67 replies to this topic

[Gary Bluestone]

These cans came from my Dad's gas station, once empty, we cut off the tops and used them to store hardware. Sold a few on Facebook

[Bill from NH]

I used Pringle cans for this back in the 70s.

[Mr. M]

A couple more…

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[Dennis David]

 

I've been using this for who knows how long. 

[Mr. M]

That is way cool!

[Bill from NH]

I have local friends who do blacksmithing as a hobby. My daughter did a college course while an accounting major.

[Dave Crevie]

I also have one of those Armstrong anvils, sitting on the floor in a corner of my garage. I used to use it to make heavy duty brackets and such for tooling. Still have the tongs, too. The furnace is long gone, but an oxy-acetyline torch with a rosette tip works pretty well. 

[Mr. M]

OK guys, how about some more oils slot car tools? I know they are out there.

[Bill from NH]

I have a partial tube of Cox oil somewhere. I forget what Cox called it.

[Martin]

Here is a specialty tool we made for cutting the body mount slots in Dynamic Bandits and Renegade's .

Larry had the parts made then I fit it all together to an exiting pair of parallel jaw pliers. 

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[Dave Crevie]

Pretty trick.

[Don Weaver]

I have a partial tube of Cox oil somewhere. I forget what Cox called it.

 

 

COXLUBE.

[Mad Mark]

Here is a specialty tool we made for cutting the body mount slots in Dynamic Bandits and Renegade's .
Larry had the parts made then I fit it all together to an exiting pair of parallel jaw pliers.

Quite the tool! I might need to make something similar as I recently acquired a renegade body mount.

[Martin]

Mark, I have extra parts as Larry and I made a few. Its just the base plate which are the hardest to make.

P.M. me if you can use them?

You will need a good quality set of parallel jaw pliers.  

I can take some better pics also as I did add a edge to keep the slots the same distance from that body bottom edge.

[Martin]

More tools......of the factory type.

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[Bill from NH]

#15 is the Champion wrench for their collet nuts. Big end used for rear tires & spurs, small end for 36D pinions.

[Dave Crevie]

The clamp "A", which is probably a pinion press, kind of looks like the clamps we had to make in our high school machine shop class. I have one very similar, but we had to make the screw, too. No using a bolt. I also had to make a precision grinding vice with all right angles at perfect 90 degrees. The shop teacher checked everything on a granite surface plate using a test indicator. Mine was one of four that passed out of a class of 28. That is what set the direction my life would go. ( I couldn't do anything else right. All you had to do was ask my father. )

[Dave Crevie]

The first die casting die I helped build was for the Swanson Speed Square. It's a tool used by carpenters to lay out roof joists;

 

 

I roughed out the casting inserts in H-13 steel. Then the area with the numbers was EDM burned with all the engraving left raised. After that, I had to polish all the areas around the lettering. That was 1972. The Speed Square was invented in 1925, and is still used today. This version was the first with depressed lettering. The raised lettering of previous versions would wear off. 

 

I still have one of these jacks. Not sure which family car it came from. Possibly from the Pierce-Arrow Grandpa James owned. Too fancy to be from anything else my family had.

 

[Martin]

Thanks Bill.

Dave,

 

"I couldn't do anything else right. All you had to do was ask my father. " that is so funny, I can relate.

 

I do still have my high school tools I made in shop class.

 

I will take a pic later.

 

very cool square you had a hand in making Dave.

[Bill from NH]

Dave, I have a Swanson Speed Square I've owned for 40-45 years. I keep it in the plastic bag it came in that has printed directions printed on both sides. These days, there are a multitude of YouTube videos if someone wants to know anything about speed squares.

[Dave Crevie]

I do still have a few of my "home made" machinists tools. Also my father's iron foundry mold and coremaker's tools. They are in the basement, so to take pictures I'll have to go down the stairs. Might still happen, though. These journeys back through time have been working wonders for my state of mind lately.

 

When I retired and left my last job, I donated the tools I had there, to the son of one of the partners that owned the company. He was just starting out, and showed more promise then most of the young guys I had worked with. There was a lot of specialized tools I made over the years. I visited the place three years ago and spent his lunch break, and then some, talking with him and catching up on what he has learned. He showed me some of the projects he was working on, very impressive. If I have a real regret about leaving there, it is that I'm not around to help him through. But his dad is pretty sharp, so I guess I don't have to worry too much. 

 

When Swanson came to Delta in 1971 to do all their casting work, the son had taken over the company. It was time for a new casting die, and Delta handled that. The picture I posted is of one of the first parts out of that tool, and was taken by Howard Blaine, QA manager. The photo was used in Swanson literature for years. The lettering had not yet been filled in with the black paint.

 

Swanson struggled for a while, and I can remember delivering pallets of castings to their Frankfort, Il., warehouse, in a rented truck after hours. The shipping clerk was Rick's wife. 

[Martin]

Here are the tools I made in shop 1968 . Do they do this kind of thing today?

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[Mr. M]

Now we’re taliking! What is the one labeled B?

[Dave Crevie]

Geez. Looks like high school machine shop was pretty universal in what they taught. Made the parallel clamps (4 sets), depth guage, V-blocks and angle plate my first year. ('65/'66)  Grinding vice, a micrometer depth stop for the quill on a Bridgeport, and a progressive die to make chain from 1/8th diameter wire the second year ('66/'67)  The last two years I switched to all auto shop. (two periods a day)

 

My local school district dropped industrial arts in the mid-1990's. Funding for the public school system had dropped significantly due to "no child left behind" legislation, and there wasn't enough money to support both the shop classes and the sports program. The school board took a survey of student parents to see what they wanted to keep. The response was overwhelmingly toward the sports program. Parents didn't want their kids working in factories, so the money went to expand sports, adding badminton and water polo to the program. 

 

Lately the board has been looking into resurrecting the industrial arts program, to attract some grant money from the county's Vocational Education program. But they can't find teachers to fill the positions. They moved the computer graphics and design classes from computer sciences to try to "weasel" some of that grant money away from the county, but the county board figured out what was going on and refused the requests for the grant.   

[Martin]

That's an easy one Chris. That's a Dynamic chassis bearing install tool.