Collaborate Disseminate
Like many budget machinists, the delightfully optimistically named [We Can Do That Better] had trouble with some of the finer controls on his import mini-lathe. But rather than suffer through …read more Continue reading Improving a Mini-Lathe with a Few Clever Hacks
It’s common wisdom that the lathe is the essential machine tool, and the only one that can make copies of itself. While we won’t argue the primacy of the lathe …read more Continue reading Heavy Metal Lathe Build Doesn’t Spare the Steel
I’ve noticed, lately, that slotted screw heads are all but gone on new equipment. The only thing that I find remarkable about that is that it took so long. While …read more Continue reading Better Mousetraps (or Screw Drives) Don’t Always Win
When all you have is a hammer, every problem is a constant quest for an even better hammer, as the popular saying goes. At least, that seems to be [Ebenisterie …read more Continue reading Adjustable, Piston-Damped Hammer
One thing’s for sure: after seeing [Roland Van Roy] build a vertical mill from industrial scrap, we’ve got to find a better quality industrial scrapyard to hang around.
The story of this build started, as many good shop stories do, at the lathe, which in this case was also a …read more
Continue reading Vertical Mill Completes Scrapyard Lathe Build
Chain link fences are woven with a mechanism that is almost hypnotic to watch, so [Levsha] decided to build his own tiny hand-crank tabletop version to make tiny copper wire fences.
Chain link consist of a series of wires bent and woven in a zigzag pattern. The zigzag bends are …read more
Continue reading Tiny Chain-Link Fence Made With Hand-Cranked Brilliance
It’s a cliche that the only machine tool that can make copies of itself is the lathe. It’s not exactly true, but it’s a useful adage in that it points out that the ability to make big round things into smaller round things, and to make unround things into round …read more
Continue reading Gorgeous Mini-Lathe Makes the Most Out of Wood and Metal
Ordinarily, when we need gears, we pop open a McMaster catalog or head to the KHK website. Some of the more adventurous may even laser cut or 3D print them. But what about machining them yourself?
[Uri Tuchman] set out to do just that. Of course, cutting your own gears …read more
Continue reading Homemade Gear Cutting Indexer Blends Art with Engineering
When the tool you need doesn’t exist, you have to make it yourself. Come to think of it, even if the tool exists, it’s often way more fun to make it yourself. The former situation, though, is one that [Sean Hodgins] found himself in with regard to threaded inserts. Rather …read more
Continue reading Custom Tool Helps Hakko Set Threaded Inserts
Ask anybody whose spent time standing in front of a mill or lathe and they’ll tell you that some operations can get tedious. When you need to turn down a stainless rod by 1/4″ in 0.030″ increments, you get a lot of time to reflect on why you didn’t just …read more
Continue reading Teaching an Old Lathe New Tricks With a Programmable Power Feed