Home made tools

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Originally Posted by bee utey

In high school metalwork class we were expected to use hand files to make level surfaces. It's all in the wrist action...:)

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Standard first year fitter apprentice college exercise. "Reducing a surface by chipping, filing, and scraping".

You use a hacksaw, chisels, files, scrapers to produce surface plates from three raw castings by trying them against each other until you have full contact. Final check is against a master surface plate.

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Originally Posted by bee utey

You make the lathe to suit your job. Give a (traditional) blacksmith a red gum log, a file, an axe and a couple of railway spikes or similar, he can forge a couple of centres and turn your shaft to any degree of precision needed for a vintage car. Accuracy is determined by hand made go/no-go slip gauges, all it takes is skill, time and Will (sorry, I mean will) :):):)

BTW a blacksmith made his own files, too.

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Geez i don't know what kind of restorations you've been around but everything on our cars is done to 0.025mm, thats the original precision (it's Italian so all metric). In the original manufacturing they had access to similar machinery as what we have today but anyway...

Cheers
Will

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Originally Posted by MR LR jnr.

Geez i don't know what kind of restorations you've been around but everything on our cars is done to 0.025mm, thats the original precision (it's Italian so all metric). In the original manufacturing they had access to similar machinery as what we have today but anyway...

Cheers
Will

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I don't do vintage cars, not my thing, no patience for fussy detail. I spent 20 years making and using off-road dune buggies though, yes I have a lathe but it's only a baby and all the long shafts I needed to make were spun between any centres available. Proper tools are cool, but you are better off sometimes just knowing what precision is important and hand making the part. Two vee blocks on a solid bench and you can check your shaft straightness to any accuracy you like.

It is amazing what can be done with basic hand tools. Most of us don't have the time and know how to do it the blacksmith's way. We like to think that if we had the fancy tools we would do the job. I just don't have the time to use a lot of tools that I have bought over the years.:(