[whtbaron]

Before I went farming, I worked in a body shop painting cars. One old guy I worked for used to laugh at us "young guys" for wasting our money on tools. Except for Snapon wrenchs etc. he made most of his own. The more cheap chinese crap I toss in the waste bin, the more his words echo in the back of my mind, and I've started building a few myself. Just curious to see what everyone out there has built in his own shop that turned out to be a very valuable tool.

 

[whtbaron]

cool... I made this hacksaw after I broke a couple flimsey Chinese ones that wouldn't keep the blade tight. This one is made from 1 inch flatiron with a piece of steel tubing for the handles. Tensioner tabs were broken drill bits welded into square steel stock. The frame is rigid enough to tighten the tension with pliers... works very well. Don't look too close at the welding because I got lazy and grabbed the arc when I should have went and got the MIG.

 

[whtbaron]

A sandblasting cabinet big enough to put a bumper in is on my list too... I've been eyeing up the hopper on an old IHC 403 combine.

 

[whtbaron]

Here's one that is incredibly simply but handy. I get oil in bulk barrels, and never have the right spanner wrench around when I need it. I made this one out of a piece of scrap pipe, some rod and a short piece of flatiron. If I was going to make another one the pipe would be longer to give me more knuckle clearance at the barrel. The round side opens the big bung, the flatiron is basically a large screwdriver that opens the small one. It hangs on the wall over the barrels and is always there, because it's useless for anything else.

 

[whtbaron]

This might be the crudest slide hammer you've ever seen, but it's incredibly handy for jobs where you would break a normal one. Works great for taking off the inside race of junked bearings and doubles as a pry bar when in use. I started with a broken U bolt that once held an IHC deeptiller spring and made the slide out of an old discer bushing which slides on some square tubing.

 

[whtbaron]

Hmmm....never thought of putting a chisel end on one, but makes sense. Going this way I push agains a large nut/washer arrangment, going the other way you'd have to do some sturdy welding. Wouldn't even have to start with a Ubolt, but I sure wish I'd kept my college notes on tempering and case hardening.

 

[whtbaron]

I made this little fork back in my hog barn days when I needed a way to remove fans from electric motors to change bearings without destroying the fan. It just clamps in the vice so you can smack the shaft with a punch. I put an old cushion or a stack of feed bags on the floor to catch the motor.

 

[whtbaron]

This one may look like a pile of scrap iron on the shop floor, but I built it to straighten John Deere feeder chain slats without removing them from the machine. The main frame is built from a packer axle off an old IHC drill, and the tabs are cut from Morris cultivator shanks, so it's very strong, and needs to be. It bolts to the feeder chain slat. Depending on which attachment I use, I can use the bolt threads to pull the slat up, down, forward or back. I've started using Grade 8 fine thread bolts with it for extra control when putting the air ratchet on it, and it will gall the threads occasionally, but bolts are cheap compared to pulling the chain out and straightening it. Those slats are tough!

 

[whtbaron]

Interesting idea. When I built my welding bench I put a vice on each side perfectly in line... now if I need to weld something long together I can clamp it in both vices and hold it straight while I work.

 

[whtbaron]

Kind of happened by accident in my case, I inherited a free vice from a hog barn that burned down. I was a little worried that the metal may have been weakened, but so far it's taken a beating (literally) on my welding bench without fail. I did have to do a bunch of grinding on it to mill down the back half of the front section due to warpage. It was curved up enough that the vice wouldn't slip back and forth through the base freely. Hey Buck... you said you had a whole toolbox full of homemade stuff.... where's your pics? I'd like to see that tire stand you're building.... thinking I'm going to need something for removing duals here too.

 

[whtbaron]

I had to change a rim on a tractor that had been equipped with clamp on dual hardware about 40 years ago. We've owned the tractor since the late 70's and had never had a rim off, so I knew it was going to be hard to get off. Add to this that the retaining nuts had been replaced by hoops for the clamp on dual hardware so conventional wrenches were not going to work. I had a broken shaft under the work bench with a 1 1/8" hex on the end, so I made a forked wrench by grinding a slot in the end and putting a bolt through for support. The nice part is that I was able to use both my homemade breaker bar and a big box end wrench to twist with. Doubles the torque using 2 arms instead of one, and was much easier to hold steady. They weren't easy, but I was able to get them all off. Using a 3/4" impact on it was tempting, but doing it this way I was able to get everything off without breaking anything. The homemade breaker bar is a broken S-K 1/2" ratchet welded solid inside a piece of black pipe cut the right length to fit in my tool box. Yes, I could have gotten warranty on it, but now it's my fav breaker bar.

 

[whtbaron]

Sweet. I've been toying with the idea of a 14' pull type scaffold to take around fields so I can trim back branches with a chain saw. Now you've got me thinking about mounting it in the back of an old truck.

 

[whtbaron]

Yea... we thought we were doing good when we built a welding table with a flat top. Since then I've learned about the slatted style like Doorknob has and maybe someday I'll get around to building something nice.
I was getting annoyed with having to find the right piece of tubing to release the bottle jack on my cheapy cheapy 20 ton press. It just stuck enough that you needed something to help turn it by hand. After listening to some ideas on another site I took an old plastic knob off a creep feeder and drilled it out to 3/8" to fit on the jack valve. I slotted it with a die grinder and disc so the pin on the valve will operate, filled it with hot glue so it sticks on and now I don't need the jacking rod to work the valve.

 

[whtbaron]

Small taps have always been a sore point with me as well. Don't know why they don't make them with hex heads instead of square tops so you could put a small socket and ratchet on them. The T bar holders are often a PIA in tight quarters and just plain slow. Too often the vice grips get put into service when using multiple sizes at once. I know the easy solution is to buy a set of square drive sockets from SnapOn, but I know they'll be over $100. A guy advertised his own version for $60 in the last Farm Show mag, but they aren't as handy. Lately I've been thinking about welding a nut on top of one of the T bar holders which would also work, but restricts you to one size for torque. I took an old scissors jack out of an abandoned car and welded a large nut on the drive. It's come in very handy for aligning parts for welding and taking dents out of auger tubes. It's cheap junk so I just weld the attachment I need for the job onto it.

 

[whtbaron]

The vacuum pump on my honey wagon finally gave me problems after almost 40 years of service. It hasn't been apart since it was built in the 70's so it was a challenge. My puller couldn't grab the uneven surface on the inside of the casting so I had to make 3 little legs out of some really tough scrap that bolted to the pump retaining holes inside. I tossed the whole thing out in a snow bank for an hour, then used old screw driver blades for wedges along the outside edge , put tension on the puller in the center and heated the inner bearing race before it finally gave up. The pump is obsolete so breaking the casting was not a good option.

 

[whtbaron]

I've been hanging out at a site for welders and blacksmiths so I've been picking up some new ideas. One of them was to make a small bench anvil out of a piece of railroad track. This particular piece was damaged after a local derailment in the 70's. It's Birmingham steel that was placed here in the 1870's so it's very hard on the running surface.

 

[whtbaron]

I've actually got an antique Peter Wright anvil that belonged to my grandfather, but the one thing I have learned by hanging with the blacksmiths is that an anvil really isn't supposed to be used for beating cold iron, only hot. Since I don't want to inflict any more damage on grandpa's anvil, I've been looking at some cheap but indestructible alternatives. When they pulled the Morris/Hartney line up it ran through the middle of our farm and they weren't always careful about the cleanup so I ended up having to pick up some of the smaller bits left along the edge of the field. This particular piece dates back to a train wreck that happened locally so it's got a couple nasty divets out of it and it's actually slightly twisted. Either of your suggestions would work very well. We have some preconceived notions about what an anvil should look like, but in reality they have taken many different forms over the years to fill specific needs.

 

[whtbaron]

I had one like that once. We had to wrap a cold wet cloth on the cylinder and keep lightly heating the cap and tapping it with a hammer and punch. The pipe wrench with that kind of leverage will just force the cap onto the cylinder tighter.

 

[whtbaron]

Building a cnc machine that's 5' x 5'. A lot of work but hope to be able to mount either plasma for steel/stainless etc or a spindle for wood, aluminum, and possibly steel cutting.

Using mach3, turbocad, and mastercam, sheetcam, and Vectric.

Ahhh....from a homemade anvil to a CNC cutting machine... that's a quantum leap if there ever was one. Looking forward to your pics.

 

[whtbaron]

Some hefty looking weaponry there 5 state.... nice cabinet too.