For decades Metal Lathe Accessories has been offering kits of castings for making useful accessories for the metal lathe. I’m considering buying their Steady Rest kit as the price for a used/import steady rest for my South Bend 10K lathe is three times as much ($150-$200). Other useful kits that stand out are the Die Filer, Milling Attachment and Quick Change Toolpost, but everything they offer looks useful.

While the amount of work needed to make these kits into useful accessories is somewhat hefty, the kits are a great way to learn metalworking techniques while adding to your shop. In my years of following internet discussions I have only heard glowing reviews of the quality of the MLA castings, drawings and instructions.

Metal Lathe Accessories [State College Central]
Steady Rest [MLA]

The most remarkable thing about high-helix end mills is that no one can agree what they’re called. They’re a special type of high-performance cutter designed for use with soft materials, especially aluminum, and you’ll find them called high-helix, high-spiral, shallow wedge, and high helix angle.

Feed rates can be much higher with these cutters. They can run higher-than-usual feed rates, since the shallow angle of the cutting teeth means more of the cutting force is directed along the axis of the cutter instead of trying to bend it. If that’s a bit confusing, imagine trying to break a stick by bending it over your knee or pulling on the ends. The latter is what a high-helix cutter does.

While stronger, high-helix cutters don’t produce very good surface finish in steel, so low-helix cutters also exist for that purpose. However, since they require very high-grade materials to stand up to machining stresses, they’re significantly more expensive than high-helix cutters for softer metals, putting them outside the reach of all but the best-equipped shops and Toolmongers.

High-spiral end mills [Production Tool Supply]

I was trained as a machinist, and finding angles always drove me up the wall. For some reason, I find it really hard to trust my own math when creating fixtures with Joe blocks and sine plates, and wind up verifying everything seven ways. Denali has a little something that may take the sting out.

While digital protractors like this have been around for a while, it’s hard to pass up Amazon’s $23 price on this one. Strictly speaking, it may not be accurate enough for precision work, but +/- 1 degree is more than enough for woodworking and sheet metal layout. +/- 1 degree is probably the best you’d get with a steel protractor. More accurate versions are available from Bosch, but ninety percent of the time, Denali’s little 11-incher should be plenty, and it’ll save you a lot of close-up guesswork.

Denali 11-inch digital protractor [What’s This?] [Via Amazon]

Blazer’s line of utility torches are powerful little monsters — you can adjust the flame from a smoky, match-like burn to a nearly-invisible jet of 2,500-degree plasma, hot enough to turn steel into a molten puddle. They run on easily-obtainable butane and can handle everything from soldering heavy-gauge wire to applying heat shrink.

You’ve got to be careful with this little bugger, but it’s a kick-ass tool for electronics techs, hobbyists, and anyone who needs to apply a bit — or a lot — of precise heat. Street pricing is about $40.

Blazer GB-2001 [Blazer]
Street Pricing [Google Products]

Detroit-area Toolmongers are probably familiar with Production Tool Supply and their deep discounts on overstocked in-store products. I was picking up some tooling today and saw a set of fifty MIT clamps (labeled “Ton of Clamps”) marked down from $90 to $30.  MIT’s a pretty good manufacturer, so you can expect a lengthy service life.  Sizes range from tiny 2”-jaw spring clamps to 3′ Quick Grip-style framing clamps.

It’s in-store only, so anyone in Michigan can be knee-deep in clamps for a three-pack of X-bills.  Or you can shimmy over to the Andersons’ website to pick up the same product for $38 before shipping.

MIT Ton o’ Clamps [The Andersons]

This was an interesting problem I came up against the other week. I needed to determine the angle of some tiny dovetails used to secure the front sight of an air rifle. I used two methods: one, a graphical solution that leveraged the power of my CAD program, the other a purely mathematical one. (more…)

Chuck has this great picture of a set of small ornaments a friend of his made with a forge and 3 lb. hammer. Reader Whiteforge posted this little key chain lying across a similar hammer that, I’m guessing, came to life in much the same way.

It’s always amazing to me that such small, rather delicate-looking objects can be made with brute force and three pounds of steel hitting it repeatedly. I would most likely lose patience and make an ashtray out of everything, like I did when I was a kid and had to work with clay.

Toolmonger Photo Pool [Flickr]

One of the reasons we like going to talk to the folks at Milwaukee is because we get to see all the latest tools and paw all over them, with direct access to the folks designing and building them a few feet away. Melissa here isn’t a tool rep in some booth trying to sell you snake oil — she’s a hardworking advocate of portable band saws and grinders, and her knowledge in this area is vast.

(more…)

I’ve always looked at metal-milling machines like they were only half-functional.  I felt that any machine built to cut or drill metal would work just as well with wood stock rolling through it –- still do, actually.  Metal guys will give you the stink-eye about it, but still, I’m a wood guy.  I see that Grizzly designed this G9959 mill for both metal and wood;  now there’s a forehead-smacker if ever I’ve heard of one.

(more…)

Grizzly’s SuperBar not only helps you align your saw blade to exactly 90 degrees, it’ll also help keep the blade parallel with the miter slot and the fence.  It runs in the miter slot, and its precision dial indicator gauge is accurate within ± .001″.

The dial gauge features a full inch of travel.  You can measure the saw blade itself or a Master Plate made by Grizzly or someone else — the gauge’ll measure other tools as well.

The SuperBar sells for $80.

SuperBar [Grizzly]

Most Toolmongers probably just grab any oil that’s close at hand while drilling into metal, but if I actually bought cutting oil, I have to admit that I’d probably buy Bad Dog Drool cutting lubricant — not because I’m sold on how well it works, but because I couldn’t resist the awesome name.  Just imagine the look on your buddy’s face when you ask him to fetch some Bad Dog Drool.

Use Bad Dog Drool to keep cutters cool and minimize wear when boring through metal.  This “thick and juicy” cutting lubricant — Bad Dog Tools likens it to St. Bernard drool — stays in place even on inclined surfaces.

On their website, an 8oz bottle of Bad Dog Drool will run you about $10 plus $5 shipping.

Bad Dog Drool [Bad Dog Tools]

Knipex’s concrete mesh cutter may look like a bolt cutter at first glance, but take a closer look.  The jaws open on the side of the very flat head, giving you better access to cut small-diameter rebar and concrete mesh in place.

(more…)

I’ve used this Harbor Freight air nibbler a few times to cut sheet metal for home and automotive repair, and it performed flawlessly. Let me warn you, though, it shaves off small quarter-moon pieces as it cuts, thousands of them — so make sure you use it in an open area where you can find them all, or in a place where they won’t cause problems.

(more…)

A little while back Bosch announced the rollout of their new “Edge” metal recip demo blades.  Bosch’s marketing department created a lot of fanfare around the release and did a good job trying to make ‘em exciting, which is difficult — because it’s a recip blade, not the sexy front runner in a hard-hitting leaflet campaign.  Here’s what it boils down to:  Bosch says that, thanks to its new tooth design and many other features, the Edge cuts faster and lasts longer.

(more…)

Recently I was shopping for a drill press, and I probably could’ve gotten away with a benchtop model if it was just for woodworking, but I also do metal fabrication so I wanted a stationary model that stands on the floor. I wound up going with this Ridgid drill press.

(more…)

For a Toolmonger looking to do some metalworking with limited space or budget the M1045 three-in-one metalworking tool from Shop Fox might be just the ticket.  This 12″ capacity machine can bend, shear, and roll metal up to 22ga.

(more…)

Woodworkers have brass setup bars for precision setup — machinists have gauge blocks.  You stack a series of gauge blocks to match the desired measurement, for accurately checking and setting measurements and calibrating instruments.

(more…)