What Did You Buy Today?

[Manderioli]

Picked up a complete SPI M1 minus ZZ pin gage set from a pawn shop for $70.

 

[Janderso]

I've been thinking about a set of cheap gauge blocks to assist with equal clamping on the Kurt vise as a primary use.
Are there other ways to accomplish this?

 

[Cadillac]

I've been thinking about a set of cheap gauge blocks to assist with equal clamping on the Kurt vise as a primary use.
Are there other ways to accomplish this?

Gauge blocks arnt used in a vise. Do you mean parallels? Gauge blocks are used for measuring setups not for blocking.
For equal clamping pressure on a irregular part one can use a 1” ball from bearing and grind a flat on one side. Then place flat of ball against movable jaw of vise. Now you have 3 points of contact which is optimal for holding parts in vise.

 

[ozzie34231]

Adjustable parallels are a good choice if you are talking about padding out one side of the jaws.

 

[GreatOldOne]

A selection of new tools I've got over the past week.

Mitutoyo 0-150mm Digit Depth Mic. Good condition, just a little dirty. Could probably stand to have a little lubrication on the mic thread. The wooden case needs a little attention, but its sound.

Mitutoyo 25-50mm Digit mic. In excellent condition. Shame the same can't be said about the case, which is cracked. Nothing some superglue and bicarb of soda won't cure, and I've designed and will 3D print a tray to sit inside to keep it from rattling around.

Some old 'girder' wrenches. I liked the look of the ones that 'Hand Tool Rescue' on YouTube uses and had copies remade. The problem with those is a they're expensive if you're in Canada or the States. If you're not, like me, they're ridiculously expensive once you factor shipping and customs charges. So a search on eBay for local UK items and boom - two for less than the price of shipping the new ones over. Both King Dick, and the small one is 1936 Air Ministry issue. Nice. For reference, the larger one is 6", and the smaller is a hair over 4 inch.

 

[francist]

I one virtually identical to your larger wrench, they hold an adjustment very nicely. Never heard them referred to as "girder wrenches" before though. King Dick shows up occasionally around here, and it's fairly nice quality stuff. Nice finds.

-frank

 

[GoceKU]

Today i stopped by a junkyard to get a bigger radiator for a project i'm fixing, and got this radiator with fans and a piece of stainless pipe all in 10$, not bad.

 

[GoceKU]

This morning i went and visited couple of machinery dealers, looking for a milling machine, unfortunately no new machines and the better ones are gone so only the junk remains and i'm not buying that, but i did found couple of things, first was this MT2 to MT3 sleeve, they are hard to found especially new so i bought it, i also bought this cheap drill vice, i prefer something better quality but for 5$ i could not pass on it, i also bought this tree chipper disc with knives, the seller did not know what was the machine for so he scraped it but keep the disc and electric motor i also bought it for 5$.

 

[hman]

Interesting! I have 2 of that same drill press vise, Wolfcraft brand. I bought the first one for my Oregon shop a bunch of years ago. It was made in Germany. I bought the second more recently (for my original Arizona shop), but this one was made in China. Still branded Wolfcraft, but the base casting is visibly more lightweight, though still OK. The table clamps are interchangeable between the two.

I do like them for drill press vises. Paid a lot more than $5 for them, however. You got a nice del on yours!

German on the left, Chinese on the right. Yours looks like a hybrid between the two. Any idea where it's from?

 

[SamI]

A couple of days ago I went to go and pick up a bench vice is saw on Gumtree (I think the UK equivalent to Craigslist) and while I was there I got chatting. Turned out that a few doors down was a chap selling up shop and I was lucky enough to be introduced. It's sad to see a small machine shop closing down although I must admit I left with a smile on my face after walking away with an 8" rotary table that I absolutely do not need, a 1" boring bar that I was just about to go ahead and order new and this Mitutoyo 50-150 mm micrometer:



I also very nearly left with a tapping head and two absolutely huge machine vices but sensibly I decided against it. I don't like sensible and it's been eating away at me since.