Machinery General Discussions

I took apart and cleaned all the old muddabber nests out of an old electric motor. Somehow I lost a washer from one bell housing. It looks like the one from the other end, pictured, only smaller. I've found some spring wave washers online but none that are split into three segments. Anyone know of a source for these or what they are called?

Field handrail twister Last fall I had an exterior griprail to install/fabricate in the field. It was the solid rolled ornamental stuff we all know and love......there were many curves on the steps and it was all very irregular so it had to be pretty much hand fit. The curves were a breeze with my ''bulldoze bender'' but the twists.....Clamping them in a vise and using a regular twisting wrench was out of the question....what was it to be, bring up my small forge??, do local heats with the rosebud?? ARGG. My eyes fell upon an old 4' x14'' x 7'' beam that's been kicking around....hmm, might work, hmm....Well it works, and I did the twists with ease. If they got a hump in…

Went to my uncle charles's shop again today to look at a drill press. Turned out the drill press wasn't much bigger than what I have so i passed on it, but when I turned around I noticed a nice big mag drill on the table that had been covered by junk up till then. Its a milwaukee, MT3 spindle I beleive, thats all I see listed besides chuck models, which would make it the biggest we make (I work for milwaukee) 1 1/4 capacity with a twist drill. I can beleive its the biggest, its about all the weight i would wanna tote around all day motor is about 6" diameter and a foot tall. Buttons on the back of the base are in pretty sad shape, going to check with the refurb guy tomm…

A few months ago, I asked some friends to keep an eye out for an 80+ gal or so air tank as I had built a new style Kinyon hammer and wanted more air storage. I received a call from a friend, who at the time was in a junkyard in CA. and had found an 80 gal tank with an IR T-30 compressor for $100. I sprung for it, and friends transported it to Oregon. As it turned out, the compressor, vintage 1958, was fine, quiet, efficient, but the tank needed repair. OK, pita welding the tank, but all in all, a hell of a deal. A week ago, another friend found a vintage 1965 DeVilbiss/80 gal tank/compressor for $450. It too works great. I bought it and passed it on to another friend for …

I've been looking at step pulleys online, in connection with the belt grinder build I mentioned in another recent thread. All the step pulleys I'm finding are die cast zinc rated for fractional horsepower motors. I want to be able to run a 2 HP motor. Machined and balanced steel or cast iron is supposed to be far superior to cheap die cast zinc (and I believe it), but I haven't been able to find any machined and balanced step pulleys online, even at places that specialize in power transmission stuff. (Of course someone will come up with a link to prove me wrong, but I swear I've looked!) Variable pitch pulleys would be an option, but they don't give as much adjustabili…

As title. I'm considering adding X, Y DRO to my VMC mill but can't decide which is best although the magnetic looks like it may be more durable? These guys are one supplier I've looked at: http://www.machine-dro.co.uk/ What do you guys think, Mag or Optical? Vic.

OK, i've got to turn a screw here. This thing has to be 2-1/4" OD. 4" Lead. Now how do i figure how many starts this screw will have. I know the diametral pitch is 12.5663 and the helix angle is 9.869572 if my calculations are correct. i want it to be 1/4 tpi per thread for the reason that my lathe can cut down to 1 tpi, and i have change gears for it to get it down to 1/4. now where do i go from here. if i'm not mistaken, this thing will be figured out more like a helical gear than a screw.

Hi. I bought an old motor at a garage sale. It is a big heavy old-fashioned 1/3 HP induction motor. It worked at the sale, but just hummed when I plugged it in at home. I figured that I could fix it. How hard could it be anyway? First, I added some motor oil to the oiling ports with the spring loaded caps. This didn't help. So, I disassembled it and tried to see what was wrong. It was pretty obvious. The contacts and throwout ring for the centrifugal starter were heavily oxidized. After a thorough scraping with a junk screwdriver, I put the motor together. It would not spin once it was tightened up (a common problem with these old motors) so I loosened it up a…

I just completed wiring a 5 HP rotary phase converter . I now need to balance the voltage between L1, L2, & L3. My line voltage is 250 volts at the outlet. With my current capacitor configuration L1 to L2 = 250v, L1 to L3= 225v, L2 to L3 = 225v. I was hoping to balance the legs to within say 10 volts however before proceeding with the balancing I need to buy more capacitors. Has any one here built and balanced a RFD ? Any comments and observations will be appreciated since this is breaking new ground for me. For instance - is there a procedure used to balance or is random substitutions of capacitors until balance is achieved the usual approach ?

JR was old fabricator whose main tool was a 6" x8' plate roll about a hundred and twenty years old when it died. It could bend 3/8" plate up to 6 feet wide and of course a host of other shapes and sizes. All the welders in the county went to JR to have stuff rolled. When he got real old he tried to sell it for as much as possible. Lowest price I ever got out of him was between ten and fifteen grand, including the rest of his tools, which were mostly junk. Anyhow, "mark" ends up with it in his yard for $500 bucks. Deal of the century, but he never hooks it up for a decade or more. If he really needs to bend something, he can jack his forktruck tire against the bull gear, b…

ok so I've made 2 balisongs (butterfly knives) so far, which are much better than store bought I've been told, but I never can cut the grove in the handles as even and straight as I like. I only have basic tools like a pessicion mini lathe, pessicion drill press, angle grinder, and a dremel to work with. Does anyone have any suggestions on how I can get a straight, even, and centered groove in a 1/2" steel bar? thanx

Ordered this puppy 6 weeks ago, thought it would never get here! The electrician will be here Sat. AM to wire it up (I'd do it myself, but I want it to actually work). This will be a HUGE time saver.

Hi just got a bridgeport turret mill, cut a key slot today in a 1 1/4" S/S bar, dont know how fast to expaect it to cut though, i was using a 8mm (3/8ths") carbide 4 flute end mill,920 rpm, 2"/min travel and cut 1mm (1/25th") per pass i want to know if im being hesitant or reckless on what i done today? for using say 3/8ths, 1/2" 1nd 3/4" endmills what should my cut depth, pass rate. and rpm be, prob in 316 Stainless Steel and what differance would machining mils make? just need some guide ,lines, milling is sooo tiresome compared to turning with things spinnin fast and swarf flying in your face,

What is the best source of heavy duty plastic squeeze bottles for oiling machines. I have been looking for bottles with long spouts or ones fitted with pull out extension tubes without success. McMaster Carr has bottles but not what I am looking for. Other specialty sites as US Plastics don't seem to have them either.

new to punching/slitting hot steel with a press, i have a question or two....and later will have more probly... for example 25mm bar to slot,.. 1) tool , h13 , geometry,...do i forge/shape as a slitter? is it best to go right through in one pass or two and not turn the steel, ie:...if i turn after one 95% pass, side b looks non the better for ware trying for a wad. speed is slow, hence the two passes for a cooling and lube. all good got some answers thanks.

I need some help / advice. I'm thinking of buying this used punch press but don't really know much about them. I haven't been out to see it yet as the gentleman who owns it lives a fair drive from me, but it seems like a decent older tool that would be a nice addition to my budding shop. All I know about it right now is that it's a Standum, Inc Benchmaster 10 ton press. He send me a picture, but it's pretty blurry. The seller stated it has the following numbers stamped on it 202 64174 77005001 He still has a service / parts manual for it but it doesn't seem to list the model number. It's a 220 volt unit that he currently has wired to 110 and it also require…

When I made the fuller portion of my combo dies, I mounted the stock off center in the 4 jaw chuck......swinging that much weight caused some scary vibration,but it worked(without injury to me or the lathe LOL... Now I want to make crown dies but haven't figured how to profile the long radius. Any ideas on doing this on the mill...I have a rotary table but it doesn't have any t-slots. Suppose I could drill/tap some holes. Thought I would free-hand the side radius with flap sander to avoid buying a speciality end mill...THX for any and all ideas...Keith

hi all i just bought my self a power hacksaw it has a reduction box,what type of oil would be recomended when i change it.thanks in advance

ok so I got my smithy put back together from 3 parts and 20 boxes. the only thing I can't figure out is the feedbar drive gear assembly, I have 20 or 30 gears, which seem to be user changable to fine tune gear ratios, and a mounting plate of some kind and several other small parts that don't seem to fit anywhere else on the machine. while everything elso on this machine works I wnt the feed bar to work as well help

Hi, All. I have a standard chop saw for cutting wood. A friend of mine is offering me an old radial arm saw for next to nothing. i am wondering if that would be useful at all to me for cutting metal? Doesn't seem like it to me (maybe I'm missing something?) but can I put a metal cutting blade on the chopsaw to use it for cutting metal or does it have to be a specific type of chopsaw? If I could do that then I could set the radial arm saw for crosscutting wood and use the chopsaw for metal. Any thoughts?

I recently bought an anvil that came with a heavy (approx. 200 lbs) T-Slotted table that came off of some sort of machine. It's slotted on the top and a couple of the sides and is cube-shaped (I'll try to get some pics of it later on this evening). The guy who sold it to me was using it as the stand for the anvil. What would some alternative uses be for something like this? I could continue to use it as an anvil stand, but would something like this be better used for something else? I'm not a machinist and don't really know much about what all you can do with a slotted table, so any ideas/info would be appreciated.

Something happened to the backgear setup on my j-head. Work fine in direct drive. Should I pop her apart or does anyone have any ideas? I took the head off a very old round ram machine with a small table and mounted it on a 48" dovetail ram model from the mid seventies. The head is over 70 years old if I remember correctly. Should I just bring it to my freindly bridgeport mechanic? Oops. More bad news. I just went to mill a couple slots and when I started the motor a couple drops of oil with metal particles flung off the outer part of the spindle. I guess its off to the head-metalhead.

I'm moving to Colorado because there's nothing here for me in the winter, and I'm hoping to go into CNC machining so I can get an interesting and well-paid job and still have the energy to come home after work and accomplish things at the forge (or work on my car or teach myself this or that). What advice can you offer to a budding machine tool operator? Jobs/tasks to avoid, supplemental classes to take, where to go from there?

I've got a lathe and a mill, both older than me:o I always wanted both of these machines but as it turns out, I use the Lathe WAY more than the mill. So I thouht I'd see what are the favorite machines for Blacksmiths. Dosen't have to be either the mill or the lathe, just whatever your shop favorite is! It would be great to see pictures too.

I found this thing a few years back and it has been buried in my garage, I am not real sure what it was but I know what its good for it has a square chuck on one end running through a reduction box and this thing has some serious torque! On the side it has a key less chuck that turns much faster, there is also a step pulley on the motor side to change speed. My plan is to attach this thing to an I beam and build a receiver that will slide back and forth with removable dies for different size stock. With the aid of a presser foot from an old sewing machine I can run this with great speed control and hands free. Now I need to do some fab work and see what this puppy will do…