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” [...]
By Jon Anderson Brake line typically comes in either 6 or 8 foot lengths. If you want a longer piece, you have to buy a 25 foot coil. These long coils are difficult to straighten out and require the use of a commercial tool to do so. Since the commercial tool costs about $200, I [...]
By Reid Kowallis It seems like I never have the right length of machine screws. If the screws on hand are too short, it means a trip to the hardware store where I can usually only find screws that are too long, so I need to shorten them. If the screws are smaller than No. [...]
by Paul Temple A few years ago I came across a sale on a band saw blade butt welder that I couldn’t resist, which gave me the ability to roll my own blades. It works fine, except for one irritation: It is very difficult to align the blade ends well enough to avoid a misalignment [...]
by Bob Daley My 1921 model SBW lathe doesn't have a coolant pump or a chip tray to catch shavings and cutting fluids. It is standard practice to apply a fluid to the cutting area to keep things cool. However, applying the coolant from a squirt bottle is rather messy, as a copious flow is [...]
by Richard Cadway Years ago, I was a journeyman tool and die maker – high-speed progressive dies, fixtures, etc. Now I’m a real estate broker, but I still get in some machining on my own projects. I have used the process described in the January email tip many times. On the lathe, I often put [...]
