Poor Man's Power Drawbar

[TomG]

I got tired of wrenching tools in and out of my mill a while back and put together a quick and dirty power drawbar, based on a cheap Harbor Freight butterfly impact wrench. This is sort of a first step to prove the concept and to see if the cheapo impact wrench had enough guts to get the job done. Eventually the plan is to make the thing more compact and possibly add a pneumatic actuator to engage the socket. As it turns out, the impact wrench does have adequate torque, but unfortunately it failed two weeks after I got it, in typical Harbor Freight fashion. Guess I should have spent the extra $7 for the extended warranty. That sort of ticked me off and I let the project collect dust for a while (it was in fact doing so when Darren visited a while back), but I finally got busy and fixed the wrench (broken ring that holds the socket on) and added a handle.

The device is basically just two plates with a couple of ground rods and some brass bushings, separated by a couple of compression springs. One of the plates mounts to the top of the mill with existing holes, and the other attaches to the impact wrench with the screws that hold the valve body on.

Tom