Tool Hacks

2859 Articles

Spotting Scope Mount Makes For More Comfortable Target Scoring

March 16, 2019 by 15 Comments

One of the big bottlenecks in target shooting is the scoring process. Even if it’s not a serious match, it’s still important to know where holes have landed because it’s important feedback on technique and performance. A spotting scope, which is really just a kind of telescope optimized for getting a sharp view of a distant target, is often used to see hits on a target without leaving the firing line. Usually they’re mounted on tripods and optimized for seated use, but [Steve Thone] came up with a clever hack for more comfortable use and mounting that works better for him while engaging in bulls-eye shooting from the standing position.

[Steve] took a ratcheting bar clamp and drilled a few holes near the end of the bar. Using these holes, the spotting scope is mounted directly to the bar and the clamp grips a shooting table or bench in place of a stand. He also put a 90 degree twist in the bar so that the clamp and scope could be oriented perpendicular to one another.

The result is a quick and easy-to-use mounting solution that, unlike a tripod, doesn’t eat up precious table space. Stability may be inferior to a tripod, but it’s serviceable enough that other shooters showed up with their own versions the week after [Steve] used his. After all, target shooters tend to be DIY types with an interest in both low-tech hacks like this one as well as higher-tech projects like rifle-mounted sensors.

This Vibrating Continuity Tester Is Quietly Useful

March 14, 2019 by 21 Comments

Continuity testing is one of the most valuable functions on the modern multimeter. It will help you investigate wiring problems in your car, tell you if you’re holding a nullmodem serial cable or the regular kind, and even reveal when you’ve accidentally shorted the data lines right to the power supply. However, all that beeping can get annoying, so [bitelxux] built a vibrating version instead.

The build was borne out of necessity; [bitelxux]’s meter lacked a buzzer, and it grew frustrating to always look at the display. In order to allow late night hacking sessions to go on undisturbed, an unobtrusive vibrating tester was desired, as opposed to the usual audible type. Two whiteboard markers donated their shells to the hack, fitted with small nails to act as probes. Inside, a pager vibration motor is connected, vibrating when continuity is found. The circuit runs from a 1.5V AA battery which neatly fits inside the marker shell.

It’s a basic build, but gets the job done with a minimum of fuss using parts that most makers probably have lying around. Of course, you can always go a slightly more complicated route and throw an Attiny at the problem.

Downdraft Table Inhales Dust, Not Cash

March 14, 2019 by 15 Comments

We always look forward to the builds [MakerMan] sends in, and it’s not just because we dig his choices in royalty free music (though it helps). He always manages to put together his projects with a minimum of fuss, and perhaps more importantly, a minimum of funds. His builds use salvaged components, easily sourced materials, and common tools. Watching him work invariably makes us realize that we tend to overthink our own projects.

In his latest video, [MakerMan] was tasked with building a downdraft table for a local factory that makes jewelry boxes. By sucking air through a series of holes in the table’s surface, sawdust created while the workers are building the boxes will automatically be removed from the workspace. Even if you aren’t in the jewelry box making business, any task which produces fine particles (such as sanding) could benefit from such a setup. You probably won’t need a downdraft table quite as large as the one he builds, but the principles will be the same if you get inspired to build a somewhat smaller version.

The build starts with sheets of MDF, which get cut, glued, and screwed together to make the basic tabletop shape. To this, [MakerMan] attaches a welded steel frame which will give it the strength MDF itself lacks. With careful measurement, lines are plotted across the top of the MDF sheet and all the holes are drilled with a simple hand drill; no fancy CNC here.

With the table doing its best colander impression, [MakerMan] adds an air box to the bottom which is similarly made of thin MDF sheets. All of the joints are sealed up with caulk, because at this point you want things to be as air tight as possible. A large blower is attached to the bottom, which gets piped to a dust collection system that’s made of a garbage can and…you guessed it, more MDF.

Watching [MakerMan] turn what’s often literal trash into a functional build never gets old. We’ve seen him create everything from a gorgeous origami chandelier to a very impressive diode laser cutter using little more than scrap parts and hand tools, and we can’t wait to see what he comes up with next.

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[Ben Krasnow] Drills Really Small Holes With Electricity

March 14, 2019 by 21 Comments

Drilling holes is easy; humans have been doing it in one form or another for almost 40,000 years. Drilling really tiny holes in hard materials is more challenging, but still doable. Drilling deep, straight holes in hard materials is another thing altogether.

Luckily, these days we have electric discharge machining (EDM), a technique that opens up all kinds of possibilities. And just as luckily, [Ben Krasnow] got his hands on some EDM gear to try out, with fascinating results. As [Ben] explains, at its heart EDM is just the use of a small arc to ablate metal from a surface. The arc is precisely controlled, both its frequency via an arc controller, and its location using CNC motion control. The arc controller has always been the sticking point for home EDM, but the one [Ben] tried out, a BaxEDM BX17, is squarely aimed at the small shop market. The whole test platform that [Ben] built has a decidedly home-brew look to it, with a CNC gantry rigged up to a water tank, an EDM drill head spinning the drill rods slowly, and an airless paint gun providing high-pressure process fluid. The video below shows that it works remarkably well nonetheless.

While we’re certainly keen to see [Ben]’s promised videos on EDM milling and cutting, we doubt we’ll line up to shell out €2,950 for the arc controller he used. If you have more courage than money, this mains-powered EDM might be a better fit.

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Become The Next Fabergé With A Rose Engine Lathe

March 13, 2019 by 12 Comments

The basics of a skill may take a long time to master, but there is always something else to learn about regardless of the craft. Building a piece of fine furniture out of hardwood or being able to weld together a bicycle from scratch are all impressive feats, but there are fine details that you’ll only learn about once you get to this level of craftsmanship. One such tool that will help with these intricacies is known as the rose engine lathe.

This tool is based on an average lathe, typically used for creating round things out of stock which is not round. A rose engine lathe has a set of cams on it as well which allow the lathe to create intricate patterns in the material it’s working with, such as flower type patterns or intricate spirals. One of the most famous implementations of this method was on the Fabergé eggs. While this might make it sound overly complex, this how-to actually shows you how to build your own rose engine lathe out of a piece of MDF and a large number of miscellaneous pieces of hardware.

We recently featured another build which performs a similar function called engine turning. While similar, this is the method responsible for creating overlapping spirals on a piece of metal. Either way, both projects are sure to spice up your metal or woodworking endeavors.

Thanks to [PWalsh] for the tip!

A DIY Slip Roll On The Cheap

March 12, 2019 by 6 Comments

When you need to roll sheet or thin flat bar stock into an arc, you need a rolling machine, also known as a slip roll. If you’ve priced these lately, you’ll know that they can be rather expensive, especially if you are only going to use them for one or two projects. While building a fenced enclosure for his dog, [Tim] realized he could use steel fence posts and connectors to build his own slip roll for much less, and posted a video about it on his YouTube channel.

The key realization was that not only are the galvanized posts cheap and strong, but the galvanized coating would act as a lubricant to reduce wear, especially when augmented with a bit of grease. The build looks pretty straightforward, and a dedicated viewer could probably re-create a similar version with little difficulty. The stock fence connectors serve double-duty as both fasteners and bushings for the rollers, and a pair of turnbuckles supplies tension to the assembly.

The one tricky part is the chain-and-sprocket linkage which keeps the two bottom rollers moving in tandem. [Tim] cut sprockets from some plate steel with his plasma cutter, but mentions that similar sprockets can be found cheaply online and only need to be modified with a larger hole. Although most of the build is held together with set screws in the fence post fittings, the sprockets appear to be welded to the galvanized pipe. We’re sure [Tim] knows that welding galvanized steel can lead to metal fume fever, so we were hoping the video would caution viewers to remove the zinc coating on those parts before welding.

[Tim] demonstrates forming some 4 mm flat steel into circles, and the operation seems easy enough, especially given the inexpensive nature of this build. Overall, this seems like the sort of thing we could see ourselves trying on a lazy Saturday afternoon – it certainly seems like more fun than building a fence with the parts, so be sure to check out the video, after the break.

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Engine Turning Aluminum The Easy Way

March 11, 2019 by 25 Comments

Engine turning, or jeweling, or guilloché, or a whole host of other names, is the art of polishing a pattern of circles on a piece of metal. You see it on fine watches, and you’ll see it on art-deco metal enclosures. [Ariel] decided to explore this technique and ended up getting good results with a pencil eraser and toothpaste.

The process begins with a piece of aluminum, in this case an aluminum Open Source Hardware logo. The only other required components are a number 2 pencil, some toothpaste, and any sort of rotary tool, in this case a drill press. Toothpaste is spread over the piece to be turned, and a pencil is put in the chuck. It’s just a matter of putting circles on the aluminum after that.

This is, incidentally, exactly how engine turning and jeweling are done in the real world. Yes, the tools are a bit more expensive, but you’re still looking at a somewhat soft tool scraping a fine abrasive into a piece of metal. The trick to engine turning comes in getting a consistent pattern on the piece, something that could easily be done with a CNC machine. If anyone out there feels like putting a pencil in the collet of a CNC router, we’d love to see the results.

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