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show me your home made tools so I can copy them!

290K views 238 replies 67 participants last post by  OneMoreTime 
#1 ·
home made tools that worked

I just thought it would be cool to hear of peoples home made tools that worked to do the job, or even better if it worked better than the actual tool did.
 
#154 ·
You make me so friggin inadequate it isn't funny! Duhhh, I can cut up metal and weld it together and make a light stand. :rolleyes:
That makes everything I have ever made rolled all into one look like a piece of crap.

RIGHT ON! :thumbup:

Brian
 
#160 ·
123pugsy said:
Homemade belt sander/ buffer.

Probably the handiest tool I've made.

Two trailer rollers, some scraps of steel, a couple of bearings and a cheap bench grinder.
i steeling that idea. :welcome:
 
#162 ·
Duntov said:
I want an integrated panel and a pig tail on mine. :drool:
The first thing I used it for was to learn the headers I made were.....to put it nice, bad.

I hooked up individual EGT's more to play with then anything. I spent an enormous amount of time calibrating them in a Kiln.

When I ran the engine at a set RPM I found 1/2 the cylinders running temps over 2x the others. I thought my equipment was set up wrong. I swapped probes. The swapped probes showed the same temps.

After looking at the headers I realized the firing order and pairing were causing back pressure in 1/2 the cyl. The headers were built from scratch and I had them ceramic coated......so they will look nice on the wall when I hang them.

When the car is painted, I have another set to try. I am not getting these coated till I test them.
 
#163 ·
But the machine caught it.

gow589 said:
The first thing I used it for was to learn the headers I made were.....to put it nice, bad.
That is an excellent set up. I get the impression that you may not have realized the header problem otherwise. I imagine it takes hundreds of R&D hours to produce a State of the Art fixture that yours will be, when all said and done and polished up.
Very impressive looking set of headers..must have been a bit sickening, but offset by your instruments catching it.
I hope you keep us up on future development. :thumbup:
 
#164 ·
MARTINSR said:
...That makes everything I have ever made rolled all into one look like a piece of crap.
I'm with you Brian. I think Pugsy and GOW just raised the bar about two feet in terms of tool fabrication. You guys do nice work...(and I'll be first in line for when GOW publishes plans for that engine stand/diagnositcs center.) :thumbup:
 
#165 ·
Duntov said:
That is an excellent set up. I get the impression that you may not have realized the header problem otherwise. I imagine it takes hundreds of R&D hours to produce a State of the Art fixture that yours will be, when all said and done and polished up.
Very impressive looking set of headers..must have been a bit sickening, but offset by your instruments catching it.
I hope you keep us up on future development. :thumbup:
I should have caught it. I felt like a dope for not even looking at it before I constructed it. When the light bulb came on it hit me like a spot light it was so obvious.
 
#166 ·
cboy said:
I'm with you Brian. I think Pugsy and GOW just raised the bar about two feet in terms of tool fabrication. You guys do nice work...(and I'll be first in line for when GOW publishes plans for that engine stand/diagnositcs center.) :thumbup:

I don't think I could really market what I have. It's all a bit of a hack. My education for electronics and computer programing is google. It has been tremendously rewarding when you get something to work.

Values for most sensors from temperatures to egt's are read in circuits and fed in through HID devises. HID is human interface device such as joy stick. Getting the code to read that was the hardest for me.

This is an analog reader which reads 8 channels of individual data. I use 2 of these:
http://www.endurance-rc.com/analogreader.html

Individual circuits calibrated to read things like EGT, O2, temps, etc modify the voltage on each channel and returns a value.

Egt values from AD595:
http://www.analog.com/en/sensors/analog-temperature-sensors/ad594/products/product.html

The RPM and timing advance is calculated with a PAK-VII chip
http://www.awce.com/pak7.htm

then processed and sent serially to the program via an OOPIC micro controller(similar to basic stamp)
http://superdroidrobots.com/pics.htm
 
#167 · (Edited)
Sandblasting cabinet

Very hard to compete with the engine test station but has got to be the best homemade tool I have ever seen.

As for me, I needed a blasting station for my up coming project and didn't want to pay hundreds for one if I could possibly build one.

I had a plastic (probably nylon to be exact) 55 gallon drum just sitting around so I decided to turn it into a sandblasting cabinet. Figured it would work well for when I want to convert to glass blasting media. The glass shouldn't break down as fast. Used the largest toilet floor flanges I could find to be able to fit my big elbows in. Going to be clamping some thick Hobart fire retardant welding sleeves inside. This way I can just slip a pair of gauntlet gloves in and they should be held in place with the elastic around the wrist and easily changed when needed. Was going to use all wood at first but opted for the drum when I started thinking about the hopper.
 

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#169 ·
rfurgy said:
Very hard to compete with the engine test station but has got to be the best homemade tool I have ever seen.

As for me, I needed a blasting station for my up coming project and didn't want to pay hundreds for one if I could possibly build one.

I had a plastic (probably nylon to be exact) 55 gallon drum just sitting around so I decided to turn it into a sandblasting cabinet. Figured it would work well for when I want to convert to glass blasting media. The glass shouldn't break down as fast. Used the largest toilet floor flanges I could find to be able to fit my big elbows in. Going to be clamping some thick Hobart fire retardant welding sleeves inside. This way I can just slip a pair of gauntlet gloves in and they should be held in place with the elastic around the wrist and easily changed when needed. Was going to use all wood at first but opted for the drum when I started thinking about the hopper.

That's cool!
 
#170 ·
gow589 said:
I should have caught it. I felt like a dope for not even looking at it before I constructed it. When the light bulb came on it hit me like a spot light it was so obvious.
But without the sophisticated system who would ever know! They looked like they made sense, how many times do we design something that would look just as good but never know they weren't as good as we think without something like you diagnostic equipment? I mean, what would the headers I made for my truck back when I was 18 out of a pair of discarded 340 Duster headers look like to your system? LOLOL, I am glad I didn't know how bad they possibly were, I was damn proud of them!

Brian
 

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#172 ·
Metal stock band saw lubricator

Thanks for the compliments on the blasting cabinet.

Coming back and reading the posts in here reminded me of another tool I am planning to make. Actually more of a mod. I have a cheap metal stock band saw that cuts dry. I would like to install a lube system on it to help cuts and blade life. Anyone got some pictures of a saw lubing system I could take a peek at and maybe some suggestions?
 
#173 · (Edited)
Band Saw

Hi
I taught in a metal workshop in another life. We had a metal cutting bandsaw as part of the workshop equipment. It had a small spout or nozzle located on a flexible arm (similar in appearance to a drill flexi drive) pointing to the table where the blade ran through the top and disappeared underneath. The flow of coolant (soluble oil + water= white cutting compound) was adjustable with a small in-line tap. The cutting compound was collected in a sump underneath and recirculated by a small submersible pump. The fluid would travel down past the blade ( just a bit more thatn a drizzle) A tray underneath shaped like a very wide /flat funnel had a plastic tube in the centre which directed the cutting compound into a square metal can with a submersible pump.
The metal cutting bandsaw also had a pair of brass stops or backing plates located behind and to each side of the blade to allow you to push metal onto the blade without the blade wandering.
From memory the bandsaw also had a butt welding joining device as part of the machine. This allowed rejoining of the blade after the many brakes that occur due to blade binding or simply suffering from metal fatigue.
You need some aluminium sheet, a low voltage pump , an in-line valve, a fluid nozzle and some brackets to fasten everything in place.
Cheers
al.
 
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