Model Boat Mayhem
Mess Deck: General Section => Other Hobbies and Interests => Topic started by: Andy M on March 22, 2020, 08:03:38 pm
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Here are a few of my homemade tools, my most used one is the 1 inch by 4 inch sander, restored to a new condition with a new piece of sanding belt, stuck on the 3/16 balsa backplate with double sided tape, the previous bit gave me good service by doing the seaknight, jetranger and big wasp. Also shown is round sander, meccano drum sander and extended scalpel. The balsa bit is actually my instant compass, used for drawing the wasp abdomen rings. One of the best things about these tools is they are cheap, very cheap. Second pic shows my sanding centre, made from a motor from battery powered strimmer which had dead batteries and cordless drill with same problem. Both are powered from 12v sealed lead acid battery, surplus after changing my bike to li-ion powerpack. The sander is very effective, and really handy to have sitting ready.
Last photo shows one of my building/cutting boards, if you need a fresh cutting surface, open it up and choose a new pristine page. I have several of these on the go. Very useful.
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Nice one Andy,
:-))
It would be good to see other tools that people have made.
Maybe a chance for people to make some tools themselves over the coming weeks, while stuck at home.
I have also made a number of tools, jigs, fences etc. Some of them very rough and ready. I will have a dig and post some pictures.
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All tools welcome! Lol. I made an attachment for my router once, basically a hardwood block with a 10mm hole in the side, which met the hole for a straight cutter, halfway over, the intention was to produce half round 10mm rubbing strip from 10mm dowel 8 feet long. I dont know if I am explaining it well, but the point of the story is that when I tried it, I fed the 8ft dowel in the wrong side, and it grabbed, ripped the dowel through my device in about a second and spat the chewed dowel 10 feet down my garden.
The device worked perfectly if the dowel was fed in from the other side tho!
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I don't know if this counts as a tool really, but I regard it as a shed warming tool, so I am including it here. Made from an old (empty) gas cylinder, left with the valve open for a day for any residual gas to escape, it was still a bit worrying to do my first angle grinder cut for the door, a small whumph sound was all that happened. Whew! Myself and my friends reckoned it puts out about 10kw when its stoked up, resulting in us sometimes needing a heat shield to avoid the direct heat when you put a bit much wood in it. I built it a few years ago to replace a smaller one which was made from a party balloon gas cylinder. Recyling at its best. It has had many old unwanted wardrobes and chests of drawers fed into the front of it, along with pallets, logs, coal and rotted decking. Also fed through it were two of my full size boats ( chopped into small bits) which had seen too many winters outside and had gone a bit mushy. Truly a multi fuel stove. Hinges were from bongo drum fittings, the main body of the drum is now my wifes table beside her seat. So every part of it got used.
The chrome bit above the stove blanks off the hole in my shed wall. It was pristine to start with but ended up being used to test the relative power of bb guns and home made kebab stick firing crossbows we made as well.
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Home made mini workbench, chair with the back cut off, useful item in my crowded workshop, doubles as an actual chair if I get visitors. Lol.
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Hi Andy, quite a long while ago now I remember going to a regatta and there was a chap there with an electic home made bicycle and trailer with a boat on it. Was that you?
regards
Roy
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Hi Roy, wasnt me. Its only last couple of years that I have had the electric bike. And unfortunately I have never been to a regatta. Will get to one sometime once all the madness is finished. Its funny you mentioned the electric bike, the photo of my bench/chair shows a bosch bike battery given to me by a neighbour, part dismantled in the photo, it had a faulty battery management board. I have since stripped it down to 40 individual LG cells, my old laptop will be getting a nice upgraded pack. That will use up 9 of them. The rest will be made into boat, car and aircraft packs. I have still to test them in a plane, hoping they will cope with the current demands. While dismantling the pack in my lap, one of the nickel bus bar strips touched another and went white hot, quick action saved anything worse happening than the melted hole in my joggies. Sure concentrates the mind after something like that. 36v 8ah pack heats nickel up real fast.
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Here is my home made lathe, made from a bench drill and a cross slide vice, works well after some adjustments. I used it mainly for making wheels for my mini race cars. It handled aluminium and brass with no problems, nylon was really easy to work with on it. I had the bench drill and vice for years before I had the idea of fitting them together. Some adjustments to remove slop resulted in a serviceable machine.
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I see a unimat 3 poking into the bottom of that picture, mine has had the motor replaced with a 24v scooter motor and a 24v power supply, meaning i can run it continuously now
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That was one my friend bought from ebay, it cost him a lot more than mine, but his is a lot more precise than mine.
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Got 3 of em,, great so long as you don't cook the little motor . Have an SL set up as a circular saw , a 3 set up permanently as a vertical mill and the other 3 for turning I keep under the bench . That home made job of yours is ingenious , interesting cos I also use my digital vernier as as a readout, stuck on with a couple of magnets.
Have been looking out for a good used Cowells ME90
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My verniers are attached with small brackets that can move if you move past their limits. I can do end boring too, by repositioning my cutter onto a bracket that fits in the vice, it needs to be set up for each different operation so is a bit time consuming.
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In the photo, its actually set up for end boring. I now have a 3 jaw chuck on it, the only actual outlay since it became a lathe.
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I wouldn’t like to guess how many Elastoplast’s have come in handy
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Only one, and that was on the unimat
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I am still trying to work out if you meant the lathe is dangerous, or me?
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Here is my home made lathe, made from a bench drill and a cross slide vice, works well after some adjustments. I used it mainly for making wheels for my mini race cars. It handled aluminium and brass with no problems, nylon was really easy to work with on it. I had the bench drill and vice for years before I had the idea of fitting them together. Some adjustments to remove slop resulted in a serviceable machine.
That is real "outside of the box" thinking, or should it be Boxford thinking {-) {-) {-)
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These are my two but neither is my own invention. I can't remember where I got the ideas from - just hope it wasn't this forum. Even if it was they may be useful reminders to somebody.
No 1 Peg clamp. Two wooden clothes pegs epoxied together and the shape modified with a saw to produce a pag clamp with double the capacity
No 2 Mini power sander. A cheap (approx £7) Wilko electric toothbrush. Cut off the bristles. Epoxy a wooden disc to the head and then double sided tape a disc of sandpaper to the wooden disc.
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Think I might make one of your sanders next time the kids get new toothbrushes.
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Made another couple of wee sanders to use in my tug, and 100 other things in future., hopefully. 😁
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I am still trying to work out if you meant the lathe is dangerous, or me?
LOL
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I tried the whole sander from a toothbrush thing but they weere all naff. Bit like a DIY static grass aplicator for model railways, BUT great use for an old used electric toothbrush as a paint shaker!...
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:-)) :-)) :-))
My sander works OK but I applaud the paint shaker.
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My powerfile died a while ago, it had its last gasp and started smoking, so I opened it up for a look and had it in a box for a while. An 18v motor from a little motorbike, which never ran. Turns out its perfect size for frankenfile. I am running it on 12v as a static sander, its pretty heavy! I thought a out brackets and bolting but settled on large but carefully applied blobs of hotglue gradually building up to the structural attachments it has now. Two dead things brought back as a balsa tool. Running it on 12v gives a nice speed.
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Hi Andy,
Did you ever see this? It's old but I was always amazed Bosch actually made them (I still can't think of a use!), but converting to IC out of spare bits should be no issue for you LoL.
https://youtu.be/c1X3-5uD8aE
My sander works OK but I applaud the paint shaker.
...thank you. I was very impressed untill the 'tother night -it doesn't like full tinlets and seemed to strip all the mechanisms. ""xxxxx""
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I have a 2000w brushless I was thinking about and a polesaw which has a very small bar, dont think I would be trusting hotglue tho. 😁
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Home made hot wire foam cutters, using wire from a new heater elemen. Variable heat device shown.
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well i needed a steady rest for my lathe, so i drew one up in cad and then printed it out.
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Nice, what filament is it made from? Here are a couple of my 3d printed tools, on the mini vice, I had to use a bolt ground down to right shape and a threaded insert to get it working nice. And an o ring in grooves to open it up.
Also shown are a couple more sanding devices I made last night.
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its made from abs filament, i have modified it to mk2 already with those back nuts set into the part as captured nuts, this allows the tool holder a lot closer in to the body of the rest.
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Can I ask what printer you have?
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yes I have the daVinci Ai0s printer
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I take it the sliding parts touch your workpiece? I wondered if ballraces could be added to the ends of them to save wearing the abs? I know you can print new ones if required but ballraces would save you having to replace these.
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I could use ball races, but that would restrict the capacity, the ABS jaws cost mere pence and can quite quickly be replaced
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Liking the 3-D printed stuff! I just got my printer back working though I'm still a rank amateur. Made a waterline marker yesterday -never needed one before: just always used a wooden block and masking taped a pencil to it but I must admit for the cost of about 15p of filament it turned out rather nice for a 10min doodle on tinkercad...
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My sander works OK but I applaud the paint shaker.
I wouldn't clap too quick. Shaker works OK but is obviously dependent since on how many times you've used the toothbrush attachment in the first place. It either works OK and quite vigorius, or some kind of internal gear gets overriden and it rattles and does nothing. Suggest the end brush part is replaced each time it has no real-use and is re-purposed without too much effort: i.e. no clever parts, just tape it up enough for it to work (and if it rattles loose theres no chance the lid can come off). It seems not good enough for an old brush to last very long. I've been looking long enough for a cheap milk frother to change to a paint mixer but not come across one anywhere yet.
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. 50 cal pens, these print well and take a standard bic pen inner. Also earphone holder and a nice centre finder.
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I think I have peaked and this is the maximum self output during 14 weeks lock-down, it just gets worse and rougher everything I try to do. I give you, paint shaker mark II, the electric toothbrush went back to the bathroom where it belonged. Shame I can't post a video, it works amusingly well so far though:
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Neat :-)
I could do with a rattle can rattler O0
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Very neat, what about a marble or ball bearing in the tin of paint?
Roy
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Some of my humbrol paints are too thick to move with a ball bearing, I usually mix white spirit in with a cocktail stick.
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Then throw the painty cocktail stick in the general direction of my stove, to be used as kindling later. Lol. Wife never comes in my shed, just stands at the door shaking her head😁 theres quite a few balsa shavings around the floor too. Lol.
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Some of my humbrol paints are too thick to move with a ball bearing, I usually mix white spirit in with a cocktail stick.
Thinning down Humbrol!! It's already too damn thin nowadays IMHO, not a patch on what it once was. I've stopped buying it, just using up the odds & ends I've got laying about.
And what gives with the drying time for Humbrol now, they used to boast about being touch dry in an hour & recoat in 3, even less for matt. Nowadays it's touch dry in about 24 hrs and recoat in 3 days, if you're lucky
Mind you Revell acrylics seem thin & short on pigment now too..
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Mine are mostly older ones, hence the thickness, and requirement for thinning. I have a few new ones so O know what you mean about drying times.
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This one is not boat related but still a home made tool. I had to hold the bike off the ground while I worked on the rear suspension, so I made a stand to fit under the footrest brackets, it is wood, but still proved to be plenty strong enough when braced in the right places. Not sure how much a 'proper' one would be, my version was free. Sorted. 😁
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similar to a racing stand, but in wood. The foot rests I had were rigid and hollow and my stand fitted inside them. Just like a side stand. nemesis