to make it easier to set the tail stock, for the index, for the mill...
KIMG2995.JPG
Know what I mean Vern?
I'm just a hacker but having fun.
 
That would be a cool tool to have and use. Click type torque wrench calibration around here costs about $100. A Snap On torque wrench is $4-500 now so recertification is still worthwhile. You can check it for reasonableness yourself if you have a torque wrench of known calibration or if you can find a digital wrench to borrow you can use that as reference too.
When in doubt about torque wrench calibration, I have done the following on a few occasions:
  1. Clamp the square drive in a vice, trying to keep the wrench handle as horizontal as possible.
  2. Measure the distance from center of drive to where you would pull/ apply force (My Teng Tools torque wrenches have a machined groove indicating the ideal spot)
  3. Select the desired torque setting you want to confirm
  4. Hang a bucket or similar in a string, from the position determined by step 2
  5. Slowly add weight in the bucket, for example water. Or use scrap metal, gravel, rocks, whatever you have. All depending on requirement
  6. Stop adding weight when it clicks.
  7. Weigh the bucket with its contents on a digital kitchen or bathroom scale, depending on how heavy it is.
  8. Multiply the results from points 2 and 7, and you have the actual torque applied.
 
When in doubt about torque wrench calibration, I have done the following on a few occasions:
  1. Clamp the square drive in a vice, trying to keep the wrench handle as horizontal as possible.
  2. Measure the distance from center of drive to where you would pull/ apply force (My Teng Tools torque wrenches have a machined groove indicating the ideal spot)
  3. Select the desired torque setting you want to confirm
  4. Hang a bucket or similar in a string, from the position determined by step 2
  5. Slowly add weight in the bucket, for example water. Or use scrap metal, gravel, rocks, whatever you have. All depending on requirement
  6. Stop adding weight when it clicks.
  7. Weigh the bucket with its contents on a digital kitchen or bathroom scale, depending on how heavy it is.
  8. Multiply the results from points 2 and 7, and you have the actual torque applied.
I do almost the same. Instead of a weighted bucket, I use a digital fish scale.
 
When in doubt about torque wrench calibration, I have done the following on a few occasions:
  1. Clamp the square drive in a vice, trying to keep the wrench handle as horizontal as possible.
  2. Measure the distance from center of drive to where you would pull/ apply force (My Teng Tools torque wrenches have a machined groove indicating the ideal spot)
  3. Select the desired torque setting you want to confirm
  4. Hang a bucket or similar in a string, from the position determined by step 2
  5. Slowly add weight in the bucket, for example water. Or use scrap metal, gravel, rocks, whatever you have. All depending on requirement
  6. Stop adding weight when it clicks.
  7. Weigh the bucket with its contents on a digital kitchen or bathroom scale, depending on how heavy it is.
  8. Multiply the results from points 2 and 7, and you have the actual torque applied.
Oh, I've done all that, and for some reason over the years, the indicated scale is about 50% less than the actual torque.
I might open it up again and more closely examine it for adjustability - it must have some, because no torque wrench ever made was bang-on at manufacture. Except.... the bendy bar types, and even those... aren't.
 
Last edited:
And, fish scales and luggage scales can be used in lieu of torque wrenches. There are a number of sites on the web showing how to measure the torque using length of spanner and so,on..
 
Well…I have access to a full shop ,and they encourage us to do lunch and after hours projects to keep our skills honed but… they sort of frown on pictures lest we get a pic of something we shouldn’t lol!
 
Back
Top