The Home Machinist!

I have refurbished drill chucks. Do you know how to take it apart. The part that spins needs to be supported in an arbor press and then push nose of the chuck out the back. always went easy for me anyway. mostly jacobs chucks. the part of the chuck that is egged out on your chuck is not hardened ste...

i learned this trick from a trombone repairman of all things. how many times have i been working on something in my vise and it kept rolling down on me. maybe i was beating on it or trying to loosen a big rusted bolt. Now i keep a 43 inch long 2X4 in the floor joist above the vise. one end is square...

yes both ends are open, but relatively little flame comes out either side. leaving the other end open allows the flame to get out when my side is partially blocked by the metal. i never thought about particles of mineral wool coming off in the flame. but to be honest if mineral wool is going to do m...

I had to get out my forge furnace to make a special valve wrench today, so i thought i would send some pictures in, while i was at it. If you have a small shop or a basement shop a regular blacksmith's forge is out of the question. You will either gas yourself of burn the house down. So maybe some o...

Ok you got to try this before you laugh at me. Suppose you have a small oil passage way to go from point A to point B, and those two points are at some unknown, compound angle to each other. For demonstration i just center punched two random points on opposite sides of a one inch thick bar of steel....

I am glad you brought that up Harold, i am going to machine some cast iron tonight. your hint came just in time.

Of course you have to lay out the centers and center punch them first. but say you have a 20 inch long square bar. or something other than a straight round. the object is that the centers you drill will always be aligned with each other if you center drill to a center. I have never had a piece torn ...

Use number two for a live center on your drill press. For long, square, over-sized, or oddly shaped pieces i prefer to center drill them on the drill press. the center drill produces very little torque, i usualy hold the piece by hand. but you can hold the piece with a pair of channel locks if you w...

This is a trick my dad taught me, and i am older than dirt. Dad always had a tapered hole in the table of his drill press. This hole was off to the side a little, but drilled and reamed by the chuck so it would be dead in line. Mine has an 0 morse taper in it for an 0 live center. I know what you ar...

I believe that some lathe manufactuers make the tail center just a tad high to allow for sag or something. Never the less i found the same thing on my lathe and an experienced machinist told me to leave it alone that that was the way it was supposed to be. Try clamping a test bar in the lathe and me...

when i was working at blaw knox we had a bullard there for turning the turret on an army tank. the opperator would actually get up on the chuck and walk on it while it was running for exercise. it took about 20 minutes for one pass, surface speed was about like a tread mill. my home lathe is only a ...

I use the flat plano boxes as well. if you want the partitions to stay in place, just touch the corners with a solder iron and it will melt them together. But a knife will easily separate them if you change your mind. I also use a dremel circular saw blade on an arbor in my drill press to cut down t...