[HN Gopher] Build Your Own Metal Working Shop from Scrap (2011)
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Build Your Own Metal Working Shop from Scrap (2011)
Author : Tomte
Score : 137 points
Date : 2021-07-31 07:10 UTC (15 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (gingerybookstore.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (gingerybookstore.com)
| runningremy wrote:
| That book is a great read AND the market for selling that scrap
| is excellent today.
| mikewarot wrote:
| A perpetual favorite read of makers everywhere. If there were a
| variant that didn't require sand casting of metal, it might be a
| lot more approachable.
| itronitron wrote:
| Probably worth designing and ordering those specific parts
| online >> https://www.weerg.com/en/global/materials
| rfrey wrote:
| I think by ordering your parts made you'd end up with a lathe
| much less capable than one commercially available, at a much
| higher (3x? 4x?) price, without having gained any machining
| or scraping skills.
| itronitron wrote:
| True, I was mainly offering it as a suggestion for someone
| that doesn't want to mess with casting molten metal.
| i_am_proteus wrote:
| That more or less defeats the purpose of the idea. Almost the
| entire machine is cast from melted-down scrap metal and then
| (variously) machined, bootstrapping from the first tool, the
| lathe, which is hand-finished.
| theelous3 wrote:
| Does it presume you have like, scrapers and a surface plate
| and so on?
|
| I can't see someone making an accurate lathe or mill
| without an expensive suite of metrology tooling (or going
| full whitworth three plates method and lapping like
| forever).
|
| Would be interested in seeing people's results.
| rfrey wrote:
| He uses a piece of glass on plywood, with a ground file
| for a scraper. He's only scraping aluminum.
|
| I don't think Gingery wrote these books as a way to
| demonstrate bootstrapping. When Gingery wrote these books
| there were no Chinese machines available, and hobby
| lathes (say the Southbend 9" or the myford 7") were way
| out of reach for a lot of people. He wrote the books to
| let people get to a machine with what they had. Everyone
| would be able to find a piece of glass and a file.
|
| I built this lathe, but with much heavier sections and
| out of ZA12 rather than aluminum. I did a pretty good
| job, I think, but it is still inferior in every way to a
| Chinese 7x12. Zero regrets that I did it though, even
| with those better machines available.
| KirillPanov wrote:
| Surface plates are actually one of the easiest tools to
| bootstrap, using the three-surfaces method and lapping
| with fine grit. The only three surfaces that can all
| slide laterally against one another are three perfectly
| flat surfaces.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surface_plate#History
|
| Here's a video (four parts) of a guy doing it. He uses
| modern tools in the video, but really that's just about
| saving time (and showing off). You can simply subsitute
| (a whole lot) more time spent lapping for the lathe part
| in his video.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHmsQEAx16o
| jfoutz wrote:
| IIRC, wood chisel and 3 plates. Prussian blue to evaluate
| the thickness. Portland cement, a hairdryer and crucible.
| I made tongs with strap iron and a drill. hairdryer on
| the charcoal to melt the aluminum.
|
| I started with sand casting aluminum cans. I realized I
| was woefully unprepared to deal with molten metal, if
| something went wrong. I wasn't willing to iterate at the
| bottom, and buying the next level of tech seemed like
| cheating. Still have the books though.
| dugditches wrote:
| I don't think too many Chinese factories are scraping in
| their ways on their mini mills or lathes.
|
| And also lots of old machines that likely have lost their
| flaking and true trueness a while ago. Still being run by
| old operators that understand their limitations.
|
| You can make accurate parts on an 'inaccurate'
| conventional machine.
| q3k wrote:
| It's hand scraping all the way. For initial standards,
| the author recommends just going with the straightest
| thing you have in your shop, then just scrape away until
| things mate well.
|
| The books are light on the theory of precision and
| accuracy, but I would be surprised if most readers of
| Gingery books didn't also have a PDF of 'Foundations of
| Mechanical Accuracy' somewhere :). These days nothing
| about this process is practical, it's all basically an
| exercise in bootstrapping.
|
| Duckduckgo for 'gingery lathe' if you're interested in
| seeing results, people have been building these for
| decades.
| carre12345 wrote:
| What do you mean by 'hand scraping'?
|
| You know, I've never really thought about it, but I would
| think that grinding two same-material surfaces together
| with an abrasive compound would result in flatness if the
| pressure is even.
| Turing_Machine wrote:
| The Whitworth Three Plates Method should be on anyone's
| list of the Greatest Engineering Discoveries of All Time.
|
| The fact that you can make a precision flat surface
| starting without _any_ precision tools is pretty amazing
| at first glance.
| jacquesm wrote:
| melt some metal and float some glass on it. That's a very
| quick way to get a nice reference surface.
| cellularmitosis wrote:
| Float the glass on molten metal?
| jacquesm wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Float_glass
| Turing_Machine wrote:
| Float glass is pretty flat, but I'm not sure regular
| glass is temperature-stable enough for the task (and of
| course, it's fragile). Temperature-stable glass (e.g.,
| Pyrex) usually requires a lengthy annealing stage.
|
| Granite surface plates are pretty popular, though. Maybe
| glass would be okay for light duty.
|
| Speaking of glass, amateur telescope makers can grind
| mirrors accurate to within 1/4 wavelength of light, using
| nothing but abrasive powders and patience, but they start
| out with a pre-cast and annealed Pyrex blank.
| Turing_Machine wrote:
| I do use a piece of float glass on my 3D printer bed, and
| it works well enough. Maybe I'll see if I can figure out
| how much it distorts when heated (not enough to cause a
| noticeable problem with the relatively low-precision
| stuff I've been making thus far).
|
| Some people do use borosilicate glass (like Pyrex) for
| this, but I've been satisfied so far with a piece of
| regular float glass window stock I had cut to size at
| Lowes.
| [deleted]
| rfrey wrote:
| Nowadays if somebody wants to build a machine without a lot of
| tools available, and doesn't have the goal of recreating
| industrial revolution processes, I'd recommend looking into epoxy
| granite casting. Epoxy granite will result in a way better
| machine since it has vibration damping qualities similar to cast
| iron. It also avoids melting metal, which everyone can do but
| some might want to avoid.
| voxadam wrote:
| For anyone interested there's a wealth of epoxy granite info on
| the CNC Zone forum.
|
| https://www.cnczone.com/forums/epoxy-granite/
| leon_sbt wrote:
| I was about to recommend the exact same thing. Epoxy granite is
| used by some world class machine tool builders.
|
| I think an interesting modern take on the Gingery machine,
| would be a homebuilt machine tool; built from epoxy-concrete.
| Linear rails, servos, fly-by-wire controls with force feedback.
|
| Machine form factor would be a la Mazak Integrex but much
| smaller and fits in a two car garage. Total envelope would be
| 8"x8"x8"; high spindle speeds w/ low depth of cuts. That should
| compensate for the total lack of stiffness :)
| rfrey wrote:
| There are several people who have documented builds of epoxy
| granite mills. Much bigger than what you described generally,
| but still garage machines.
| https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIuvJtM342E7p2nEpwTGbDw and
| https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCssIc2lLpX1nIHkymAzEptw are
| two of my favourites.
| rfrey wrote:
| What do you mean by fly-by-wire controls? Just manual jogging
| with CNC controls or do you mean something more specific?
| itronitron wrote:
| I'd really like epoxy granite linear rails for the noise
| dampening attributes. If they're flexy they could just be
| bolted to a metal or wooden support.
| jsilence wrote:
| Pointers would be much appreciated.
| raintrees wrote:
| Totally cool, just ordered. Thanks, Tomte.
| marsven_422 wrote:
| Currently working on my shaper (Book 3)
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| Gingery's books, as I understand, have you start from no machine
| tools and go to a metal shop the way computer hobbyists might
| start with discrete electronics and breadboards and go to a fully
| functional 8-bit computer with BIOS, ROM, etc.
|
| A gem for the post-apocalyptic bookshelf. Assuming anyone can
| still read.
| sircastor wrote:
| I always think of these sorts of things in terms of "what would
| I do if I was stuck in 500 years in the past?", how far I could
| get in terms of making myself comfortable and being able to
| recreate some modern conveniences.
| throwanem wrote:
| 500 years in the past, metal would still be relatively scarce
| and precious, where in the notional postapocalyptic future
| that people enjoy fantasizing about, the ruins of today's
| world would offer a veritable cornucopia.
| Hacktrick wrote:
| That's very interesting. Tbh even though I think bout
| postapocalyptic situations a lot I never thought of that.
| zrobotics wrote:
| Bret Devreux had a very fascinating history of how iron
| was made posted, long read but it explains a lot of the
| complications and work that went into historically making
| iron, and many of the reasons metal was so rare &
| expensive. Well worth a read.
|
| https://acoup.blog/2020/09/18/collections-iron-how-did-
| they-...
| ornornor wrote:
| You might like this book: https://www.amazon.com/How-Invent-
| Everything-Survival-Strand...
| cyberge99 wrote:
| Correct. I've done some of this. You start with a metal foundry
| for melting aluminum. From there, you can build tools tools
| that help build other tools, up to the ultimate: metal lathe.
|
| It's a pot of work but very rewarding.
|
| Here are some pictures of 'the 5 bucks furnace' i built:
|
| https://chrisbergeron.com/2008/01/21/metalcasting_furnace/
|
| Phil's books are great and it would be handy to have them in a
| post-apocalyptic scenario to bootstrap society.
| rambambram wrote:
| Very nice project. Did you eventually cast more stuff with it
| than your motor mounts? You should take a look at this
| Youtube channel by a Russian guy, Advoko Makes:
| https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCc1ufNROdAxto9Fr0jnEE2Q
| ThePadawan wrote:
| > A gem for the post-apocalyptic bookshelf. Assuming anyone can
| still read.
|
| I assume that to get a bookshelf, you have to build the wood
| workshop first?
| sircastor wrote:
| If you want to make an apple pie from scratch...
| jsilence wrote:
| "All you wanted was a Banana. All of sudden you have
| Gorilla with a complete jungle."
| manachar wrote:
| I've thought of this when thinking about bringing
| recently extinct creatures back from extinction via
| cloning.
|
| Take New Zealand or Hawai'i and try to bring back an
| animal that humans caused to go extinct. Like the Haast's
| eagle.
|
| The eagle only went extinct around 1400, but did so
| because the Maori hunted the moa to extinction. So bring
| the eagle back you need to bring the moa back. To bring
| the moa back you'll need moa habitat, which have been
| radically changed and are in short supply.
|
| More broadly, it shows a central problem with humans who
| want X but don't want to dedicate the work or resources
| for X. Take the current issues in restaurants in America.
| American consumers want cheap and well prepared food, but
| aren't willing to pay very much for it. So, and entire
| industry matured using exploitive employment practices
| and keeping wages below the cost of living let alone a
| living wage. The business can't pay enough and make a
| profit with the price consumers are willing to pay.
|
| So yeah, we want pandas and gorillas and the buffalo to
| roam, but often aren't willing to pay the bill needed to
| do so.
| kd0amg wrote:
| In order to make woodworking tools, you will probably want a
| functioning smithy.
| ThePadawan wrote:
| But that contradicts every crafting survival game I've ever
| played!
| abdullahkhalids wrote:
| The primitive technology guy would make a shelf out of earth.
|
| Edit: Or he would just hack some bamboo or some thick
| branches with a stone axe and tie them together using some
| dried vines to create a pretty good shelf.
| abdullahkhalids wrote:
| How much would it cost to follow along these books from 1-7?
| How much time roughly?
| tarsinge wrote:
| What are good resources to learn how to use these machines as a
| complete beginner?
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