Workshop and machinery mods and tips,

I was thinking it would be good to share our little tricks and mods we do in the workshop
this can be as simple or complex as you please.
Or even a link to something interesting.

and as always please stay on topic…

*Disclaimer carry out any modifications at your own risk
always think of safety before using machinery…!

Ok I will throw up todays little mod
my lathe has a 38 mm (11/2”) hollow spindle and the 3jaw chuck has a 39 mm hole
behind where the chuck fits there is a large Morse taper which starts at 45 mm id

here is the chuck stripped down remember to mark the pieces for orientation…
I then bored the empty shell to 45mm.(1 3/4”)

here we are after cleaning and reassembly the piece of metal in the chuck is 42mm 200mm long
previously this would have sat in front of the chuck face .needing a centre or steadyrest.

Another little mod was my rudimentary milling machine

simply a piece of round bar with a hole for a tool and a vice clamped to the top slide

Gotta get me a lathe too…
Only a small one, or just the spinning chuck part would help a lot.

Your milling set up looks very effective. :+1:

Nothing super clever but I used the super glue trick the other day to thin down some very small parts on the lathe. Was working on a S2+ triple shortie with a 18500 and was really really tight on space. I threw a scrap rod of aluminum in the lathe and faced it, super glued my part to it, hit it with some kicker and was able to cut them down. It was the switch retainer ring and switch/boot spacer. These would be nearly impossible to hold otherwise since they are so thin, and yet I needed to make them even thinner. The retainer ring I was sure the super glue wouldn’t hold due to the small surface area but it held fine. Just hit them with the heat gun to pop them off.

a lathe is nice ,but some of the members here do great work with a drill press and a hacksaw blade
I hope they chime in,.

scianiac,
that is a great tip with the superglue I would never have thought of it…

Haven’t got a drill press either… :slight_smile:
I usually mess around with drills and and what not.
But a lathe head can hold a flashlight tube, a drill can’t (without McGyvering).

It took me a long time to figure that one out. It was because of the saying that lathes can make bigger lathes. The flat parts didn’t make sense for me until I realized a vice could be mounted to the carriage, which make the chuck a toolholder, and the lathe becomes a 2 axis horizontal mill. Your implementation is especially nice since the tool is supported at both ends.

some lathes have t bolt slots for this purpose (mrs dnf’s has them)

for facing you can mount a tool in the chuck ,handy for tools that are to high just mount them side ways
and take a skim

there are also commercial arrangements available…

Chime Maple block clamped to drill press table with a hack saw blade attached with screws 1 1/4” oc. It helps to scallop the wood for extra clearance before adding the blade. The work is mounted on any conveneient size drill bit that fits in the chuck by wrapping the bit with tape until it’s snug(largest bit with least amount of tape is best). Farther up the bit the flutes end and you have a true cylinder with minimal wobble. It’s critically important that cuts are kept to the barest minimum as the side loading this method causes can cause a tapered chuck to come loose and do some serious harm. I’ve been using the same blade for various projects for over a year now. I used a 5/8” 2-flute bit for this Sipik mod after using a 1/2” bit wrapped with tape and 180w/d to bore it out for a 16mm cell.

A drill press? is kind of a “must have”, i found out.

even before all this hobby, maybe once a year i needed a drill press, lol.

I bought a BIG old one, that seemed pretty good shape. I bolted the biggest “x-y” table harbor freight has to it… and i use it as a “sort of” milling machine.

it allowed me to do a few facing and other operations i otherwise could not have done. Various budget HS steel cutting bits from harbor freight? never fail to amaze me, i can actually get a decent surface.

in addition to getting a few operations done? It introduced me to machining, and i realized i could use a small lathe, which i eventually bought.

And a Dremel... Can't leave out the Dremel.

[quote=sedstar]
A drill press? is kind of a “must have”, i found out.

even before all this hobby, maybe once a year i needed a drill press, lol.

I bought a BIG old one, that seemed pretty good shape. I bolted the biggest “x-y” table harbor freight has to it… and i use it as a “sort of” milling machine.

it allowed me to do a few facing and other operations i otherwise could not have done. Various budget HS steel cutting bits from harbor freight? never fail to amaze me, i can actually get a decent surface.

keen to see some pictures of your setup and work.

and we wont forget the dremel (mines a Chinese knockoff of a dremel)

[quote=lostheplot]

We have a coupe of those knock off's in the shop at work. They seem to work just as well as the brand Dremel. One of them is a good deal stronger. It came in a kit with a drill press attachment, a small vice, and a snake hand attachment.

I may get me one of those myself.

It’s about time I accept that I’ve become too much of a machine snob to use my drill press. In the last couple of years, I’ve only used a drill press once, not including training new guys. If there’s any way I can use a mill, I’ll use that as a fancy drill press every time. The best use I can think of for a drill press is as a sacrificial machine for the kind of people we bought $1-3 flashlights to loan to. That said, if you don’t have access to fancier machinery, a drill press can be a very useful tool.

I made up an extension handle for the cross slide on the lathe. It is not fixed, I have to slip it on each time to use it. It made it easier to quickly move the slide or in other cases give me that little bit more control. The reason it’s not fixed is it can foul with the ‘carriage hand wheel handle’ at certain points.


Doing some works (like facing) I got sick of all the winding… check this for a lazy-arse auto feed -

Nice pp. :slight_smile: This is a good thread here with lots of creative novel ideas. Looking forward to seeing and hearing about more. :+1:

You don’t need fiberglass cloth to play with epoxy, any old T-shirt or rag will do. You can thin it with a few drops of isopropyl alcohol to get thinner layers, reduce bubbles, and soak into the cloth better.

nice pp. is that a cut off Vernier for a dro ?.

I didn’t no isopropyl alc thinned epoxy

Lol, vernier it is not. It was a cheap set of digital calipers that I modified for the task. Being cheap I’m not worried about it getting swarf and oil all over it. Good for working within cooee and then switch to checking the work with calipers.

I’ll try and keep that epoxy tip in mind but by the time I’ll find a use for it the knowledge will probably have leaked out my ear :cowboy_hat_face: