Jobbing (leather tools)

[sbwhart]

From time to time I help a friend out, and fellow madmodder, with tooling for his old leather making machines, I've one or two jobs outstanding so I thought I'd get stuck in and get them done.

OK first Job  some hole punchers this is the machine they are for



You wind a handle and it punches a row of holes for a belt etc, when Ray got the tool there was only one rather beat up punch with it so I made him a new one which seemed to work ok, so now I'm going to make a set that will cover a range of hole sizes

First job from 1/2" silver steel make up some blanks plus one spare.



Thats it for now domestic duties call, but I'll begoing on to finish these off heat treat them and grind a nice sharp cutting edge.

Cheers

Stew

[Stilldrillin]

Nice start Stew! 

Hmmmm....... Domestic duties...... Yes! 

David D

[CrewCab]

and grind a nice sharp cutting edge.

I see a pattern forming 

CC

[sbwhart]

OK I've put the punches to one side for now as the next operation on them I want to do with collets, so rather than take off the chuck just to put it back on again I decided to do a bit more chuck work.

This is for a plattern to use on a fly press what you do is sadwich a piece of leather between a laser cut die with a pattern in it a sand filled leather bag and then you give the leather bag a wollop with the plattern that is fixed in the fly press and you get is something like this.



Ok first job turn up the 1" dia spiggot and thread the end M12 I cut the thread with a die, part off and her it is with the chunk of steel that it's going to fit in to make the plattern.





Thats it for now schools are on their half term at the moments so the boss is commandeering my time  .

And I've got to try and find some sand to help heat treat the punches

Have fun

Stew

[sbwhart]

The last week or so much of my time has been taken up with Family and Domestic duties so progress in the shop has been a bit slow. Finished a bit of a gardening project yesterday:- dug out an overgrown rose bed, put some edging blocks in and planted some bulbs and primulas, I want to leave it until the spring to let the weeds left in the ground to grow through so I get get rid of them easy, then I'll plant something a bit more permanent.



As you can see I come from the keep it easy and tidy school of gardening. 

My DRO mill project is on the back burner until this afternoon when I'm going round to Johns for him to do a bit of drilling on his mill, these visits are always educational.

So picking up these odd job threads again. One of rays machines puts a seam around the edge of leather belts/straps so I made him some extra rollers so he can do a double or treble seam.

This is the machine



And these are the additional rollers I made him



Just washers realy.

Next Job was to do some more on the hole punches

Turn the OD and drill the hole. Job held in ER32 collet




And this is the set finished turned I made some spare of the larger sizes.



Next job was to heat treat the punches this is my set up a Clark propane burner some fire bricks to make a little cave and a good dollop of water, when you've got a few to do don't skimp on the water as it will soon start to get hot and you will lose the quenching effect.



These are the harden punches, in the fire brick cave, I put all the punches in the cave and moved each one in turn to the hot spot when up to cherry red it went in the water the next one was put in the hot spot etc etc that way they all had a bit of a pre heat.



Next job give them a polish and then onto to tempering.

Have fun

Stew

[Bernd]

Hey Stew,

You mean to tell me you didn't set those papers on fire under the firebrick with that torch? 

By accident of course.

Bernd

[bogstandard]

What it is Stew, Bernd is so hard, he just holds the parts in his fingers while he takes them up to cherry red.

[sbwhart]

There was no fire emergency this time, but I have been known to set fire to things, thats why I keep flamable chemicals in another shed.

Talking about holding hot things when I was an apprentice we had a guy called Harry Shelly working in the hardening shop he's probably long gone now. Harry had served his time as a black smith and his hands were as horn hard, and he just knew how to hold things without getting burnt, he had a trick of holding a hot die and handing it to an unsuspecting apprentice, the poor lad would drop the die right sharp Harry would laugh and say what's up lad is it too heavy for you, and yes he did catch me out with that one.

  Ho happy days

Stew

[Bernd]

What it is Stew, Bernd is so hard, he just holds the parts in his fingers while he takes them up to cherry red.

Didn't you know Bog's. I've got a 6 million dollar hand with titainum fingers. 

Bernd

[Krown Kustoms]

I promise not to drag too far off topic.
last year at work I saw something laying on the floor so I walked up to it and it was a blue colored bolt. (I am an industrial mechanic)
So I natrually picked it up to see where it could have came from, when I did it slid between my fingers like it was hot butter.
I assume a forklift had been dragging it for a while and I now know why it was blue.
I couldnt use a few fingers for a few days.
At the time I wished I had titanium fingers
-B-

[sbwhart]

Hi B:-  that sounds painful there is nothing worse than a burn for pain,

Was the bolt heavy. 

I Gave the the punches a bit of a polish and wired them up for tempering, any one who's tried tempering will know that the colour changes happen quickly I read that sitting the job on a bed of sand would increase the mass and slow down the rate of change, so I though I'd give it a try.

Her's the job wired up sitting on a tin with about 1 1/2" of sand, I sat the tin over the torch, but it was taking for ever to heat up, took about 1/2 of the sand out still a bit slow took a bit more out about 1/2" of sand left, this work fine each colour transition took about 5 seconds.



I was after a purply blue colour 280 - 300 deg C I just left them to air cool.



Now for the fun bit with the tool post grinder, I dressed the wheel up then twisted the compound over to 40 deg, worked like a dream, nice sharp corner a good finish.



Well do they work  yes they do tried them out on a scrap of leather under an arbour press onto a bit of plastic.



Whilst using the press it gave me an idea for Johns internal gear tooth shaper.

Have fun

Stew

[Krown Kustoms]

Very nice, they look great.

Did you temper them by heating the tin of sand from the bottom?

If so I will have to try that, I can never get good results by direct heat.

-B-

[sbwhart]

B  Yes thats what I did I sat the tin on tripod stand with the burner underneath, I just used what we call builders sand that I dried out first.

Good luck

Stew

[Bernd]

Hey Stew,

Did you know that's a trick clock makers use to blue the hands of a clock?

Bernd

[Gerhard Olivier]

Nicely done Stew

Gerhard

[sbwhart]

Hey Stew,

Did you know that's a trick clock makers use to blue the hands of a clock?

Bernd

No I thought they used chemicals bit like gun blueing, but when you think about it, it would be a nice easy way to do it.

Cheers

Stew

[bogstandard]

Very nice indeed Stew.

Now aren't you glad you knocked up that toolpost grinder.

A lot of people think they are just for getting a pretty finish, but in fact they are a most versatile bit of extra tooling. Allowing you to easily make things that you couldn't have done before.

In fact, I think if you made yourself a simple radius dresser for your wheels, that might be a way to go for making your involute cutters. Plus of course you have the use of my surface grinder and diamond wheels to put all your cutting edges on.


John

[sbwhart]

Very nice indeed Stew.


In fact, I think if you made yourself a simple radius dresser for your wheels, that might be a way to go for making your involute cutters. Plus of course you have the use of my surface grinder and diamond wheels to put all your cutting edges on.


John

Thats what I,m planning John, I got one of those 2.5" sine bars to use with the dresser so I can get the wheel form for the pinion gear cutter.

:----- great minds think alike     

Stew

[NickG]

That's great Stew. It's always nice when you can help someone out too. I made some bits for my friends mini moto once, the pedals were fastened on with these aluminium brackets, but it was that butter aluminium the same as my shelf brackets and they just bent, so in the true essence of motorsport I made him some nice heavy steel ones!

That tool post grinder is amazing. I was looking through a sales brochure that came with my Harrison lathe the other day, it must have been from which ever machine shop it was originally purchased from as it had boxford stuff in the back too. They supplied toolpost grinders for both machines so they must have been popular things back then too.

Nick

[sbwhart]

Back on to plattern:-

The base is a real big chunk of steel , for me anyway (6" dia by 1.25" thick), John had kindly offered to turn it up for me, but thats a bit against my stubborn streak so decided to have a go myself.

Set up in my big four jaw skim up face and clean up OD



Drill and tap a M12 blind hole



Stud lock the spigot into base.



I'm realy impressed just how much my el-cheepo Chinese lathe can be pushed, it copped real well I had to take small cuts 0.25 any more and the belt slipped, but hay I've got all day to do it.

Well thats it for know just had a call that my Dad's been taken into hospital.

Dashing off

Stew

[spuddevans]

Well thats it for know just had a call that my Dad's been taken into hospital.

I hope he's ok, our thoughts are with you.

Project's coming on well BTW 


Tim

[sbwhart]

Tim thanks for your kind thoughts:-

My dads in sheltered housing and has a carer that get him ****, showered and shaved in the morning, she noticed that his speech was slurred and that he couldn't hold the spoon to eat is breakfast, she thought he may have had a stroke, so off to hospital he went, they xrayed, scanned, blood test, etc etc, the only thing they could put his problem down too was his lack of vitamin B12 that he get jags for (shots) every 3 months, that he his due next week, so it looks like he was beginning to misfire bit like an engine running out of gas, they gave him is jag and sent him home, checked on him this morning and he's fine just like his old self (good old national health)  .

Any way back on topic

Held the job by the spigot in the four jaw clocked it true and proceeded to skim the face and turn the OD down from 6" to 5" this took quite a while as a couldn't take more than 0.3mm cut any way got there eventually



Made this pile of swarf.



Chamfered the edges off.



In the mean time I'd emailed Ray to measure the distance from the face of the ram to the clamp bolt 3/4":- so gripped round the other way and turned a shallow under cut in the spigot where the clamp screw would locate, this is to prevent the clamp screw burring up the spigot and making it difficult to remove.




There you go finished job, you could do some real damage with this.



I'll be meeting up with Ray on 12th 13th Dec at Erdigg hall Christmas Fair where will have a stall with his leather work.

http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/main/w-vh/w-visits/w-events/w-events-find_event.htm?c=1

Be there or be square

 
Cheers

Stew

[Stilldrillin]

Very nicely done, & shown Stew! 

Also, very pleased yer Dad`s ok now.....

David D

[sbwhart]

Thanks Dave

Onto another bit of tooling, this old hand operated machine is used for assembly eyelets, the size that this was made for are no longer available, and is now wanted to assemble press studs



These old tools are lovely bits of work, almost art, just look at that lovely boxwood handle.

I wanted to make the tools out of something tough so used some cap screws.



Then I ran into a problem something bent the tools won't line up.



I try not to strip these old tools down so that they are as origonal as posible, but I had no choice.

This bit is made of brass and over the years a rough arse leather worker has given this a bit of stick countless times and its ended up bent



:- hmmm  I'm going to have a think on this one I don't want to skim it up I'll have a think to see if I can bend it straight.

Cheers

Stew

[bogstandard]

Try not to use any heat Stew, once it is annealed, it might take ages to get it hard again and it will bend like a lump of rubber while in use.

It might be better to gently twist it back into position over a couple of days using a clamp from corner to corner, tightening up a little at a time.


John