Dumb things you own, and never use

[RJSakowski]

Swivel base from my milling vise at least it’s staying clean):

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My swivel base has never been used. It is kind of redundant on a CNC mill. Mine isn't sitting on plastic though.

 

[MrWhoopee]

Swivel base from my milling vise at least it’s staying clean):

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I actually mounted mine recently, looked like it had never been used. Doing some parts that required the vise oriented both ways, it's been quite convenient. I set it as close as possible to 90° when I first indicated it, it's made it fast to switch and indicate.

 

[Eyerelief]

I actually mounted mine recently, looked like it had never been used. Doing some parts that required the vise oriented both ways, it's been quite convenient. I set it as close as possible to 90° when I first indicated it, it's made it fast to switch and indicate.

I may be silly but I really like mine. I custom made the vise keys so that there was zero play when they sit in the slots on the table. This way, if I pull the vise off the table, it is still pretty well trammed in when remounted. I must admit tho, that a Kurt 6" swivel below a Kurt 6" vise isn't sumthin you want to be yankin off the table at every whim. I'm sure these things are gaining weight just sitting there.

 

[mmcmdl]

I can't believe how a swivel base could not be a useful item . Maybe not for a cnc , but for a manual mill ? Maybe most don't cut angles ? The swivel base on the Kurt never comes off the BP in at work , and gets used quite often , but we have to duplicate parts to the prints as they are interchangeable to the machines .

 

[pontiac428]

The swivel base is about as handy as a collet block for some situations, but at what cost? I so much prefer to mount the vise rigid, planar, and square. I can try for a sine bar or angle gauges when I need an angle. The swivel base is nothing more than an element of decoupling from the flatness, squareness, and planarity of the table and the vise.

 

[7milesup]

I sold my surface plate on the weekend. Three years of ownership and not once did I use it.

Can't believe you got rid of a perfectly good flat surface (plate) to pile things on. Mine has an assortment of parts to hold a dial indicator, a couple of Mitutoyo height gages, a piece of tig welding rod, a pencil, a couple of bolts, a piece of tungsten, and some dust.

 

[dewbane]

Everything I own is dumb..... Lots of things I don't use though, 1" drive socket set, abrasive chop saw, dual flow argon regulator and the list goes on.

I should have put the chop saw on the list. I barely use it, and I don't like using it. It's noisy, it's messy, and it's slow. It does make straighter cuts than my bandsaw, but at such cost in misery and dust going everywhere.

 

[dewbane]

I'm going to add a Harbor Freight xy drill press vise to this list.

I think mine came from Lee Valley. I used it a few times on my drill press. It was pretty useless before I had a mill, and now, well, cutting it up for cast iron isn't a bad idea. I'm glad you thought to do that with yours before you actually chucked it. I had a weird Grizzly "premium" 5" milling vise with a "no lift jaw" that lifted relentlessly. I finally drank enough tequila to convince myself to buy a real Kurt DX4, and I never looked back. I love the Kurt! I threw the Grizzly in the scrap pile and turned it in at the recycler. Then a few days later, I saw some project where somebody made something cool out of cast iron salvaged from something like that. Well crap! It was perfectly good cast iron, and I got like two bucks for the thing.

Along these lines, another useless Item I have is a swivel vise. In theory, you could put work in and set it to a precise angle for machining. In practice, I'm not even sure where the thing is. I threw it in a dusty corner somewhere after I bought it, and never looked at it again. (I bought it with a gift card from somewhere. At least that one didn't cost me cash.)

 

[DavidR8]

Can't believe you got rid of a perfectly good flat surface (plate) to pile things on. Mine has an assortment of parts to hold a dial indicator, a couple of Mitutoyo height gages, a piece of tig welding rod, a pencil, a couple of bolts, a piece of tungsten, and some dust.

MIne had a height gauge, two machinist squares, the headlight from my Honda 650, a length of threaded rod and some Velcro ties. Oh and a notepad. Sheesh...the top of the bench is worse.

 

[Bi11Hudson]

All in all (4 pages worth) a fascinating read. To put things somewhat in perspective, I do some metal working. But I also do framing carpentry on an old house (1887), some "stick it together" welding, building small models(trains), and am was professionally a mill and marine electrician, from age 18. The end result is I have trouble maneuvering around tools and stock now with a walker. In most cases, if I had a specialty job, I would outright purchase the special tooling needed. Or like the pilot shaft for a Ford 300-6, make it. And never throw anything out, no matter how trivial. What it comes down to is "I would much rather to have something and not need it, than to need something and not have it." Almost everything I have piled up in corners and on shelves has been used at least once and I may need it again some day.

There are a few exceptions; a set of guage blocks, a sine bar and vise, a set of "precision angle" standards, things of that nature. I may never need any of them but they take up so little space relative to stuff I do use, I just let them get covered up. And should the need arise (unlikely), they are here, just covered up. There are a few archaic tools that I don't normally use, hand drills and saws and the like. But on those rare occasions where I need to make a small hole in a wooden stick, I can do it at my desk without having my "shop" in the house.

I will concede that I don't do precision machine work. I do try to make parts as precision as possible, but it's mostly repair work where tolerances are sort of loose anyway. The most precision work I do is to make model locomotive frames, cutting axle slots and the like. But like my trains, much of my precision tooling was bought off eBay and other "discount" sites for used pre-owned hardware. Salvage houses for esoteric devices in debatable condition. . . The angle blocks were corroded, I cleaned them up except a few that are badly corroded. But if they measure a 30 degree angle plus or minus 30 seconds, they are usable.

The bottom line is they didn't cost very much and work for what I do. Space I have, money I don't. My work space is sort of "cobbled" together, an old house next door to the residence and a homade storage shed that I built to resemble a barn. (24X32) If I don't need it this year, I might next year. And likely have it around somewhere.

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