Saving Money in the Workshop

Anyone else remember when DIY mags were full of dubious money saving ideas? Things like cling film double glazing, watering down paint, putting sawdust in car gearboxes, razor blades under cardboard pyramids, plant pots from 78rpm records and building televisions from government surplus radar sets.

My idea is this: cleaning up my mill today I found the rubber guard protecting the forward/back leadscrew had disintegrated, allowing swarf to shower into the gubbins.

A replacement would cost money, which I am extremely reluctant to part with. When a mugger pointed his sawn off shotgun at me and demanded "Your money or your life", I replied, after a long pause: "I'm thinking about it."

Amazon send me lots of wrapping paper perforated just right for a half sheet to fit a WM18 mill. I attached it with super-magnets, and put in a few folds so it will concertina.

Should be worth a prize when my brilliant economy tip is published in MEW. I'm sure nothing could possibly go wrong?

I know my special brand of Scrooge McDuck genius will be a hard act to follow, but what else can the team suggest?

Dave

My rubber guard on my WM18 is disintegrating too after three years from new.

I'll be replacing it with widely available nitrile sheet when I get round to it. This, hopefully, will be better quality than the stuff Warco used originally.

The long lived stuff if you have any is neoprene

Even if it gets folded/unfolded it goes on for years

Use a better shipper so that you get foamy plastic wrapping....

I used magnets to attach a shield on my BCA and found the chips they attracted soon became annoying + the magnets grabbed any tool that I went close with. Quickly changed to another method.

You can use the material used for lorry trailor curtains. It is tough flexible and oil proof. When at work there was a HGV service garage nearby and they just gave me off cuts they would throw away.

David

Do you think neoprene would be better for this application, then, than nitrile?

The following document doesn't necessarily lead me to that conclusion.

I think coolant might cause some sogginess, a decent dry cut with carbide may be a fire risk but apart from those snags you could be on to something

Mike

I buy face shields, they cut easy don't crack, use wood & disk drive magnets add on, and the nearer I can catch/deflect/contain the swarf, the less material I need, also used stainless coverings(Once off buy) around table works mostly, one needs to be flexable as project size changes. Virtually no swarf outside these contained areas manual mill. Use vacuum cleaner with handmade cyclone(Cheap) to suck swarf to nextra bucket, rarely clean vacuum cleaner itself.

Edited By Chris Mate on 05/05/2023 19:33:51

A great money saving tip that I found out quite by accident this morning, don't cut your nice piece of 5/8" square mild steel an inch shorter than you wanted to. You then have to drive a 40 mile odd round trip to the nearest supplier to buy a new piece, which has increased in price since purchasing the now too short bit. Please don't ask me how I know this to be true. But at least I have done a trial run to prove the theory!

Doh!

Edited By Dave Wootton on 05/05/2023 20:37:14

Real DIY mags didn't have those strange ideas!

My Myford mill came without shrouds, so I used a broad strip of surplus butyl-rubber pond liner. It's held to the two existing tapped holes in the column by a clamp-strip that is a length of thin aluminium-alloy angle. This forms a ledge like a miniature shelf, in which suitable holes hold the drill-chuck key, centre-finder, and the like.

The rubber is not concertina-folded so forms big untidy waves with the table raised and wound inwards, but it's not normally a problem.

It's probably over three years old but seems holding up, maybe a little less flexible than it was but still working.

A single layer of clingfilm wrapped round a magnet has negligible effect on grip but makes it far easier to get ferrous swarf off.

Carefully unwrap the cling film and the swarf stays with it leaving a clean magnet behind.

Clive

I replaced mine with a piece of leather from an old jacket. The leather was part of my ‘that will come in handy one day’ collection of bits and pieces.

I found it easy to fit and more flexible than the original rubber.

Alan.

The leather from old furniture has many uses only limited by imagination ! Noel.

The leather on my mill came from my father's briefcase!

I too have had the problem of "rubber" swarf shield deteriorating and breaking along the folds of the material. I have bought replacement material from ARC, but they didn't last either. The impression I gained was that they don't seem to like cold weather.

I think it may have been Harold Hall, but if not, then apologies all round, but one idea I have seen, and used, and which seems to work, is to use cutoffs from an old cereal box.

The idea is to cut the cardboard to suit, then lightly score where the folds are required and finally varnish with any old left over varnish, colour to taste, or in my case whatever's in the can. Allow to dry, gently fold and attach to the machine. They do seem to be a bit stiff - maybe my scoring wasn't deep enough, but then I was worried about cutting right through - but they do seem to work, and although I don't do much these days, are still in one piece.

Best of all, of course, they are free - once the contents have been eaten!

Cheers,

Peter G. Shaw

Edited By Peter G. Shaw on 06/05/2023 14:48:30

I volunteered to re-cloth the youth club pool table, I didn’t measure the table when I ordered the cloth but come the day to do the job the cloth was too small. As a tournament had been arranged and the table now had no cloth I had to do a quick 180mile round trip to exchange the cloth, good job I started early that day as I did get the job done for the evening tournament.

Mike

I have a special ruler that I think once must have belonged to Paul Daniels as the numbers on the graduations re arrange themselves occasionally. It's a good trick but I should be wise to it by now.

I use rubber baking sheets on the back of the mill crosslide ,it does not fold but is very flexible and does the job.

Frank

fold your own replacements? **LINK**