2015 POTD Thread Archive

My box is a KRL 722, Masters series, two long drawers, almost $6k, you cant even tell but my son ran my car into the front of the one pictured, it pushed the wall out about 8 inches, try that with your HF box lol

I can't, Chevy. My son is grown and lives far away. And, there is no room for a car in my garage. He'd have to plow through my 220 ton Powermatic table saw to get to it.

I've looked at a lot of tool cabinets. I have to say that HF box is one heavy duty box, as solid and well made as any other box I've seen. It is rated for 3,000 pounds of tools and made of 18 ga steel, channel posts on the corners and double ball bearing guides on the top and bottom deep drawers. It comes with a very good set of cast iron with poly tread 5" roller bearing casters.
 
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Well I certainly was not trying to upset, offend or mislead anyone over silly badging, I simply wanted to share a different concept to a workbench. Like many of you, I still work for a living and can't afford everything on my want list. I purchased the HF boxes over a year and half ago on sale and already had a mental picture of the end product. Like Franko says, they really are well made, I have two older Snap-on boxes and both have been replaced with the new set-up. The snappy side box is showing its age as the last drawer will pull out if not carful, and the other Bottom snappy is not and never has been a smooth pull on any drawers. To be fair, they are over 25+ years old and over loaded.
I have nothing to hide gentleman and only time will tell if the toolboxes will function well into the future. I have invested time and money into a workbench that will fit my needs and I still like the way they look with the badging at the end of the day.
For the record, in a perfect world (and had $$$ to burn) I would have built a WB with Lista or Vidmar cabinets but like I said, I still work for a living. Remember, this site is about sharing ideas so others can spawn their own designs to suit their needs.
To be fair to the subject title, I cleaned the shop for several hours. The rains have brought un-wanted tenants of spiders and scorpions.
Take care,
Paco
 
It's all good firestopper, I'll say that again, dude, the setup is killer. Just something about trying to rebadge, idk, I'm a brand loyal snob I guess lol.
Hell, I only wish I had the space to fit all that. I just installed 4 new garage doors this last week for a family member, brand new stall added, I think the garage may officially have more squares than the house (big house, escalades, new denali, that type of big house)
Franko, I recall a Snap on box ad where they place a semi truck on top their boxes, idk if that means anything or they just think that's cool, I just wonder cause you say the HF box holds 3k lbs of tools, which is nothing to sneeze at. I still have the craftsman box, it just holds the less snobby tools, tape, and tools the kids can play with
 
My misadventures in metal working continue.

Yesterday I was enjoying myself by listening to some bluegrass while in the shop. I was working on another new spindle for my horizontal mill, turning it down between centers. Just as the tool hit the surface for the second cut I heard a loud, high pitched squealing sound. I immediately backed the tool off. Then I heard the sound again.

It was the fiddler making imitation train noises as an introduction to "The Wreck of the Old 97".
 
Franko, I recall a Snap on box ad where they place a semi truck on top their boxes, idk if that means anything or they just think that's cool, I just wonder cause you say the HF box holds 3k lbs of tools, which is nothing to sneeze at. I still have the craftsman box, it just holds the less snobby tools, tape, and tools the kids can play with

I still have my first roll around tool box, which is a Craftsman with the old-timey non-ball bearing drawer glides. It is about 40 years old nowadays, and still has tools I use every day in it.
 
I didn't do all this today, I've been working on it for about a week.
It is a gizmo to position a color index chip for my product testing client.
The arm has to adjust up and down, as well as rotate out of the way. The arm is about 36" long.

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I did it the hard way, of course. I'm a machinist. I went to great effort to make the axles and other thing, instead of just using a bolt. Actually, there was a reason. The pocket axle helps to maintain clearance for the square rod to move smoothly.

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The height adjusting mechanism. I made the thumb nut.
Not my finest knurling, but I couldn't get enough purchase in the chuck to allow for the thickness of my knurling head. It uses a 1/4-20 threaded rod and I tried screwing one in it a chucking the threaded rod, but it didn't work very well. Something was slipping no matter how hard I clamped down on the chuck jaws.


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I needed to put a radius on the piece of Delrin and it needed to be a genuine radius. I have a couple of rotary tables but to mount them on my mill, I'd have to take off the milling vise, which is a pain in the butt to reattach and align.
So, I came up with this genius idea to be able to clamp the rotary table in my mill vise. It worked pretty good.

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I didn't have any clamps small enough to work in the t-slots of that smalll rotary table, so I hooked up a small 4-jaw chuck, clamping the piece in 2 jaws with a section of 1/4 aluminum bar to hold it up off the table face.
It worked pretty well.

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Something must be going wrong with my concentration. I had a very hard time making the two plates. It took a couple hours to cut, square and mill each pair to the exact square dimensions. Then when I started milling the pockets for the axle, I ruined the first two plates (on the left).

I bet I'm the only idiot who's ever done such a stupid thing.

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Then, not to be outdone by myself, when I milled the pockets (in the proper orientation), my mind went on vacation again, and instead of milling a 5/16" pocket, I milled them 3/8ths.
I really didn't want to start over again, so I made a couple 3/8 to 1/4" bushings. They were not easy to make as they are only 0.15" deep.
The original plan was to use a 5/16 axle, but plans change to fit circumstances.

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So, that's it, so far. IMG_0678.JPG
 
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