# Some pictures from my shop



## mklotz (Jan 12, 2009)

Well, it's a nice shop day (78 degF outside, 3 deg warmer than in the shop), so I took some pictures to cover a few things I've talked about recently as well as some new things I wanted to offer.

First is my impromptu shop tripod for my camera.







A 3/8" rod stuck into one of those ubiquitous cheap magnetic DI holders. On the top of the rod is a miniature tripod head I picked up long ago at a quality camera store sale. The mag base can, of course, be stuck on any of the machines or, for bench top work, to my bench block as shown in the photo.

When it's not holding a camera, it holds a Maglite (tm) in easily adjustable positions using a holder I cobbled together from a block of scrap aluminum.






Next are some deburring tools for tiny holes. They're pricey but well worth it if you do lots of really tiny holes. They consist of hardened steel disks set into handles. The largest and smallest, lying in front of the homebuilt holder are about 1/4" and 1/16" in diameter. You simply place the disk on top of the hole and rotate the handle with your fingertips to clean up the edge.






A recent thread discussed depth gages for the tailstock. Mine is nothing more than a DI fitted with a commercially available magnetic back stuck to the top of my TS. An extended feeler rod connects the DI with an aluminum block that clamps to the TS barrel. Dead simple and works a charm.






Note the wrench stuck to the TS body. HF sells a set of wrenches with magnets inlet into the plastic handles. I have several sets which I've broken up so that I can stick the appropriate-sized wrench right where it's needed on the machine.

Another thing discussed recently was the pump center. Here's a (staged) shot of mine set up. (And yes, that's a 3jaw chuck - I was too lazy to mount the heavy 8" 4jaw in order to take a picture.) Note the DI holding fixture secured to the compound by a large magnet. It plops in place with its axis automatically aligned to the lathe spindle axis. Also note the plate-like point on the DI to avoid any minor centering errors.






Sometimes the hole in the part that needs to be centered is larger in diameter than the pump center rod (3/8" in mine). For that case I made a pump rod bull center which slips over the pump rod as shown...






Finally, some of you may be wondering about that shelf-like thing hanging off the left of the carriage.






It's an aluminum plate secured via the traveling steady holes in the carriage and meant to catch swarf (and thread wires and small tools and tiny parted-off parts) before it falls onto the ways or leadscrew. The miniature sheetmetal dust pan sitting on it just fits the front of the shelf so it's easy to sweep debris into the dust pan and dump it on those rare occasions when I actually clean up.

Clever readers may be thinking, "Won't that thing hit the headstock if the carriage is moved to the left?" The answer is yes and that's why there's a limit switch held by a magnet to the HS where the shelf would contact. It sounds an alarm buzzer if I get too close.

Ok, that's enough for now. I'm off to the beach. The girls' volleyball team should be warmed up by now. LA may be a freaky place but you just can't beat the scenery.


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## lathe nut (Jan 12, 2009)

Very nice fellow, thanks for the chance to see your very nice things, Lathe Nut


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## Kludge (Jan 13, 2009)

mklotz  said:
			
		

> Next are some deburring tools for tiny holes. They're pricey but well worth it if you do lots of really tiny holes. They consist of hardened steel disks set into handles. The largest and smallest, lying in front of the homebuilt holder are about 1/4" and 1/16" in diameter. You simply place the disk on top of the hole and rotate the handle with your fingertips to clean up the edge.



Ahhh, watchmaker's tools show up in the strangest places. Those are used for cutting lubrication wells in watch & clock jewels. As you've shown, they have other applications having nothing to do with watch making & repair. As you know, watch tools are my favorites and it's nice to see others use them. 

Thank you for sharing your shop, Marv.

Best regards,

Kludge


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## Kludge (Jan 13, 2009)

steamer  said:
			
		

> The Bench I built.



Ooooh, pretty! And more ideas for my minishop. (It's shown in another thread.) 

Right now, my solo taps and their tapping drills are in really small baggies. My tap collection is be growing, and dies & clearance drills will be added as I go. Baggies will not last forever, even for the submetric taps & die plates. I know where I can get plastic boxes, both larger multi-section and smaller single section, in which I can store these tools and maybe *shudder* organize even more.

Best regards,

Kludge


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## Kermit (Jan 13, 2009)

I love it! Especially the cabinet of drawers.

And a GeeTar? ;D You play?


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## ksouers (Jan 13, 2009)

Folks, please. Lets try to stay on topic and not hijack Marv's thread.

Marv has been at this game for awhile and has some wonderful solutions to the problems we all encounter that he is willing to share, if we let him continue.


Thanks,
Kevin


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## mklotz (Jan 13, 2009)

Thanks, Kevin.

I know that thread drift is inevitable but steamer's post was really out of left field - especially so since he's posted those pics in a thread of his own and they bear no relation to what I posted.

Guys, hijacking threads is not very polite and I'm not just saying that because I'm the hijackee. Please exercise some forethought when you post by trying to imagine how your post would be received if roles were reversed and you were the original poster.

Ok, subject closed. Now, does anyone have any comments or questions about what I posted?


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## steamer (Jan 13, 2009)

Sorry Marv

I removed it.

Dave


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## Kludge (Jan 13, 2009)

mklotz  said:
			
		

> Ok, subject closed. Now, does anyone have any comments or questions about what I posted?



Fifth & sixth photos down: How is the DI mounted there? I'm sure it's something obvious but I'm just not seeing it.

BEst regards,

Kludge


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## rleete (Jan 13, 2009)

mklotz  said:
			
		

> Next are some deburring tools for tiny holes.



Wher did you find these? My Google-fu is weak.


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## mklotz (Jan 13, 2009)

Kludge,

There's another photo of the fixture and a bit of discussion about it in this thread...

http://www.homemodelenginemachinist.com/index.php?topic=3820.0

There's nothing exciting about it. The DI is screwed to a plate attached to the black, forked piece. By sliding the forked piece up and down, the axis of the DI can be aligned to the lathe spindle axis. When it is, the forked piece is locked in place by tightening the screw that holds it to the steel angle to which the magnet is attached.

Since, once set up, this thing will never be adjusted, there was no need to make anything very fancy. I used whatever bits and pieces were lying around. The idea here is to cobble something that can be slapped in place and be ready to do its job without the need for adjustments (as would be the case with a conventional DI holder). Tools that can be used instantly are far more likely to be used than those that require tedious setup. The net result is better work.


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## mklotz (Jan 13, 2009)

rleete,

I bought them from Enco...

http://www.use-enco.com/CGI/INSRIT?PMAKA=240-3311


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## mklotz (Jan 13, 2009)

There seemed to be a lot of interest in the construction of the dedicated DI holder so today I took a few more pictures.
















I like dedicated purpose tools. I have a carriage stop cum DI holder on the right side of the carriage...






The DI is handy when I need to move the carriage by some precise amount. It also serves as an "alert" indicator when boring a blind hole or threading to a shoulder - I can watch it as it comes up on the point where the half nuts need to be disengaged.

The DI is mounted such that, if the carriage is run into the base, the carriage will hit the stop before the DI bottoms out. Thus the DI doesn't need to be removed to use it as a stop. "Why a stop on the right side of the carriage?", I hear them asking. You'll know the answer the first time you make a part with a stopped cut, e.g., a piston valve or a crankshaft.

I also have a more conventional stop on the left side of the carriage...






It was built back when I was starting out in this hobby so it's a bit beefier and bulky than it probably needs to be. Nevertheless, it works just fine. The extra long handle is so I can operate it when it's hidden under the carriage swarf tray I described above.


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## ChooChooMike (Jan 13, 2009)

Kludge  said:
			
		

> Right now, my solo taps and their tapping drills are in really small baggies. My tap collection is be growing, and dies & clearance drills will be added as I go. Baggies will not last forever, even for the submetric taps & die plates. I know where I can get plastic boxes, both larger multi-section and smaller single section, in which I can store these tools and maybe *shudder* organize even more.



A decent container I found to store taps and dies is the Altoids mints tin-cans 






Of course you'll have to go thru a lot of mints to get the many tins you might use !! The side benefit is you'll have pretty darn good smelling breath :big:

Mike


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## ChooChooMike (Jan 13, 2009)

> Next are some deburring tools for tiny holes. They're pricey but well worth it if you do lots of really tiny holes. They consist of hardened steel disks set into handles. The largest and smallest, lying in front of the homebuilt holder are about 1/4" and 1/16" in diameter. You simply place the disk on top of the hole and rotate the handle with your fingertips to clean up the edge.



These come in particularly handy after drilling steam holes in a cylinder. You use these tools to deburr the holes inside the cylinder.


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## Kludge (Jan 13, 2009)

ChooChooMike  said:
			
		

> A decent container I found to store taps and dies is the Altoids mints tin-cans



Okay, these are the tins that go to the electronics side of the house since they're nice little metal boxes into which I can build itty bitty circuits. I can probably talk myself into moving some to the machining side and maybe buying another gross to go with them. 

Thanks!

BEst regards,

Kludge


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## Kludge (Jan 13, 2009)

mklotz  said:
			
		

> There seemed to be a lot of interest in the construction of the dedicated DI holder so today I took a few more pictures.



Many, many much lots of thanks. It was the magnets I didn't "see" ... until you mentioned they were magnets. Obviously my powers of observation need work.

Best regards,

Kludge ... slinking off to his corner now ...


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## shred (Jan 13, 2009)

Thanks Marv, keep 'em coming. What lathe is that?


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## steamer (Jan 13, 2009)

Need a compound lock like yours Marv....except on the cross slide....I usally keep the compound tight, but that T bolt would work great on the cross.

Dave


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## ksouers (Jan 14, 2009)

Marv,
Lots of great ideas. 
Thanks for sharing, especially the details on the DI mounts. I might have to "borrow" them.


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## dparker (Jan 15, 2009)

Marv: You did it to me again---I saw your tooling and just had to make something like it.

I already had the plate to go on the tailstock ram but was never satisfied with how to mount my magnetic base dial indicator and ended up with it on the carriage or some other flimsy setup. When I saw your dial indicator mounted on the tailstock casting I started to think of how I could do that on the round casting on my lathe. I ended up using a "General" mag base that I had set up to hold a deflector that I rarely used and it sits quite securely on the round casting, made a indicator mount out of some aluminum angle and it looks like it will work nicely.







With all the talk about collets I made a holder above my lathe out of PVC pipe and used a #3 morse taper reamer to make them seat securely. I ended up hot gun glueing the PVC to the angle iron. A spindle thread cover for safety is at the right of the rack with a roll pin to insert in one of the holes if it becomes too tight on the threads to undo by hand.






At this rate of trying to adapt your ideas on tooling to use on my machines I may never get more engines built. Keep showing your special tooling, I really like your ideas and ingenuity of solving some of the little problems that seem to keep coming up.
Thank You--but alas I'm beginning to need more tool boxes---don


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## mklotz (Jan 15, 2009)

Don,

Good job on the TS mount. In retrospect, I should have said more about what to do if one has a TS with a rounded top. Your General mag base is a fine solution. Many discount houses sell knock offs of that style but, if you can't find one, another solution is to simply glue two supermagnets to two plates of steel such that the plates project outward - visualize the letter 'H' where the crossbar is the magnet(s) and the uprights are the steel plates. A friend of mine built a fixture like that to hold a level on round pipe. A magnet from a junked disk drive should work just fine.

A spindle thread cover is an excellent female threading project for the novice who wants to practice threading before committing to an expensive piece like a faceplate or chuck backplate. When I was first starting out I wanted to make a collet chuck which would thread on my spindle. Since that was my first attempt at single point threading, my learning path went thusly:

1. Make copy of lathe spindle threads - test while cutting with existing faceplate.
2. Make spindle thread cover to practice female threading - test with male thread piece made in step 1.
3. Make collet chuck - test threads with piece made in step 1.

When I was done, I had three useful items - the collet chuck, the spindle thread cover and the chunk of male threaded stock. The latter was made long enough that I could hack off a length and screw it to a steel bar. Said steel bar is then bolted to the rotary table when I want to mount the chuck to the table. The remainder of the chunk is still my thread gage for making stuff that threads on the spindle. It's really satisfying when your learning pieces can all be put to practical use. 

If you haven't already, look back through some of my earlier posts made when I first joined the forum. I documented a whole collection of "quick and dirty" solutions to common shop problems.


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