Garage hacks, adjustments and annoyances.........

[GeneV]

I still have a el-cheapo caliber from 20 years ago and I think was a work progress to, every measurement that dial is off, just like me so I cant complain to much. If I ever get the bugs out of this Smithy and start doing some serious lathing I'll have to get a up-dated caliber, probably digital so if-fen a round stock is .038" the caliber is going to say .038" one time and or 99% of the time without constant calibration. Also it would be nice if it translated .038" into a tape measure fraction that I can understand but if not I have the link.....
Decimal Inch to Usable Fractions Converter

Oldpath, even the cheap chinese calipers have that feature now. Actually, I got a few of them import calipers, they work fine.

 

[WranglerX]

Some one gifted me a tape measure with all the major increments in fraction on one side of tape.... Being old school I didn't need the extra "fractions" actual made tape reading more confusing ( could not find the 1/32 increments) ...Guess it was made for "millennial's"....... Gifted tape to garbage can..... Don't have much of a problem moving from inch increments to decimal..... Its the Blankity Blank metrics that I have problems with, but the nice thing is my cheap digital calipers have a inch/metric function...

Dale

 

[Oldpath05]

These are the only two lines on that tape that I constantly get hung-up on, I need a tape with those numbers on it, or learn metric, nah to late for that to.

So to avoid certain measuring difficulties when I measure a board I always go one line above, when measuring steel I go one line below. But that theory didn't work for me the other day when I wanted a 5'-2" 2x4, I had 5'-2" on my mind and ended up marking 4'-2", then I cut it again and it was still to short, thats why I hate working with wood unless using a chainsaw.

 

[Oldpath05]

Now you see it............

Now you dont...............

Sometimes I need a long drill bit, I had a extra 7/16 not doing anything so went with that, next find matching rod or close. I usually can find piece of round same-ish size laying somewhere but seems like I run out. Then I see an old shock absorber with 9/16 shaft, sounds like a easy match up, I thought, you know what thought did...........

So put in angle bar and shim up the difference, clamp down and weld, test in lathe, off 1/8", what the blank!!! I'm trying to get with-in 1/16" so cut apart and do over, add shim, test in lathe and still off about 1/8",what the blank!!!!. 3rd times the charm they say, but to be sure I did some algebra with my old caliber caliper and tape, added another small shim and test in lathe, off less then 1/16", well finally and amen, I can true that up, so after 2 hours I had a long drill bit. The shaft ended up being just a hair under 7/16, I cant find hair number on my tape so I call it good enough..............

Here what I needed a long drill bit for, basically a locking pin for the rolling ladder. I first use 1/4" long bit from both side and I was still off with two holes on each side, tried to fix with bigger drill from both sides and the hole came out worse, oh it would've worked but I would be able to sleep at night so I made this final 7/16 hole with long bit then put a nice tube I had inside that hole, then with a 5/16" rod I had to use in that tube, the rod slides in and out nice now and only took me 3 hours, I know what a waste of time, I could tell a story a bout rebuilding a 440 JD skidder but some wise guy like me would want to see pictures.....

Smithy lathe making long drill bit - YouTube

 

[aczlan]

The electrician at work would tell you that if you want to be exact, use a folding rule, not a tape measure.

Aaron Z

 

[Oldpath05]

I put a couple folding rules side by side last year and they didn't agree at the 2" mark, but they wasn't Starrett either.

 

[Oldpath05]

I need a rugged I beam, cheap is a must and straight-ish would be nice but to get that I had to cut two sections out of two old bent railroad irons but to do that the only option I had was carbon arc gouging. My acetylene was out and I already been spending more then coming in, I have some 3/16 carbons so I went at it, took around 10 minutes per cut.

Cutting with carbon arc gouger - YouTube

 

[Reb954]

Thought I would give an update on the Bridgeport knee mill rebuild. I started this project about a year ago, finished it a couple weeks ago. I also had to put in a phase converter so I had 3 phase power to run it.

I still have a few detail things to do on it but for the most part it is done and ready for use.

 

[Oldpath05]

Gee that takes 3 phase, 440 volts? So you have 240 volts in the shop, (and appears to be a crowed shop) then you run a 240 wire wire to a motor that some how returns it to the mill at 440 volts, how far of the wagon am I........

Great pictures thanks for the update, so do you have any first projects on the list? I suppose the where this Bridgeport shines is making gears and splines.....

 

[aczlan]

Gee that takes 3 phase, 440 volts? So you have 240 volts in the shop, (and appears to be a crowed shop) then you run a 240 wire wire to a motor that some how returns it to the mill at 440 volts, how far of the wagon am I........

Great pictures thanks for the update, so do you have any first projects on the list? I suppose the where this Bridgeport shines is making gears and splines.....

Most 3 phase motors can be wired for 480 or 240. Re-wire it for the lower voltage and all you need is a phase converter.

Aaron Z