Search results

Just picked up a new drill grinder, one I hadn't heard of until just a week or two ago. Came in yesterday and I finally had a chance to try it today. Quick opinion? Worth every penny. It's basically a Drill Doctor that actually works, without having to hold your tongue just right, or sacrifice...

I really need to start getting some use out of my new-to-me CNC mill this year, and that, of course, necessitates a good CAD program and post-processors. Generally speaking, it would seem that for someone in my position- small shop but with proper industrial machines, not desktop toys- it boils...

Finally managed to produce a somewhat decent (for a neophyte :D ) shop video, and thought I'd start a thread here, both for it and hopefully for more in the future. For those that don't know me- which is all but, like, two of you :D - I'm "Doc", I'm a professional machinist that just happens to...

I have, for quite a few years now, been making short runs of specialty production parts- specifically for paintball guns. Since this is not a big-bucks market to start with, and I'm trying to do it out of backwater, Left Armpit, Alaska- and on a frayed and knotted shoestring budget- I've been...

My shop has a large French drain in one bay, basically they cast the floor around a 55 gallon drum without ends. It's simply filled with gravel and was intended to simply give snow melt from a car a place to go. I'm setting up some machine tools in that bay, a long-term prospect, and I'm...

I have a small home machine shop, in which I both modify and repair things (mostly paintball guns :D ) and manufacture parts for same. It's not extensive, it's basically just a warmed-over two-bay garage, and for many years, it's been little more than an ad-hoc workshop for everything from...

We're shortly going to be working on a furnace replacement project, taking out an older and well-worn boiler and replacing it with a more modern condensing boiler. The current flue is of course a straight chimney- double wall metalbestos, I think?- that goes straight up and through the roof...

About a month ago, I picked up a little Hardinge HSL-59. For those not familiar, they're little "speed" lathes (HSL= Hardinge Speed Lathe) also known as "second operation", "simple operation" or "single operation" lathes. Basically for small factory operations that don't necessarily need to...

In August of 2013, I spotted this beauty on Craigslist: It had, at that point, very likely spent a decade, probably more, out in the Alaskan weather. That photo was taken after I'd pulled the ratty remnants of a blue tarp- which by that time was more fishnet than tarp- off the headstock. I...

For the past several months, I've been working on an old Warner & Swasey turret lathe. I'm probably one of the few people around that can actually use one- that is, I actually have a use for it, not saying I'm the only one that knows how to work one. :D Basically I need to make enough parts...

My shop right now is extremely tight on space, made worse by the recent acquisition of a fourth lathe. (Not a typo. :D ) Some of these machines need to go away, and I'm working on that. But one option that popped up is to "consolidate" my welders. I currently have an old Lincoln MIG, an old...

Roughly a decade ago, I bought and rebuilt a 1962 Nichols Hand Miller, a small home-shop sized horizontal mill: Well, while I got quite a bit of use out of that machine, it never really lived up to it's full potential, because having been a repetitive-use factory machine, the middle third of...

Several years ago, somebody came out with a new power tool called a burnisher. It's basically an angle grinder, but turns a wide cylindrical drum, sort of steamroller fashion. That lets you work a surface in a wide, flat path, rather than the typical tiny curved area like you get with a flap...

Looking to add a driveway chime (visitor bell thing) to the shop. I know they make units with two sensors (I have two driveways) but does anyone make a unit with two bases? That is, I want to put a sensor across each of the two driveways, but I also want the chime to sound both out in the shop...

I don't know if this is a kosher thing to post, but I'll give it a shot. I, like many of you here, will occasionally rebuild a machine tool, a mill or lathe or what have you. And as such, I will have need for parts that aren't often available on places like eBay or Craigslist. Some of you may...

A week or two back, we all saw a video from Clickspring, in which he made a card press for a magician friend. The work was amazing and the resulting device looked like something you'd present to an especially picky Tsar or something. :D While I knew Clickspring has had a whole series of videos...

I spend altogether too much time sitting at this damn PC, and... well, long story short, the old desk I'd been using for far too many years, was just plain falling apart. I'd reinforced and rebuilt it several times, but really, it was just cheap sheetmetal and pressboard, so there was a limit to...

Just finished my shop airline install and compressor relocation project. :D Plumbed the main shop (2 car bays) and side machine room with eight drops all told, with a total of 11 QD connections, all run off a 60-gal CH upright. I moved it out of the main shop and into a side storage room, which...

I'm closing in on finishing up a Rapidair/Maxline install in my shop- between the two-bay garage and the small machine room adjacent, I have seven outlets, and the whole thing is a mix of 3/4" and 1/2". Most of the runs are 3/4", with some of the smaller drops (mainly just for blowguns) being...

I'm in the middle of rebuilding an older Wellsaw horizontal bandsaw, and got around to checking over the motor. It's an older 3-phase unit with an odd post mount, and ran just fine other than a little worn bearing whirr and a wobbly pulley. The bearings are an easy fix, of course, but in...