ToolMod

Home-made tool box from recycled materials

Scott — Fri, 06 May 2011 04:20:53 +0000

After building a bending break and spot welder, Alan Millar decided he needed a toolbox. So, starting with recycled materials such as old bed frames and computer cases, he set out to building himself this toolbox:

Here is the parts list of materials used:

Head on over and check out the details of this build. Who knows you might decide it is time for a new toolbox yourself!

Dial Indicator Mount for the Atlas 618 lathe

Scott — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 01:11:23 +0000

Dean over at Dean’s Photographica is a photography enthuastiast who has some excellent machining skills. His site has several projects made with his TAIG mill and lathe. Dean also has an Atlas 8×18 lathe, which has some very nice improvements that are documented here. The project shown here is a nice addition to any lathe, which is a dial indicator mount for the lathe bed. This allows for precision movements of the lathe carriage during the machining process.

Here is a look at the finished product:

and the mount fitted to the lathe bed on the Atlas 6/18

Bandsaw Stand

Scott — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 02:17:32 +0000

Back in 1997 a newsletter published by Home Metal Shop Club contained an article by George Carlson on making a new stand for the 4×6 bandsaw. The article also displays a coolant system that was added to the saw as well.

In this link you will find the pdf at the bottom of the page which contains the plans for making a stand like this for yourself. While you are there, check out the many great articles on www.homemetalshopclub.org.

Home-Brew Spot Welder

Scott — Mon, 17 Jan 2011 01:54:50 +0000

The builder of this fine Spot Welder made it out of necessity because of a much larger project he was working on: a homemade gas turbine. By the looks of the figures given on his website, the welder as shown – can be built for around $175. The result is a high quality spot welder that produces excellent results.

Go to the 5 bears site and find out more about building the spot welder as well as several other nice projects.

CNC Milling Machine

Scott — Sat, 24 Jul 2010 04:27:34 +0000

Here is a Harbor Freight 47158 Micro-Mill that has been converted into a CNC controlled mill. Several parts for this conversion were made on another (manual) mill. Other parts needed were sourced from McMaster-Carr. This setup is sporting a homemade coolant system and a low-cost Home/Limit switch system using Hall-Effect sensors (Digikey part # DN6848-ND).

There is also a part two of the article that basically rebuilds the entire conversion in order to make it a stronger, more robust machine. Here is a picture of the new pulley system:

Read all about it in this two part series on the balbots.com site:

Part 1

Part2

Travelling CNC Medicine Show

Scott — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 03:56:50 +0000

This is one of the immaculately constructed mini-routers that Widgitmaster from CNCZone has been selling on eBay. The first thing done with this router was to convert it to CNC and then make it portable.

This little router has 8″ of X travel, 4″ of Y travel, and just under 2″ of Z travel.

As for the CNC portion, having just read a write up on Xylotex, he decided to give them a try. Their 3-axis complete kit is very reasonable, and is perfect for the mini-router. This kit has all the electronics and step motors you need to run a 3-axis machine.

Here it is with a 1/16″ ball mill loaded into the Dremel ready to work:

Read why the name of this project is called the traveling CNC medicine show over on the CNC Cookbook site.

Sheet Metal Brake

Scott — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 17:55:19 +0000

Mike sketched out some plans of a sheet metal brake and then built a great looking tool.

Many times we skip right over the sketching step and a mighty important step at that. This goes to show, you don’t have to make a set of cad drawings in order to record an idea in your head.

Here is how the final product turned out:

Read the details on Mike’s site.

Stretcher Shrinker Plans

Scott — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 17:34:59 +0000

These plans were drawn up by Ben’s custom art out of the Netherlands. I found them on a car building website, which the person who posted it found them on a metalworking site, which has lost much of it’s previous content due to server failure with no data backup. So, in the interest of keeping this together – here is a complete posting of the plans to build your own Stretcher and/or Shrinker. Enjoy!

Building a lathe from scratch

Scott — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 03:39:31 +0000

This lathe is another Gingery based creation. The framework is made of 1″ x 1″ square tubing and the bed is 3″ x 3″ x 1/4″ steel tubing.

The builder melted 50 bricks worth of aluminum, each weighing approx. 2.2 pounds in preparation to build the lathe. Take a look here for the details of the build.

Tilt Furnace

Scott — Sun, 13 Jun 2010 04:23:39 +0000

Anyone that does metalworking will sooner or later benefit from having their own foundry. Melt down old metal and start casting your new creations. This is a very rewarding project, most people with a home foundry build it themselves. This particular build is one of the nicer ones in that it is 1.) Built out of stainless steel and 2.) It tilts for pouring molten metal into a mold.

You will need other sources to get all the steps needed to build a foundry, however this should give you some ideas if you decide to incorporate a tilt function. Check out the full writeup at Alan’s machine works site.