Tools and Shop Talk - Opinions, Thoughts, Reviews, B.S., etc.

Slim-Whitey

Canadian hoser, Eh?
Know it all snowfake
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Only thing I don't like about it is the sprawl of it. Although ya won't get away from that without tetrising shit in there.

But man, quite the setup.
 

Slim-Whitey

Canadian hoser, Eh?
Know it all snowfake
Joined
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Talking on Packout shit, buddy is complaining that he has no cupholders in his square body chev.

So I cocked about with an idea.

Sacrificed a packout organizer for it. If he'll run a couple of screws or rivets into the trans tunnel, he'll have himself a nice cupholder, with a mug that'll twist lock in there.
 

Slim-Whitey

Canadian hoser, Eh?
Know it all snowfake
Joined
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Looking at covered trailers, in preparation for this summer.

Actually cheaper to buy new than it is to buy used, per square foot of floor space.

Used market hasn't corrected yet at all, in this niche.
 

Slim-Whitey

Canadian hoser, Eh?
Know it all snowfake
Joined
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Saw this at the 'Depot last week. Thought the Milwaukee rep was a cheeky cunt, slipping the flyers into the real tool section (I saw, as I own a handful of red tools I really like :D )

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I have a customer who needs some concrete. . .modification. . . done, this was just the ticket. Waiting for the grinding shroud to come in, but this'll definitely kick ass and mean I don't need to fuck around with hoarding off her entire house for hours.
I tested it out on some work I'm doing at our place, and yeah, it's the cats ass. Only issue so far is that it's set up for a dedicated dust extractor, and so a shop vac hose won't easily adapt to it.
A cordless vacuum hose will thread right in, but the shopvac is obviously a more capable thing. I'm not cowboying up 600bucks for a dust extractor just yet either. I'll need to see if I can adapt the shopvac hose somehow. Find someone with a 3d printer. Ha.

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And finally, I snagged this bad boy for Miranda. She's wanted to start getting rid of the popcorn ceiling in the house since we moved in. And this was on a *wild* sale. It's not a job we're starting any time too soon, but it'll work well.
 

Arcticelf

Head BFH Operator at Gray Man Fab
Joined
Apr 23, 2019
Messages
1,167
Location
DelCo PA
Anyone have a suggestion for small batch CNC laser cutting? I need about 100 pieces total, three different parts, cut from 3/16.
 

Chris In Milwaukee

Ain’t no mo’
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Dec 16, 2019
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North Woods, WI USA
Anyone have a suggestion for small batch CNC laser cutting? I need about 100 pieces total, three different parts, cut from 3/16.
I don’t know why I didn’t think about it when I replied with SendCutSend, but one of my high school buddies runs his family’s sheet metal business with his brother down in SoFla. He has two huge AF lasers and a huge AF water jet, CNC punch he got from NASA of all things, a couple of monster CNC brakes, and some other odds and ends. He can work with pretty much any kind of metal you want.


Ask for Brian. Tell him I sent you. :)
 

Arcticelf

Head BFH Operator at Gray Man Fab
Joined
Apr 23, 2019
Messages
1,167
Location
DelCo PA
I don’t know why I didn’t think about it when I replied with SendCutSend, but one of my high school buddies runs his family’s sheet metal business with his brother down in SoFla. He has two huge AF lasers and a huge AF water jet, CNC punch he got from NASA of all things, a couple of monster CNC brakes, and some other odds and ends. He can work with pretty much any kind of metal you want.


Ask for Brian. Tell him I sent you. :)
I'll check them out. Send cut send was pretty reasonable, and I've got a batch of parts on the way.
 

Chris In Milwaukee

Ain’t no mo’
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I'll check them out. Send cut send was pretty reasonable, and I've got a batch of parts on the way.
It's kind of hard to beat the workflow automation behind outfits like SendCutSend, JLPCB, and similar shops which start at the ordering step. My buddy's place is still pretty human driven up front. The automation bit is definitely a time saver.
 

Chris In Milwaukee

Ain’t no mo’
Joined
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I’ve had a HF floor standing drill press for quite a few years. I noticed my chuck was a bit wobbly, but the runout of any bits were fairly tolerable. Chucking up a 1/2” router bit, it saw about .001-.003” runout. I thought I’d take things apart and check the tapers and such. All was clean, smooth, and it took a lot of effort to get things apart. So that made me think the contact surfaces were good.

After cleaning all surfaces and putting things back together, I did the measurements again. Same basic runout. A couple of YT machinists suggested taking the measurements with the quill extended. So I did that, and damn…. The spindles bushes have a buttload of play (yeah, the gauge isn’t square, but you get the idea).

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Do you think it’s worth attempting an overhaul of the business end of this thing? I know this thing is no mill; it’s just a cheap(ish) drill press. But when I recently looked at a name brand drill press, it was not cheap. I could, of course, just yard sale it and start saving for a new one. But I can’t imagine good quality bearings and bushes are too expensive.
 
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Stairgod

Two bad decisions away from buying a bulldozer
Joined
Apr 22, 2019
Messages
2,440
I’ve had a HF floor standing drill press for quite a few years. I noticed my chuck was a bit wobbly, but the runout of any bits were fairly tolerable. Chucking up a 1/2” router bit, it saw about .001-.003” runout. I thought I’d take things apart and check the tapers and such. All was clean, smooth, and it took a lot of effort to get things apart. So that made me think the contact surfaces were good.

After cleaning all surfaces and putting things back together, I did the measurements again. Same basic runout. A couple of YT machinists suggested taking the measurements with the quill extended. So I did that, and damn…. The spindles bushes have a buttload of play (yeah, the gauge isn’t square, but you get the idea).

View attachment 82458
View attachment 82457

Do you think it’s worth attempting an overhaul of the business end of this thing? I know this thing is no mill; it’s just a cheap(ish) drill press. But when I recently looked at a name brand drill press, it was not cheap. I could, of course, just yard sale it and start saving for a new one. But I can’t imagine good quality bearings and bushes are too expensive.
How much time do you want to waste to get less than stellar results?
Hard to get gold from manure
 

Chris In Milwaukee

Ain’t no mo’
Joined
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Messages
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North Woods, WI USA
Ntm the spindle itself may have excessive runout. Want a mill, buy a mill. Drill presses are at best imprecise machines.
It’s on my want list, but drill presses still have their place, especially if you have something big to drill. Just pondering what constitutes “good enough”. I haven’t had to drill anything in a particularly precise way, aside from one airplane axle I needed to drill. That one would have sucked to mess up. Got lucky on that one.
 
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Chris In Milwaukee

Ain’t no mo’
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Interestingly (after figuring out what search terms to use), a lot of folks are saying that the 0.014" end play in the quill is acceptable (and actually pretty decent) for most "modern" GP drill presses when the quill is fully extended, even for the somewhat more expensive ones. Hmmm... go figure. There were a couple of mods where folks were splitting the front of the case and putting in a through-bolt to adjust clamping pressure to reduce deflection like older equipment used to do and got good results. But I really don't think I care to invest that kind of time. It's likely fine for woodworking (although I might try replace bearings with some higher-quality Japanese models). But for metalwork, I think I'll start looking at mills. They're only a few thousand dollars. What could go wrong?
 
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