Todays Project - What did you do today?

[DaveH]

Looks very nice Tom

DaveH

[EdK]

Tom,

Nice shop you've got there. Nice machinery too. That mill looks to be a very nice mill.

Ed

[TomG]

(09-04-2012, 04:17 PM)EdK Wrote: Tom,

Nice shop you've got there. Nice machinery too. That mill looks to be a very nice mill.

Ed

Thanks Ed. The mill was Taiwan made, but to DoAll specs, so the quality is very good. I've owned it and used it regularly for around 30 years so we've become old friends. I bought it instead of a Bridgeport because Bridgeport was then owned by Textron and the quality was very poor.

Tom

[Highpower]

I finally got around to fixing my "shin-buster" last night. It was like a house cat that hides behind the corner of a piece of furniture, and leaps out at you - clawing your legs as you walk by.

My shin-buster (AKA: Snap-On tool cabinet) has one of those double deep lower drawers attached with a pair of ball bearing roller slides. That particular drawer holds a lot of heavy/bulky tools. (3/4", 1/2", 3/8" impact guns, slide hammers, gear puller sets, etc. If you accidentally bump into or brush the box walking past it, the drawer comes sliding out under its own power, and WHAM! There goes my shins. Sometimes a passing truck on the street would set it in motion!

After many years of use the "check stops" on the drawer slides just gave up trying to hold back the load. Snap-On wants $115 for a new pair of slides.

So I pulled out the drawer and removed the slides to take a look. The check stops are nothing more than a couple of lumps that are punched into the rear edges of the main rail. A small plastic bar attached to the slider rail is supposed to ride over the top of these lumps and then hold the drawer closed. Between the wear on the lumps, and the grooves in the plastic bar there was no "catch" to it at all any more.

I built up the lumps to twice there normal height with the TIG welder and then shaped them on the belt sander so the plastic bar would get caught again when the drawer is closed. Hopefully now my shins will get a chance to heal up.

Hey, Snap-On!

[TomG]

Hey Willie,

I have a Craftsman lower cabinet (with all the heavy stuff) that is a back breaker to open. Maybe the Snap-On and Craftsman engineers should get together and design some slides that actually work properly. We shouldn't have to re-engineer stuff that we've paid good money for.

Tom

[Wawoodman]

(09-02-2012, 06:02 PM)ETC57 Wrote: I have never seen one before now Greg,
Do they have a special name, cause I gotta have me some of them!!

Jerry.

They are called tap extractors. Enco has them http://www.use-enco.com/CGI/INPDFF?PMPAG...M=325-4867 and I'm sure othe suppliers do, as well.

[Highpower]

No argument there Tom.

When I brought my boxes home from the last shop at worked at, I had pretty much the same problem. Every drawer was getting to be a real bear to open. I emptied out and removed every drawer to give it all a thorough cleaning inside and out. Roll cab, top chest, and side cabinet.

The whole interior of every box and every drawer slide was covered in a thick black sticky sludge. What the....??? At first I thought someone had played a prank on me by spraying the inside with undercoating.

But then I realized the sludge looked kind of familiar. It looked very similar to the black fuzzing coating we would get on the shop fans all the time. I finally realized the source of the sludge had come from the two overhead waste oil heaters they installed in the shop several years ago. They were constantly clogging up, or not burning correctly and smoking the place up. They would never fix them unless they stopped working completely. I shudder to think what the inside of my lungs look like now.

Anyway.... I cleaned and degreased the boxes inside and out as well as soaking and scrubbing every one of the slides in a bucket of kerosene. Lubed them up and reassembled it all. The drawers all slide like new again. So perhaps it's worth a try on yours as well.

[stevec]

Aside from post #126 confusing the Dickens out of me.
I just wanted to say congrats to Willie for the repair.
I will never have that problem because the cheapo cabinet I have is female (not ball bearing). The advantage is, that weighted down the drawers is as difficult to open as to close.
If I ever get around to reworking it (doubtful) I would put in roller drawer glides, sloping toward the rear with a little drop at the front to keep it open whenever I wanted it left open.

[sasquatch]

Great looking shop Tom G,, I think all of us everywere always love to see others shop pictures!!

[TomG]

(09-05-2012, 06:17 PM)sasquatch Wrote: Great looking shop Tom G,, I think all of us everywere always love to see others shop pictures!!

Thanks, but it doesn't always look that way.

Maybe someone should start a "Show us your shop" thread. It's always good to see how others store tools and materials and organize their shop.

Tom