Thread: Workshop ingenuity

Originally Posted by nearnexus

Long time gone Grahame, long time gone.

My old man had the same kit, and I still have it. At the time it was something special. To have an electric drill was a privilege/luxury many couldn't afford.

The current generation have no idea how scarce these sort of tools were in the 50's and even 60's.

Up until then was the era of hand cranked drills, that broke more bits than drilled holes.

How times have changed.

Rob

One of those Lightburn kits here tin box and a absolute ''micro surgeons utopia a brand new circular saw attacment abt 5 '' dia.We have a laugh here and is a talking point when the nostagia hour approaches.
i come from 5 generations of dirt poor farmers where neccesity was the mother of invention.Many a get ya home contrivances have been made here and still are.Cheers John love this thread as it reminds many of our impoverished origins.we had a gut buster breast drill here and an old dawn post drill still here.

A friends father built a metal lathe using the front axle and hub from a car as the headstock. The bed / carriage was made using a 2 axis drilling vice. It may have had a length of pipe to slide on for more room. It is a long time since I saw it last and the memory is ......

I don't recall how he held work on the lathe.

Dean

Originally Posted by Oldneweng

A friends father built a metal lathe using the front axle and hub from a car as the headstock. The bed / carriage was made using a 2 axis drilling vice. It may have had a length of pipe to slide on for more room. It is a long time since I saw it last and the memory is ......

I don't recall how he held work on the lathe.

Dean

You reminded me of something, about 1 1/2 years ago I built the same thing for my grandfather as he was making a metal lathe exactly how you described, only with an heavy angle iron bed which I also machined for him.
We used the front hub which I supplied and I mounted it into a heavy channel, he then welded a plate on the base to mount it to the bed.
I turned up a spindle to match the bearings out of a old box trailer axle, and mounted his threaded 100mm chuck on it with a threaded back plate I made him.

I also made him a 4 way tool post which I posted up here a while back

Dave

You could have at least drilled the bolt holes for him

Rob

Originally Posted by nearnexus

You could have at least drilled the bolt holes for him

Rob

I would have but he wanted to drill them himself. He used a compound vice upside down like your friends father did.
I ended up knocks the off the sharp 45 corners at 45 degrees after this photo and I think it sat on his kitchen table for the first week as he admired it.

He has taught me so much over the years and it's so sad to see him loose it all in these latter years as he is 94 and had a stroke about 2 years ago. It didn't slow him down much and he still gets in the shed but not like he used to with building tables saws etc to sell for a bit of pocket money.

He had the money to buy a new lathe, but he said what will I do with it if I buy one. It is the adventure of building it that interests him and always has like me.


Dave

You did a good job of it Dave.

I'm sure he was very pleased with it.

Yes, it's sad when people get old, but that's life and there's nought we can do about it. Just have to make the best of it.

Good to hear he's still able to get in the shed.

Cheers

Rob