Tools for basic machining?

[CMG]

I have made "custom" parts real ghetto with stuff like drem, sawzall and vice, etc. wanna get some basic equipment harbor freight style but but don't know names or what to look for. The smaller the better no table size stuff maybe viced onto a table. For example something for bending thin aluminum, drilling precise holes, welding jig, etc. any suggestion what to look for?

[bmwdirtracer]

Hi, my friend.

I used to work for a custom metal shop -- and had use of some really amazing stuff. Lathes, milling machines, plasma, every kind of welder, sheet metal and pipe benders, you name it.

I don't see what operations you want to be able to perform. Bending thin aluminum (sheet?), I'd have to say take it to a metal shop; takes them five minutes. Drilling precise holes: Sears sells nice drill presses to bolt to a table, for less than $200. Welding jig: well, we had good huge steel tables, and made whatever jigs were necessary to the particular job; welded it to the table, and cut it free later.

I think you'll be best served by investigating Eastwood, for plasma and welding stuff. They have some great bargains.

[CMG]

Some of the stuff i am needing to make right now is like brackets, adapters and shields. I also need to make seat brackets for a van with like a 8 inch rise.

[bmwdirtracer]

Get a good bench drillpress from Sears; less than $200. ((Lasers and everything!)

I recently bought an electronic protractor, that tells me many angles; like $90. from the Matco tool guy. I'll look up the manufacturer, if I think of it tomorrow, while at work.

Cardboard is your best friend -- bend a piece of cardboard to mimic your platen

Visit Eastwood; they have a bunch of stuff, pretty cheap, that will achieve some of your needs, I think. Plasma, welders, all kinds of great stuff.....

Best investment will be a damned good strong, straight steel table, to bolt and weld stuff to.......

[CMG]

I had never heard of eastwood thanks. They don't seem to have stores here but there is an eadtwood storefront on sears.com so maybe i can get stuff thru them. Good info so far out of everything mentioned i only knew about the drill press and using cardboard templates.

[roninB4]

I've been a tool maker/machinist for 20+ years and do have some opinions (so does everybody). I'll begin with a nod to bmwdirtracer's suggestion that cardboard is your best friend when doing a mock-up of a proposed idea. Use cardboard, wood, drawings on paper, and any other cheap material to set in place for eyeball evaluation before you begin to cut into expensive materials that are in limited quantities. I now use CAD to play "what if" but often still do a prototype in cheap materials just because it takes so much time to create something in metal (or other materials) you're not happy with in the end.

As for machinery, there's a balance between cost of machinery/skill level/amount of use. Even if I can afford it I'm not going to drop major coin on a machine I won't use enough to justify the cost of. With better machinery you can obtain better results, with cheap machinery your skill level often has to overcome the limitations a cheap machine will produce. For example, a cheap round column mill/drill from Horrible Freight will make you struggle to get a decent finish/accuracy when cutting stainless steels unless your skill/knowledge level will help you overcome the chatter marks, dial errors, and flimsy spindle that are all part of a cheap Chinese machine. My point is that your expectations need to be realistic, difficult to do when you have little knowledge of what the machine design is capable of. I'll also second the notion of getting a sturdy metal surface to work from. Bending sheet metal the "Old World Way" can be done by clamping to the sturdy metal work surface and using a hammer and blocks of wood or clamping 2 x 4's like an ersatz bender. It will serve you for laying out, welding, assembly, a machine base, etc. As simple as it sounds, a base surface to work from is essential and only limited by your creativity how many ways you can use it. A sheet metal table will not be sturdy enough in itself, you want a plate, channel, angle, or any other shape/size of your choosing to use on a work bench of your choosing. For machinery, I'd suggest a decent drill press that accepts a 3/8" drill bit. When you get larger than that you have to pay attention to clamping (for safety) and spindle speeds. Failure to observe safety will get you hurt or permanently maimed. Failure to observe spindle speeds can burn up expensive tooling and/or ruin the piece you've been working on for hours. A small bench grinder will be of help for fabricating and sharpening your cutting tools. If you've been hacking things out with a Sawzall (we all have to start somewhere) then you're well aware of the value of clamps, buy more than you think you'll need. Things that move around when you're machining is a recipe for bad/difficult work. Do NOT wear gloves when using machinery, it's flat out dangerous. The usual assortment of GOOD files, tin snips, and angle (snag) grinders are also in order. Much of this will depend largely on your budget and the most immediate job at hand. Hard to plan for this but just count on taking your weekly paycheck and allocating a portion of it for tooling every week. That how I bought the instruments when I entered the trade, a bit at a time. Do a lot of on-line reading about machining/welding techniques, it will help you decide just what you're capable of tackling. What you think you're capable of will help decide what/when your purchases should be.

Also bear in mind that there are plenty of time when it's just best to pay someone else to do the work. I have a machine shop out back with jig boring, surface grinders, mills, lathes, etc. But there are machines, skills I simply don't have. Some specialized machinery is too expensive so for the few times I need something done with that process I'll pay to have it done. I can do a rattle can job on a bracket, I'll pay someone to do a nice paint job on my bike. A smart man will know when to stop, I've taken on more jobs than I should have only to discover why a professional job costs what it does. It's all about your expected results. If it ends up looking like a junior high school shop project then you have to decide if that's good enough or not.

Sorry if this was long winded, hope it was of some help.

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Oh, almost forgot this. Get a decent bench vise you can bolt to a solid/sturdy work surface. Beware of those cheap (Chinese) vises, the castings are porous and can/will break with any hard use. I've read of people cracking the castings just clamping up on something. A decent bench vise can be real expensive so shop the used market as your budget will allow, old iron can be expensive so shop around.

I would also like to mention that I don't like to knock the Chinese, no disrespect intended, but porous castings and shoddy manufacturing standards speak for themselves. A shoddy tool will cost you twice.

I only have a couple of hundred other opinions/tips on shop work but I don't think you want all of them right now.

[CMG]

Thanks for the opinion, i like to hear firsthand experience. I have tons of regular and power tools, plus a basic mig welder. My goal is to work my way up in experience and eqipment to both make things i can use, and just to get into metalworking in general as a hobby. There's a ton of things on the cars and around the house i could make if i had any skills. I do have a friend witha turbo shop and all kinds of plasma cutters, cnc, lathes, drills, etc. so if i need a quality part but for the stuff i need to do at the moment it's small enough that i can do it.

[bmwdirtracer]

I have to say that I thought Ronin did a wonderful write-up, and evaluation. My time at "Custom Metal Creations" taught me many lessons, including this one: If someone already makes the part, buy it. And if you have to have custom, it's better to hire the experienced metalworker and his well-equipped shop than try to create, say, an intake manifold for 6 throttle bodies, in your garage. Sure, brackets are easy.

Buying good machines can be ridiculously expensive. Buying Chinese crap is rarely an option, for me, or for you, CMG. Or, apparently, for Ronin, either.....

[roninB4]

I will state that I do have a couple of tiny Chi-Com machines. When I lived in a small apartment in Chicago space was at a premium, so was being able to pick it up and carry it to the next apartment. I now live on a few acres and have built a proper shop. I don't use the Chinese machines any more unless I'm just using it as a quick drill press, all other machinery has been old American, German, and Japanese machinery. It is possible to produce some respectable results with cheap Chi-Com machinery from Grizzly, Horrible Freight, or the other outlets. The trouble is the expected level of accuracy and surface finish. This is directly related to the mass, or lack of it, with the porous castings and crude spindles that are on budget machinery like this. I don't want to discourage someone with a limited budget or sound like some machine snob with my statements. Quite the contrary, I fully applaud those that are able to produce nick work on a lesser machine. If you have a skill level/experience that will allow you to overcome the design limitations then a small table-top machine and light cuts can easily produce great custom work. You have to bear in mind that it's going to take so much longer to do nice work that it may be smarter to simply purchase an already existing product. Now if you're just determined to learn metal working then down the rabbit hole you go. If you have any aspirations of doing this as a commercial venture (money) then I would strongly suggest you forget about using any of the Chinese machines and contact me by PM, the Chi-com machines are a poor choice for making production runs of 50+ parts. Even a Bridgeport often isn't a great machine, depends upon what you intend to do. A Bridgeport, for some work, is regarded as a graduated drill press. For brackets, drilling, milling key ways in shafts, etc. it works just fine. I guess what I'm trying to say is that the more exacting/demanding your work the more your machinery will cost, the heavier it should be, and the more floor space it will take up. As far as just wanting to have the capability to make things, it does become somewhat of an obsession. I still have it after 20+ years and should at least warn you about drinking from that well. I wish you (or anybody else) good luck and urge you to post photos of things you make. I like looking at the work of others, especially when it's better than my own. Sorry for the long rant, I'll go sit down in the back now.

[bmwdirtracer]

There will be no sitting down at this forum, Ronin! You know your stuff, then don't be shy! Hell, I'm just about half-past average, and I never shut up......just ask anyone here.......

[socalmatt]

I'm 25 and have been working as a machinist for 4 years, the simple and practical answer to your question would be as others have stated, a good drill press, and I would also say get a decent bench grinder with an assortment of wheels, a band saw, vice, a dead blow mallet, and some cheap 0-12" calipers. You won't be able to do much complex work in your garage but that should suffice for flanges and brackets and whatnot. Most large, complex, machining equipment takes a fair amount of training to use properly without crashing it into itself or wasting tools and material.

[roninB4]

Necro thread revival. I wanted to post a couple of photos of something I machined with crappy Chi-com machines from Gr*zzly when it was all I could have living in apartments. This is not about bragging, I've got nothing to brag about anyway. My point is that despite the limitations of tools at hand you can overcome with good technique. The holes were dialed in within +/- .0015 center-to-center distance, we'll leave aesthetics out of it for the moment as I did remove more metal from the "bridge" so it didn't look so chunky. This is a fork brace for my ZRX 1200. Didn't like what was available on the market. If I can do it anybody else can.
Fork Brace 1.jpg

Fork Brace 2.jpg

[bmwdirtracer]

Those parts are very beautiful, Ronin ! I am VERY impressed !

You be careful on that monster....I never knew you were an organ donor !

[roninB4]

I never knew you were an organ donor !

-I like to contribute when/where I can.

[bmwdirtracer]

(Every scar on my body is from a 2 wheeled vehicle) I'm pretty good on 4 wheels.

[roninB4]

(Every scar on my body is from a 2 wheeled vehicle)

-Nobody likes a quitter Chris.... Don't know how good you are on 4 wheels but you're probably pretty good with a wrench from what I've read. Hope things are well for you and yours. It's cold on this side of the Eastern Divide.

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Those parts are very beautiful, Ronin ! I am VERY impressed !

-I regard that as high praise coming from someone like you. Thank you sir.