Making some of your own hand tools

**Woodlee** · 3rd February 2008, 07:13 PM

Originally Posted by Fossil

Here is another tool that I often use.

It doesn't look much, but is very handy, and most importantly, it is cheap to make.

It is a hunk of 1 1/4" mild steel from the scrap box with a piece of 1/4" round HSS for the boring bar.
My top slide is the older clamp down type as from the manufacturer. I like it over quick change jobbies, because I find it more versatile for specialised work, although I admit it is slower.
Mount a centre drill in the chuck, with the steel held squarly and firmly in the top slide and drill pilot hole. Chuck up 1/4" drill bit and drill through. Drill and tap appropriate holes for whatever machine screws are laying around. With this method, boring bar is exactly centred. Grind bar down to exactly half of diameter so that it will end up at centre.

Beside the rough boring bar setup is a hunk of 1045 which
is hard as #!@%^!!!! This setup cuts it really well without any chattering, as long as moderate cuts are taken.
Anyway.. these are the sort of tools that I often make up. Cheap and easy, even if they don't look so good.

Neat job Fossil .
Thinking outside the square as well.

Kev.

**scooter** · 3rd February 2008, 08:48 PM

Lovverly work, Fossil

**BobL** · 3rd February 2008, 10:49 PM

Yeah - good stuff Fossil.

I make lots of different hand tools, mallets, saws, planes, spokeshaves, jigs and rigs. Last year I made two chainsaw mills. The first one entirely by myself and takes up to a 24" blade. Using this mill generated a major interest in home milling so I then made another almost all ally mill to take up to a 52" blade. I did everything except for the ally welding which my BIL helped me with so I called the mill the BIL mill.

A complete WIP is here. A lot of planning went into it's construction and it's the one tool that I have made that works significantly better than I imagined it would and is an absolute joy to use. Unless you frequent the Milling forum you may not have seen this.

To support this activity I have made numerous other tools and jigs like this, this and this.

**wheelinround** · 4th February 2008, 09:53 AM

Tool scribe post and clamp made in metal work at school

a special socket for a heavy vehicle sump plug either a CAT or Cummins made a few years ago

also made up a square sump socket for Bedford diff plugs always found the cast spanners broke.

**Fossil** · 5th February 2008, 10:43 AM

Nice work Guys.

Bob, I had a look at the chainsaw mill thread. That looks great!

**BobL** · 5th February 2008, 06:32 PM

Originally Posted by Fossil

Nice work Guys.

Bob, I had a look at the chainsaw mill thread. That looks great!

Thanks Fossil. I'd like to claim all the ideas as mine but as usual they are a hybrid of ideas across this and another serious Chainsaw/milling forums. The one thing I haven't seen before on any direct power head mounted CS mill is the ability to remove the chain without removing the Chainsaw from the mill. This is very useful when you change chains during a milling session.

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