Show off your home made tools!

Everybody has encountered a situation where they needed a certain kind of tool which wasn't available (or too expensive). This is when you have to improvise, and get creative. I had this happen a few times. To start off this thread, I was replacing my front suspension components (shocks, springs, upper control arm bushings, ball joints, etc), and encountered a situation where I needed a way to compress the lower control arm, and support it. Here are some pictures to further explain what I did:

 

[black91EB]

Rotisserie project:

I like the explorer torsion bar for the rotator handle. (I use the ones I have as fire pokers when we have a bonfire, with the keys on them they are just the thing for hooking logs and moving them around)

 

[Brian1]

Just finished up my homemade press brake a few days ago. I love having a milling machine . Bend width is 10" and it will do 1/4". I made it to fit my ironworker as well since my press is only 12 ton and from the charts I have seen it will take more than that to bend a 10" wide piece of 1/4" steel.

I have only done 2 test bends so far, they turned out good and didnt take hardly any effort to bend a 2" wide piece of 1/4".

 

[Afboy143]

subscribing! Amazing stuff here! I just hit up the local harbor freight

 

[black91EB]

Shop sweeper:

 

[BrooklynBay]

Blender converted into an oscillating spindle sander.

It has a variable speed control. I used a piece of tubing to cover the smooth shaft. The tubing provides a firm grip on the sanding sleeves. I used a fine grit sleeve on the bottom, medium grit in the middle, and a course grit on the top. One solid 3 inch long sanding sleeve would work too.

 

[BrooklynBay]

4 inch PVC plug converted into a 3.0L rear main seal installation tool.

The spacer was used as a template to drill the 2 holes with a drill press. The center square, and the deep threads were cut off with a band saw. The rough edges were sanded with the oscillating spindle sander in the post above this one.

 

[black91EB]

It has a variable speed control. I used a piece of tubing to cover the smooth shaft. The tubing provides a firm grip on the sanding sleeves. I used a fine grit sleeve on the bottom, medium grit in the middle, and a course grit on the top. One solid 3 inch long sanding sleeve would work too.

How does it oscillate? Did the blender blade do that before or did you do some modification to it? I'm curious cause I too have an old blender lying around.

 

[IZwack]

The most decrepit tube-beader tool:

 

[BrooklynBay]

How does it oscillate? Did the blender blade do that before or did you do some modification to it? I'm curious cause I too have an old blender lying around.

It was actually an old food processor. This is the first time that I came across one with a long spindle that rotates. Most of these appliances have a shallow disc that connects to another part. The motor is pretty strong, and didn't slow down when I used it. It uses a cogged belt instead of a direct drive from the motor. The only thing that I had to add was a piece of tubing for the sanding disc to sit on.

 

[black91EB]

It was actually an old food processor. This is the first time that I came across one with a long spindle that rotates. Most of these appliances have a shallow disc that connects to another part. The motor is pretty strong, and didn't slow down when I used it. It uses a cogged belt instead of a direct drive from the motor. The only thing that I had to add was a piece of tubing for the sanding disc to sit on.

ah. I guess my question should have been, does the shaft move up and down like this one does? The up and down motion is what makes it an oscillating sander

 

[BrooklynBay]

It's just rotates, and doesn't bounce.

 

[black91EB]

fan clutch wrench set for explorers/rangers/f-series, Lincoln weld-pak with .35 flux core still does a good clean weld:

 

[zukman]

someone threw out a perfectly good worktop! A few bolts here couiple of holes there, weld weld and wa-la! A rolling worktable with space for the welders on the bottom

 

[BrooklynBay]

That looks great!

 

[zukman]

and for when you just need to sit down on the job and still have your tools handy....

 

[BrooklynBay]

That seat is nice! Where did you get the cushion & metal bottom tray from?

 

[rhauf]

Wow.. some pretty cool stuff here..

well, i'll play too. My engine hoist wouldn't work for getting the engine out of my boat a couple years ago, so i made this thing and hung a chain hoist from it

here was my "strength test". lifting the front of my bronco off the ground a little.

all in all, it's been a really, really handy tool to have around. I've used it for all sorts of things. makes pulling engines out of cars/trucks nice, too.

 

[Maniak]

I needed a bench grinder, but I don't own one..

Soo, I used a c-clamp to hold my 4 1/2" HFT angle grinder to the frame of the trailer fender (still under construction)..

It worked very well.



diy_bench_grinder 002 by maniak_az, on Flickr


I also needed a way to bleed the clutch/brakes on the mustang. I don't own a mightyvac hand vacuum pump anymore.

I dug out my old r-12 venturi style vacuum pump and use that with a 1 1/2" rubber cape (with clamp) to vacuum bleed the master cylinder.

vacuum_clutch_bleeding 002 by maniak_az, on Flickr

It worked like a charm.. You can see it is pulling a vacuum. I was worried it would pull down far enough to start to suck up fluid (it never got that far down).

vacuum_clutch_bleeding 004 by maniak_az, on Flickr

~Mark

 

[BrooklynBay]

The battery packs on my cordless tools see a lot of use. I had an idea on how to convert one dead battery into an adapter for my cordless tools. This will eliminate down time while another battery is on the charger. Here's a picture of the inside of the modified battery pack:

I removed the small batteries, and replaced them with a 25 amp bridge rectifier from Radio Shack. It is permanently connected to an external AC power supply. This is what it looks like:

 

[BrooklynBay]

Mechanical charging base modification.

Automatic chargers don't last forever. The internal circuitry eventually burns out. The Craftsman charger that I have was discontinued many years ago. Sometimes they appear on EBay, but you have to get lucky to find a good one. Two of them were defective, but are useful for spare parts. This thread shows a modification on how to convert an automatic charger into a mechanical charger. It has one advantage over the automatic charger. The automatic charger requires that the battery still has a partial charge in order to recharge it. There is nothing electronic in the mechanical charger, so it's capable of taking a battery in any condition.

Note: I don't take any responsibility for battery or property damage. Do this mod at your own risk, and never supply more current than the battery is capable of accepting.

Here is the original charger:

The charger will require a mechanical timer:

This timer has a maximum setting of 60 minutes which is similar to the original automatic charger. The two metal mounting tabs are easy to remove since they are connected with two screws. This is a bottom view of the modified circuit board:

This photo shows how the timer connects to the case:

The case is lower in the front which makes a perfect fit for the shape of the timer. The charger originally had three indicator LEDs in the front which were removed along with the other electronic components. The spacing on the case was the exact size for the spacing of the wires coming out of the timer. Here's a banana plug kit for the charger:

The banana plugs are unscrewed from the plastic insulator:

Here's a close up view of the banana plug:

The original plug was cut off, and the banana plugs were soldered on:

I have an old bench top power supply with banana jacks. A customer of mine had it sitting in his basement for many years, and thought that it was garbage. The switch was broken, but was easy to replace with a spare that I had on hand.

Here's the whole thing with a battery charging: