what home made machines have you made?

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New_Guy

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has anyone made a lathe, mill, shapper, drill, grinder, gear hobber or any other type of metal working machine tool from scratch or from scrounged and canalized parts off other machines to make a working general machine tool or for a specific operation...... i think that covers almost everything

so what home made machines have you guys made?

machine accessories and wood working machines are more than welcome as are pictures :D
 
here's a planer knife grinder I put together from pieces. I would up using a more powerful motor for the grinding wheel. Blade from my Delta 12.5 x 6 Portable planer.

Had time and pieces but no job at teh time so I built the grinder rather than buy a new set of blades.

KnifeGrinder003.jpg
 
2 x 48 Belt Sander from a 1 hp swimming pool pump motor. The vertical column is made from telescoping square steel tubing and the pulleys were welded up from 4" round steel tubing.

BeltGrinder001.jpg


Dividing head I made from an Atlas 6" lathe spindle. Worm gear is 12 pitch x 40 teeth.

DividingHead2.jpg


Cutter & Tool grinder I made from scratch. Motor is DC from a treadmill. Cutting those T-slots was a booger!

ToolGrinder.jpg


Overarm Router attachment for my tablesaw

overarmrouter.jpg


20 ton hydraulic press

Press.jpg


Chuck
 
Interesting subject, so here's a couple of mine.

The first one makes miniature square nuts that I use a lot of in the models I make. This one gizzmo can produce, at the moment, 3 different sized nuts, with a bit more mucking around, I could make it do a lot more different sizes as well.
These nuts were made 1 at a time on a Unimat 3, but it took forever to make a dozen, so this lot was hatched.

IMGP0486.jpg


It uses K & S square section brass, of the appropriate size required, for whatever sized nuts I need.

At the moment I can make 8 BA, 10 BA or 12 BA nuts with it, now I can make about 100 per hour, bit quicker than with the lathe. You stick the brass into the collet up at the grinding wheel, turn it around to give the head a slight domed look, then down to the next collet and shove it in and the tapping size hole is drilled, then down to the saw blade and cut it of the stick, start again.
Oh, 12 BA nuts are 2mm x 2mm and 1.25mm high with a 1 mm hole for the tap, a tad on the small size, eh.

This next one is a Sander Thicknesser, I needed to get timber of the exact sizes/thickness for the 12th scale models, this 'thingy' can sand it down to with-in 0.001" of how thick it's needed, it now makes it very easy to get spokes all the same size. If your real carefull, you can get the timber down to about 0.010" thick before it turns to $#ite, it's so thin, you can hold it up to the light and actually see right through it.

IMGP0485.jpg


regards radish
 
Made a few machine accessories. Things I didn't want to buy, so..

Auxiliary lathe spindle:

30.jpg





Indexer. Sorry for the tiny pic.

done.jpg






Screwless vise, (though they still use a screw, of course):

44.jpg





Rotary table:

91.jpg





Boring head, from a design & prints by Stephen Campbell, (goes by "walnotr" here):

58.jpg



More odds n' ends, but that's enough.

Thanks for asking!

Dean
 
I am going to stop reading this post. It just makes me aware of the quality of work I can't do.

Seriously, nice looking tools guys. I am jealous.
 
black85vette said:
I am going to stop reading this post. It just makes me aware of the quality of work I can't do.

'Vette, everything I've built, I couldn't have built, until I built it. And, quality of work amounts to practice. No one here built a masterpiece on their very first day in the shop.

We're all momentarily "stuck" at different places on the builder's scale. We go up a notch every time we try to improve the finish or quality over the last part we made.

Dean
 
wow nice everyone it goes to show we have some very talented people on this board

i really like Chucks tool and cutter grinder

Radishes gizmo for square nuts lol i see im not the only one who likes to use grinders motors for other machines :big:

Dean your tooling just looks so professional

dave what can i say i love i love that mill i can tell you used a Sherline headstock and motor but did you fabricate and machine the rest or are they scavenged off other machines?

Mark you are very talented i saw your rose engine in the ornamental turning forum on U-Bute and your website is inspiring to say the least i remember seeing someone cutting those coins up here once at a market very talented :bow:

Stevehuckss396 thats a cool CNC mill i dont have the know how to understand how to even start a project like that but it sure looks good and that turners cube looks great! :bow:

well we have a fair few to start but i know there are more of you guys out there with home built machines

anyone make a Gingery lathe?
 
Deanofid said:
everything I've built, I couldn't have built, until I built it. And, quality of work amounts to practice. No one here built a masterpiece on their very first day in the shop.

We're all momentarily "stuck" at different places on the builder's scale. We go up a notch every time we try to improve the finish or quality over the last part we made.

Dean

This excellent quote says it all.

This quote should be at the top of every post, as an inspiration,
when we see the pictures of these masterpieces, put on display for us to view,
that the quote would be a reminder, that even these master craftsmen, had to start at the beginning too. :)

 
12" Disc Grinder:

P1010240.JPG


I use it constantly, and wouldn't change a thing.

While I am at it, I will cheat a bit and show my IH mill. I did the CNC conversion, as well as a ton of other mods (one shot oiler, epoxy/granite fill, etc.). For the number of hours I have in it, it seems like I could have made a machine of some kind from scratch! LOL

P1011029.JPG


Over time I will continue to replace parts on it. One of the next will be a belt drive I've been planning for ages.

Cheers,

BW
 
NEW_GUY hello, I win, first of all you wish you a happy 2010, can you tell me gently used engines for your equipment engines are and where you take them? expect an answer you, hello Vinc.
 
Deanofid said:
Made a few machine accessories. Things I didn't want to buy, so..

Auxiliary lathe spindle:

30.jpg

Sewing machine motor?
 

It's just a little thing, but makes great springs. It was modified after drawings by by Dwight Giles in Model Engine Builder Magazine March-April 2007 http://www.modelenginebuilder.com/issueeleven.htm

I use it on a Sherline lathe, QCTP and suitable mandrel together with the thread cutting accessory which determines the required pitch.

SpringWinder1.jpg


SpringWinder3.jpg


SpringWinder2.jpg




 

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