Shed tidy and storage update.

[Screwdriver]

The workshop is such a mess it has been demoted to shed. So I am giving it a big tidy up which involves moving a lot of stuff around and sorting out the storage.

I have a few metal drawer units, picked up over the years in various states of disrepair. Wish I'd taken a "before" picture, this one looked like it had been hit by a car. But since I thought it would be quite boring I didn't bother.

I had already unbent it a fair bit but I thought the construction was quite interesting. It clips together then a wedge piece holds it in place.

Combination of the flypress with a flatter, clamping in the vice and some hammering took out most of the damage.

I had to re-form the shape of the flattened clip as well as taking a huge ding out of the front panel.

Then with all the bits relatively straight and the clips the right shape, this is the wedge that holds it all together.

I had no idea these things were so easy to repair, hence the post. The drawer now fits flush whereas before it always stuck out an inch with a mangled face. It's the bottom left one in this picture.

Happy with that...

 

[Seadog]

The wedge piece hooks in at the top and is then tapped home at the bottom?

 

[Screwdriver]

The wedge piece hooks in at the top and is then tapped home at the bottom?

Yes but in preparation I had already...

Chopped up my beautiful copper bar and after much fertling with the lathe, flypress:

It works beautifully now (the ends are a taper fit) but I didn't need it for those drawers after all.

 

[Screwdriver]

The drawer units go here (according to sketchup).

Made up a new base with my new circular saw (many thanks to @Agrismith, I managed to fix the problem)

I am a bit cack handed with the saw but I'll get the hang of it, anyway it fits. <edit> that's not my wavy cut at the front, well not with this saw anyway)

I have three of these units and they're all a different size! Dammit, there's a bit of jiggery pokery to make the top flat. Plus of course, there's no way to get a full sheet in there, I had to plank it out.

The brown one has interesting provenance.

Lovely deep drawers that pull all the way out and are pretty sturdy too. Will get populated with flypress tooling, years after being stood up by the seller who "accidentally" gave away an entire cabinet and drawer unit the day before I was able to collect this job lot (and after I had paid for it). It's been in a right mess ever since!

Also need the strong storage space for some super heavy tooling mostly V blocks or press brakes and top tools. The Hunton will go in there too.

So now I just have to wait for @indy4x who has a cabinet I have been looking for for ages, then I can sort out the stuff that got tipped out of these. Probably need 3 or 4 times more than this amount of storage for all the flypress tooling but it's a start.

 

[Seadog]

Chopped up my beautiful copper bar and after much fertling with the lathe, flypress:

You didn't want to do it like that. What you need is one of these

And no, you can't have it...

 

[Screwdriver]

@Seadog not sure if any of them would fit. If they did, I really need some long spot welder arms. Tried and failed many times over the years to acquire some.

 

[Seadog]

I think that the spot welder that I acquired uses a collet system, I've not played with it yet. You said that yours are tapered?

 

[Screwdriver]

The wedge piece hooks in at the top and is then tapped home at the bottom?

Well I had to dig around but:

The arms on mine are 22.2mm near as dammit so are most likely 7/8ths in old money.

I need to make up some new ones because the tips are a weird taper fit(!) and tricky to make because they have to bend or have an offset tip to meet up. So if anyone has any 22.2 or 7/8ths arms, I could really use a pair!

It's the arms that clamp into a round holder, the taper fit is for the electrode/tips.

 

[Screwdriver]

Finally had a look at some of the unsorted punch and die sets.

Those are just the 7/8' rounds, metric and imperial from 2mm to 10mm. There are more like this but in 1 1/2 inch (the diameter of the die stock) plus a load more of giant 4" rounds.

Then there's the shaped punches.

They all need to be cleaned, checked and stored where I can get at them. But 99 times out of 100 all you want to do is pop a round hole in a thin sheet so all the smaller rounds get to go front of house, in the new drawer unit. Sketchup suggests I do this:

Then there's a ton of even weirder tools and of course all the sheet folders, stamps swages...

It's a tiny bit frustrating because sometime soon I will need to shift all this around again to squeeze a Bridgeport in there.

I'm not looking forwards to that. Well, I sort of am and am not at the same time I suppose. Be awesome to get that thing set up, it's still scattered all over the place taking up 4 times its own size in space. Possibly more.

 

[Seadog]

sometime soon I will need to shift all this around again to squeeze a Bridgeport in there.

Well done. About time too

 

[Screwdriver]

Well done. About time too

you must have some swapsies in that pile of spot welding arms....

I can make any of them fit.

 

[Seadog]

I'll see what's what.

 

[Screwdriver]

Recycled some found material.

It's just a bit of backing for the punch and die holders.

Starting to get the hang of this thing.

Made up 8off of these drawer inserts. Marked up for holes.

Took forever to find a useable drill bit. This batch of punch tooling is 5/8ths" but that's too tight a fit. 9/16ths" was too loose! Incredibly I did actually find a 19/32" HSS metal cutting bit but that was no good either so I made up a spade bit with a slight taper and it's just right.

But it's taken hours to get this far and I have shed fatigue.

 

[Seadog]

This batch of punch tooling is 5/8ths" but that's too tight a fit. 9/16ths" was too loose!

In which universe?

 

[Parm]

You didn't want to do it like that. What you need is one of these

View attachment 227189

And no, you can't have it...

I’ve got a box (somewhere) of spot welder arms. Bought one cheaply a few years ago, but it was toast

That box is buried deep in the workshop

 

[Screwdriver]

In which universe?

Haha, yeah busted. Got in a right tizzy trying to find a size in between 5/8ths and 19/32. I gave up, went metric and modified a spade bit. Glad to see someone is paying attention.

Made up a tool to burnish the hole and effectively burn a chamfer. I made it bang on size (14.22mm ) then raised some small burrs with a cold chisel.

Works well on this soft, gnarly and yet somehow chewy old marine ply.

Very happy with the result.

Several hours later and I have most of the (found) metric 7/8ths" dies. The dies get bigger after 12mm and go up to 1 inch diameter (or possibly 1 1/8ths)

After that, I need to do the same for the imperial punch and dies, roughly the same number I think. Then start of the rest of it.

After that I can start playing with the real oddball tooling like corner notches and louvre tools.

Not quite sure where it's all going to go. I liberated a ton of drill bits after I'd just done them and they were destined to go into a Bisley cabinet. back to the drawing board I suspect.

 

[slim_boy_fat]

You could have borrowed my Forstner bit metric set or spade drill bit set, but there might not have one accurate enough for your needs.

 

[Screwdriver]

You could have borrowed my Forstner bit metric set or spade drill bit set, but there might not have one accurate enough for your needs.

Cheers, I may yet take you up on that. Forstner bit would be ideal for some of the larger tools that will plonk into a blind hole. I drilled these through because I knew I would have to ease them out a tad. I may end up just making up some drawers for the existing cabinet with all those loose brown drawer units. They are all half a metre deep mind. Lot of tooling in there.

 

[slim_boy_fat]

Cheers, I may yet take you up on that. Forstner bit would be ideal for some of the larger tools that will plonk into a blind hole. I drilled these through because I knew I would have to ease them out a tad. I may end up just making up some drawers for the existing cabinet with all those loose brown drawer units. They are all half a metre deep mind. Lot of tooling in there.

When I made the holder for my collet chucks, I used the spade drill bits - the Forstner bits are quite limited in size.

I drilled from one side until the drill point just broke through, then turned the workpiece over and finished from the underside. That way you don't get the 'torn' edge(s) there when the full bit width breaks though.


I made a perspex cover to keep general cave crap from getting to them.

 

[Screwdriver]

Yes, I had to do that for every single hole. Though my modified spade bit meant I pretty much had to guess where the hole was.

This is very old and slightly chewy marine ply. Sometimes the bit would lust tear a chunk out, look at the pic above showing the un-chamfered holes, that's where the bit went IN! If I had drilled all the way through it would take a massive chunk in one great big tear. Not much I could do except drill from both sides but super happy with the result anyway.