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Re: Share your special tools

Posted: Mon Nov 09, 2020 2:02 am
by Dick_Morris
What is the purpose of the #5 nut on the one end of that wrench?
Just a convenient size to drive it since the business end was #5.

Re: Share your special tools

Posted: Mon Nov 09, 2020 9:17 am
by tornitore45
Of course, a problem for us oldsters is remembering where on the computer the photos were stored. :D
I just run my backup program storing all the file I created or saved, excluding all the system and program files that can always been duplicated.
The program reports the total number of total at 6896.
Believe it or not I can find each one in no more that 2 attempts.

The secret is in the rules that creates the hierarchical directory/subdirectory structure.
I have only 24 directories on the Home/root; there are no files in the Home, Is not difficult to decide which of the 24 gross categories a file may go.
Then each directory has more specific subdivisions.
The structure is very personal, what works for me may not work for others. The structure was refined and modified through time to be simple. effective, and unequivocal.

Pictures, for example, is the only item that follow two rules: Pictures of my project and engines are in the _SHOP/Internalcombustion/specific engine
any other picture are in PICTURES/Subject/name
I could have put all picture in the same PICTURE folder in a ENGINE directory but decided to do different because it serves me better but have no doubt how to follow the rule. If is not a shop project it goes in the other directory.
Directories and files I use on often are prefixed with Underscore so they sort at the top, unless I sort by date to quickly find file I just downloaded with a funny name.

I tried to explain this to my wife, she is more of an artistic left brain kind of person. Her files are scattered randomly through her PC. She uses the PC's search facility trying several possible names. To each his own.

Re: Share your special tools

Posted: Mon Nov 09, 2020 10:25 am
by Benjamin Maggi
ccvstmr wrote: Sun Nov 08, 2020 10:44 am When building the passenger car trucks for the "shorties" and Honest Dave's Central Pacific passenger cars, realized I wanted (needed) a tool for tightening square nuts. Flat end pliers had a bad habit of slipping off the stainless steel square-sided nuts.
My locomotive frame has a lot of square nuts and square-headed bolts and I too found regular wrenches didn't work as well. So, I bought some cheap regular wrenches and ground the openings square. No impressive pictures to show, but they work great.

Re: Share your special tools

Posted: Mon Nov 09, 2020 3:03 pm
by Greg_Lewis
Bending the topic a little, as to organizing photos I highly recommend Photo Mechanic. It's not a photo manipulation package such as Photoshop, but an organizer. It was designed by a photojournalist for professionals who have to sort through 1000 or so pix from a football game and get a couple of dozen transmitted before halftime is over. You can batch re-name, sort, copy and move, add caption info and much more. I use it any time I need to find or organize photos. It's blindingly fast and quite customizable.

Re: Share your special tools

Posted: Tue Nov 17, 2020 10:15 am
by shild
Heated a vacuum cleaner attachment with a torch and squeezed in a vise so it would fit in my T-slots. Could have done a better job but it works.

Re: Share your special tools

Posted: Tue Nov 17, 2020 10:24 am
by shild
Also zip tied an Allen key for a boring bar to the drill chuck key that hangs from my mill/drill. I don't put it down and forget where it is now. Next I'm going to grind it shorter and mill a flat spot on the chuck key so it doesn't rotate.

Re: Share your special tools

Posted: Wed Nov 25, 2020 3:38 pm
by jeffsmith
Here are some photos of a tube bender I built to do the bends for plumbing on my locomotives. You need to make bending dies for each of the different size tube you want to bend. The dies have a half round milled into each half so the tube is supported around the whole diameter. This prevents collapsing and deforming while bending. There is an adjustable stop so you can make multiple pieces the same.
DSC00307.JPG
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Re: Share your special tools

Posted: Wed Nov 25, 2020 4:52 pm
by Greg_Lewis
That's impressive, Jeff. Thanks for sharing.

Re: Share your special tools

Posted: Wed Nov 25, 2020 5:57 pm
by gwrdriver
#1 The most most useful tool I've made for myself . . . a Tapping Stand. Throat capacity 4-7/8"'; max height under chuck 9"; handles #000-1/4" taps. All but the chuck and knob was scrap. I now never (or very very rarely) break a tap.
TAPPER4.jpg
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#2 A "Lantern Chuck". . . a watchmaker's device used for turning, threading, and shortening screws. I use it mostly for threading rivets. Length overall 3.25" (not including the rivet.) Not used all that much, but indispensable when I need to shorten a screw or thread a rivet.
Lantern.jpg
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I really need to make myself one of those benders for small tube.

Re: Share your special tools

Posted: Wed Nov 25, 2020 6:27 pm
by Greg_Lewis
gwrdriver wrote: Wed Nov 25, 2020 5:57 pm
...
#2 A "Lantern Chuck". . . a watchmaker's device used for turning, threading, and shortening screws. I use it mostly for threading rivets. Length overall 3.25" (not including the rivet.) Not used all that much, but indispensable when I need to shorten a screw or thread a rivet.

That's interesting, GWR. Never thought about threading rivets but that would sure have been useful in the past. How about a little more explanation? (Just noodling about this, I wonder if it could be modified to hold bits of tube for threading close pipe nipples. Hm...)

Re: Share your special tools

Posted: Wed Nov 25, 2020 8:14 pm
by gwrdriver
Greg,
This is actually a very old tool, much like the "box chuck," which I first encountered in a 19th C. book on lathe techniques for horologists and watchmakers. Years later I found myself needing to thread a bunch of 1/16" brass rivets, so I flew in and made this chuck based upon the old principles. I've attached below another lantern chuck made by an unknown someone which is virtually identical in principle to mine.
Lantern.jpg
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The arbor (A) is a length of 1/2" drill rod threaded 7/16"-32tpi x 1/2"± on one end (C). A bore is drilled and reamed in the arbor 1/4"Ø x .350" to receive the "Anvils" (D).

A piece of steel bar, long enough to make the 1/8" thick "Finger Wheel" (B) and the "Lantern" (E), was knurled. This "stick" was then drilled and tapped 7/16"-32 all the way through to the Lantern (E) outer face. The Finger Wheel was shouldered, cut off, finished filed on its faces, and spun on to the Arbor where it jammed at the thread end.

The Anvil(s) (D) are 1/4" diam brass, copper, or phos brz, about .700" long. These are made interchangeable to accommodate various screw or rivet diameters and head shapes.

Now the Lantern (E) is shouldered to size and the "stick" put in the mill and the end of the Lantern milled down exposing and opening up the bore. Before removing the Lantern from the stick quite a bit of hand work was used to open and square up the exposed bore.

The final operation on the Lantern is to mount it on the Arbor, in the lathe, and drill the face bushing hole. This insures the Bushing and Arbor are concentric. Interchangeable bushings (F) can then be made to suit the diameter of the screw/rivet being held.

The drawing below was a preliminary study I drew, to get going, and I can't be sure everything on the drawing is what I ended up building, but it's pretty close. You can of course build these to any size you want but mine was sized to handle 1/32" to 1/8"/#5.

Re: Share your special tools

Posted: Wed Nov 25, 2020 9:27 pm
by Greg_Lewis
THANK YOU GWR for the detailed description. I think I'll make one of these. I can see how this would be most useful when you need to make a couple of special screws or even when you only need a few of some less common but available ones and don't want to buy a box of 100.