2016 POTD Thread Archive

[hman]

I've been wanting copper jaw liners for my bench vise, but never felt able to afford them. Good news! Yesterday I was in a Home Depot and they were closing out some couplings for 2" copper pipe. Price was $2.53 each, instead of about $10.00. Needless to say, I snarfed up all three they had. Pure copper, about 2 ¾" long and .065" thick.

First step was to cut along the length with a hacksaw ...

Then pound flat, mark the outline of a vise jaw, saw out the corners, and smooth the edges with a ScotchBrite wheel ...

After folding over a ⅛" lip for the bottom of the jaw, used my vise brake to fold the second long bend ...

Then used a hammer to beat into submission. They look a bit crude, but hug the jaws beautifully, yet are easily removed when I need to go back to the original "waffle" jaws!


Even if I'd had to pay full price for the couplings, I think the price would have been well worth it! These jaw liners should last quite a while. Needless to say, if somebody had some "real" sheet metal tools, they could do a lot nicer looking job than I did ...

 

[Techie1961]

I finished up a conversion that I did to a drill press that I have had for a while. It got a new larger motor, VFD and full rebuild and paint.


The switches will eventually get some labeling but the layout is fairly simple. The top left is for the lamp, the top right is for main power, the bottom left is speed control and the bottom right is a three position selector. Centered is motor off while to the right is regular rotation for drilling. Turn it to the left and it enables the foot switch which reverses the motor for tapping.

 

[mattthemuppet2]

they look like they'll work just fine John! I made something similar from 1in.sq alu tube and they're still going strong years later.

finished replacing the pulley bushings in my Atlas 618 spindle pulley. the result wasn't perfect, but it's better than it was

temporary pulley mounted

bored for the new bushings, some nice oilite ones I got for 50c each on clearout

shrink fit in, then faced off 0.25mm proud of the pulley to bear on the spindle collar. Did the other side the same to take up the 0.5mm of slop in the system

it fits! Really nice tight rotating fit - hit my ID dimensions to 0.01-0.02mm which I was incredibly pleased about. As a plus the oil doesn't instantly drain out of the pulley now.


there's still runout in the smaller pulleys, but very little in the large one and with the gears, so vibration is down and back gear noise is reduced. With the speed range from my treadmill motor I shouldn't need to use the other pulleys much.

Countershaft bushings are next

 

[FOMOGO]

See, nothing to it. Nice job Matt. Mike

 

[Franko]

Great use of available resources, John. Very cool.

 

[mattthemuppet2]

thanks Mike, it was fairly stressful!

 

[NCjeeper]

I worked some over time last week so I decided to go ahead and get one.

I will be putting this together shortly.

 

[extropic]

hman,
I love those copper jaws. I've never thought to use fittings as raw stock like that. I'll try to keep it in mind.
Thanks for posting.

 

[extropic]

Techi1961,
That drill press deserves a "Best in Class" in my book. Nice work.

 

[mzayd3]

I worked some over time last week so I decided to go ahead and get one.

I will be putting this together shortly.

Oh I'm jealous! Good for you!


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