By Roger W. Thomas Oversized taps are available in the marketplace and the common size is +.005". They are typically used when sending a part to be heat-treated. Since you normally get shrinkage when heat treating, it is proper to use an oversized tap. What do you do if you have an odd tap size [...]
By Mark Jachniewicz I recently needed to drive some pipes into the ground to install Malibu pipe lights. I have a Harbor Freight electric, heavy-duty impact drill, but I couldn’t find an appropriate fitting to drive the pipe. Time to cannibalize – the job needed to get done! I started by cutting the head off [...]
By Daniel Burgoyne I was working on a small project this weekend using M3 flat head screws, pulled from spares of a European radio-controlled racing car with the intent of keeping costs to a minimum and completing the project before Monday. Unfortunately, I did not plan my project ahead and did not have a 90° [...]
By Keven Coates Do you have any plastic gauge faces that have become so hazed by sunlight or so scratched up they are unreadable? Ten minutes and some auto parts store rubbing compound may be all that's needed to make your gauge functional again. In my case, I had a portable air tank used to [...]
By Marc Giroux Here is a simple and quick way to hold parallels in place while removing/installing the workpiece. I came up with this idea after realizing I was wasting too much time clamping every little part because I had to re-position the parallels for each one. Since I had about 20 parts to modify, [...]
By Dietrich Kanzler After struggling with finding specific drill bits in my index boxes, I did a minor reorganization that makes it faster and easier to pick out the bit I want. Generally, all drills are placed in the indexes with the point up. For the fractional index, I put all the multiples of 1/16” [...]
