This interesting-looking old drill press posted to the Toolmonger photo pool has us scratching our collective noggins. It’s obviously a belt-powered drill press of some sort but we have no idea what its original setup would have looked like.

The stock plate doesn’t have a hole in it, which to me says metalwork — though I suppose that’s not always true. The whole thing looks like it’s built for fine adjustment with the knobs at the spindle shaft, but the wheels at the rear are a bit of a question for me. Is the belt supposed to loop through them or is it for a second belt that controls the height?

We always find this type of shop mystery thought-provoking. We hope reader Ghb624 finds out how this rig is meant to be set up and what its original purpose was. Let us know what you think in comments.

Toolmonger Photo Pool [Flickr]

Amazon has the best deal we can find on a 7/8″ cutting diameter Magnate round nose router bit: $18.14, although it’s the same price on the Magnate website.

I happen to need one for an upcoming project so I spent some time looking around on the web. It’s hard to filter out the length vs. the cutting diameter or radius (7/16″), but I think this is the least expensive available. Any comments on the quality of Magnate bits is welcome!

Magnate 806 Core Box Router Bits - 7/16″ Radius; 1/2″ Shank Diameter; 3/4″ Cutting Length [What’s This?][amazon.com]

The folks at Big Ass Fans must be loving this picture right now. As we understand it, this is what’s left of a shoe factory after it was hit by a tornado that swept through the Sikeston, Missouri area earlier this year. If you look close, the fans are still there.

What does this mean?  Not a whole lot in the grand scheme of things.  In all honesty, no one can predict how tornadoes will behave or what, if anything, will come through undamaged. These fans had just as much chance as anything else that was strapped down in the building.

But on balance, if I were Big Ass Fans I’d have this picture blown up and hung in the corporate lobby.

Note: We’re told that all employees escaped safely.

Big Ass Fans Withstand Extreme Winds [Big Ass Fans]
Big Ass Fans [Website]

The Parrot Vise swivels a full 360° like most bench vises, but you can also pull it from its base and replace it on its side to hold things vertically.  Shop Fox designed the vise so you only need to tighten the jaws to stop the vice from swiveling.

The jaws on the Parrot Vise measure 3-1/2″ wide by 2-1/8″ high, and they open to 5″.  Holes in the jaws allow you to mount custom faces, or you can buy the optional rubber-lined tilting jaws.

You can find a Parrot Vise for $40 to $50.

Parrot Vise [Woodstock International]
Street Pricing [Google]
Via Amazon [What’s This?]

In this great action shot, reader Vincent Ma cuts some stone for his latest backyard project and shows off his hard-won work clothes.

Using an angle grinder from Canadian Tire, and a Norton diamond blade, I can score grooves in the brick in order to snap the “wings” off the Celtik wall unit. This way I can make beveled units for curved sections of the wall.

My work pants are nearing their end. Here a giant rip opened up and all I can do is duct-tape it to prevent my underwear from showing. Yes, I do know how to sew, but I don’t wanna bother with it.

Never feel bad about working so hard that your work clothes can’t take the strain. The only idiots who’ll make fun of you for that are the same people who’d hire out the project you just did with your bare hands. The duct tape just means you value one type of work over another this weekend — nothing wrong with that.  Also, the stones look great.

Toolmonger Photo Pool [Flickr]

You want to quickly cut a fence post on the spot, but you don’t have a table or sawhorse close by.  You could try to balance the post on your foot, grip the pipe with one hand, and grip the saw with the other, but that seems a little risky and your cut probably won’t be all that accurate.   The Tri-Vise exists for situations just like this.

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Reader Simple Simon’s sweet photo of this industrial-looking Canadian Buffalo drill press piqued my interest and inspired me to find out more about it. The key word here is industrial, and as it turns out, though the Canadian Buffalo brand is new to me, the company is old –- very old.

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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.

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Woodcraft is having a sale at all their locations this Friday and Saturday — twenty percent off all Jet and Powermatic tools and accessories.  It’s not a bad deal, especially if you’re looking at getting a big piece of gear like a full-sized wood planer, table saw, or floor-standing drill press.

So if you had your eye on a Powermatic PM2000 3HP table saw, for instance, you’d normally be out about three grand;  this weekend you can shave about $600 off that.  Unless you’re buying equipment used or off the back of a truck, you probably won’t find better deals on this big a selection anytime soon.

I’m going down to check it out, but will wind up leaving my wallet in the car just in case I’m tempted –- which has happened in the past.

Sale Sheet [Woodcraft]

There’s nothing like a bilingual ODB II scanner to get your car or truck moving in the morning. I first saw an AutoXray product when it was featured on Shadetree Mechanic in the ’90s — it was a fairly priced scanner that would work well for any consumer.  Now AutoXray offers upper-end models like the TechScan 7000.

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A while back Toolmonger reviewed a Finishline AlligatorBoard with a patriotic flag pattern. I can’t see hanging tools off a flag — it just doesn’t seem right to me — but I could work with this black and white checkerboard pattern.

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Reader Mike is in the market for a Shopsmith band saw, and he asked us how we like it.  It’s a great question, and some folks have already rung in on this one in the positive.

I might be a little biased, but I’d say if your Shopsmith was made in the last 30 years and you want a band saw, it’s a no-brainer.  The saw features a 6″ depth of cut;  the table tilts 5 degrees left and 45 degrees right;  and the blade spins from 700 to 1,050 RPM.

As others have said, you’ll have to tune it and spend a minute or two setting it up, but it’s a small price to pay as far as I’m concerned.  Retail price is in the neighborhood of $500 — but the one I just started running in the shop is on its third decade, and it doesn’t have a single issue.

Shopsmith 11″ Band Saw [Shopsmith]

To follow up on the aforementioned sad state of affairs:  I have the home shop up and running again.  It’s not perfect yet and there’s still a ways to go, but I did manage to make room for two big pieces of gear — Chuck’s big Delta planer and my father’s ShopSmith have both come to live with me.

It’s a super-sweet turn of events, but I quickly found out I know precisely zip about setting up the eight tools the ShopSmith’s got going for it — so I’ve been poring over manuals to learn how to calibrate this hunk of wood-mangling hotness.  Also, I need to drop a 240 plug in the shop for the planer.

Speaking of the planer, here’s a handy tip for you folks setting up your own home shop:  Suggesting to your other half that you’ll just run an extension into the laundry room and unplug the dryer when you need it — not a good plan.  Who knew?

We sometimes see rigs like this Powerfoil in movies — through some twist of cinematic fate, they tend to disconnect from their moorings and go spinning out of control into the nearest bad guy. In real life, according to the Big Ass Fans website, these wicked-cool-looking fans with their 16’ – 24’ spans move air effectively and non-lethally.

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When someone says, “Let’s take the car for a spin,” you might not want to hop into the passenger seat so fast. The Roller Hoop auto body rotisserie allows professional and DIY restorers to more easily work on the underside of a stripped body.

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If you need to get under your car using a ramp that’s portable and easy to set up and that you can partially disassemble once the vehicle’s on it, Race Ramps makes a product that might fit the bill.  It seems like an awfully specialized target market, but if you need it, here’s a Portable Pit-Stop Ramp.

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A few months ago my truck’s clutch slave cylinder busted, and my shop space is on an incline so there was no way to push the truck in there, except with the tractor, which scraped the paint and made some small dents in the bumper — no biggie since the truck’s almost 20 years old with over 210,000 miles on it. Pulling it over 100 feet with a come-along would’ve taken too long, but the Warn PullzAll winch could’ve saved my day.

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