Mechanical Engineering student with big homemade dreams

Hello everyone,

Just joining up to see everyone's ideas of homemade tools, I find that shop bought tools come in two varieties, cheap and pathetic, or so overpriced I'd have to sell a kidney.

I figured making some of my own tools would be a good way to save a buck and entertain me while I'm building them. I'm slowly purchasing some basic tools to build the more specific one's and I'm always coming up with grandiose ideas about the next thing I'd need.

Aside from some simple things like clamps and socket sets, I'm actually keen to build most of the common machines found in your average woodwork/metalwork shop such as a drill press, belt sander, and something not so common like a 3 axis (or maybe 5-axis?!) CNC mill.

So if anyone has some suggestions of how I should dive into the world of manufacturing on a university student budget that would be much appreciated! :lol:

Hi aw4cs, welcome aboard!

Nice mission statement :) even though there are tones of folks joining everyday there is seldom any background or stated goals. So it's hard to offer any encouragement or help.

Since you are literally starting from the ground up and most of us are in the same position monitarily I would suggest joining a local Maker Space. Or sometimes local schools offer adult night shop classes. That way you are able to build stuff without the huge outlay of have a shop, and buying the equipment. There is also the avenue I and others have gone down where you buy used Harbor Freight equipment off Craigslist for cheap and fix it up or modify it to suit your needs.

Hope this helps.

Much appreciated C-Bag, I probably should fill out some more details on my profile, I'm located in Australia so the used tool community is mostly local yard sales but your advice obviously still applies :)

I'd love to be using the uni resources, they have an excellent Shop and multiple CNC machines, but due to high demand they are never open to personal projects :(

WOW, you weren't kidding when you said you'd have to rely on yard sales. I looked on the the closest big city, Melbourne Craigslsit in "tools" and out of the 8 items there only one real tool!!! I can only guess how there not being a lot of used tools around can make the cost exhorbatent.

I get things are different elsewhere but that was a real wake up call! Here in the US Craigslist has replaced the classifieds in newspapers which was where you looked for used tools. Here where I live on the coast of California there is probably 50+posts to CL of tools. And there are several small manufacturers that go out of biz or retire or die. And this is a really small community people wise. And being about 3hrs away from Los Angeles there is everything in the world on CL there. But the logistics are daunting, and depending on what it is and where it is it might as well be on another planet.

As far as a shared space I was thinking more like what we call a high school shop. I used to pay a fee for a semester to use the high school wood shop class at night.

Personally, as an engineer in training I would think it would be invaluable to learn the manual arts BEFORE you do CNC. It gives a much more rounded view of what can be done for way less. I equate it to when my son wanted to become an artist. I taught him like I'd been taught with no computer, all drawing by hand. And his skills in manual art are what sets him apart from the competition. Knowing how to run a manual lathe and mill give you a much more intimate knowledge of how the process is done and you don't have the overhead of having to buy CNC right off the bat. Just my 2c worth.

x2 on learning manually, and then moving to CNC. Interesting to see the drawing analogy. I got similar advice when pursuing my private pilot certificate. It was hard to avoid the temptation of training in a fancy new plane with digital displays, especially as a wannabe pilot. But the pilots I trusted were firm on first learning to fly with steam gauges, and they were right.

Welcome to HomemadeTools.net :welcome:

I had this theory when I was mechanic that the engineers who were designing these miserable to fix cars I was working on never worked on a car. Then when I went to building fruit packing machinery I saw where my father in law designed and built machinery with no egineering training only experience from a lifetime experience in the business. His equipment was simple and rugged because there is nothing that sinks a packing house quicker than breakdowns. Having hundreds of people standing around while a piece of machinery is fixed can cost $1k's a minute in wages. He never used digital equipment because the environment was so hostile. It can be 110F+ with 50%+ humidity and everything has to be washed down at night. In order to still get the accuracy needed he used his experience with the fruit instead of employing expensive and fragile weighing systems he used rugged old load cells, timers and simple fixes. His machines were not impressive because there was no sexy sheetmetal covers, they were all heavy duty frame out of angle iron and pipe. No chain drives, all pneumatic and very simple electronics. But they cost less than $1k to build and could be sold for $4k while the nearest competitor cost $12k for their stripped down model and couldn't do what the other machine could do, like adjust to run any size box.

I've had the pleasure of working with engineers who have what I call real world experience and the overall effect is night and day in the ultimate goal of making equipment that is trouble free and economical to make. I can appreciate CNC and use it in the production of my product. But I have made all my machinery and mods with non CNC machines in my shop and have learned a lot thanks to the folks here on HMT. I am constantantly amazed by what was done in the past long before computers with just creativity and gumption.

You might want to look into the Gingery books, it is the epitome of how to build as hope full of equipment from almost nothing.

C-Bag "...amazed by what was done in the past long before computers with just creativity and gumption". Yup, and long division, slide rules, drafting tools, driven by 'we need a...'. Hydro-electric turbines, 9 cylinder twin row radial engines, Golden Gate Bridge, whatever, sturdy, functional and works of art, all at once. Anyone watch the three night series "Harley and the Davidson's"? I may wax a bit, but history is hard to deny.

Instead of making a reeeallly long page quoting I'll say ditto...cuz this is the truth, plain and simple. C-Bag, Paul Jones, and Jon and some o' us other munchkin's are very set in this.
Learn 'why' 'how come' 'what if' & and 'oh s_ _t' before a PC's doing it for you. It seriously doesn't care, you'll miss the foundation and helluva lotta fun wrapping the old bean around a project.
There is one catch; a bit addictive, but stimulating, plenty of people to work out details with. Then one night you'll want a so-and-so but no immediate solution, maybe a week later it will hit you.
And you are hooked.

I'll refrain from Jake Bugg references, but I'd bet 60% or more here remember when that bolt hit them....

Thanks for all the advice!

I definitely won't be going and buying a CNC machine right off the bat, in fact pretty much all of the machinery I'll need will be mostly homemade. I recognise the importance of making a machine that does the job simply and without hassle. I've worked in factories that had to manage downtime and often been stuck cleaning floors for 3 hours just because one of the many processes had failed to do its single job. In these times I often conjured up ideas of how to make the process more efficient.

I really do appreciate the control you get with manual work but there comes a point where the idea of manual work takes more time than it's worth, take a spur gear or helical gear for example. You can indeed make both of these manually on a mill or a lathe, but if I need to make 10 different sizes for each project then I'll get bored pretty quick. With the automation of this process I can spend more time working on stuff that needs that special touch ;)

I tend to think of my ideal shop as something a single person can operate and run multiple automated processes and let them all run. Effectively having a machine for each part and then just assembling the final product like a big jigsaw puzzle! The best parallel I can figure is a car manufacturing plant.

But I digress, the three main things I need to obtain right now are a lathe, a mill, and a MIG welder. I'm pretty confident with those three machines I can build my army of automated d̶e̶a̶t̶h̶ ̶r̶o̶b̶o̶t̶ manufacturing machines. I enjoy CAD modelling and manual work, but obviously I don't need to automate everything :D

Sorry if I made some wrong assumptions, it's often hard to guess what the persons background and goals are with so little info. I've worked with some wonderful engineers and they came up through the ranks. The engineers I didn't mesh with were the ones who had no practical experience. It sounds like you see both sides of the coin so I'll let that one go :)

I don't know if you have heard of David Gingery but this book and series is a great place to start:

https://www.amazon.com/Build-Metal-W.../dp/1878087355

As a matter of fact I'm probably going to get a couple of the separate books like the sheetmetal tech and backyard foundry. I have always loved repurposing. It's cheap and cheerful as my friend PJ would say. It makes me happy to need to do a project that often there is no specific machine for and take the nice bits and pieces I've saved and make that tool or machine. A while back I ran into a high end gym treadmill for $50. There is literally a ton of useable stuff like the 3.5hp DC motor, heavy duty rollers, screw mechanisms for the incline and the one part I'm not set up to take advantage of an all aluminum heavy duty frame. There is well over 100lbs of aluminum frame that would be great to be able to melt down into a machinable form.

Every time I come upon a limititaion to my knowledge it takes me off in a whole other world. But having started off as a mechanic 45yrs ago I have all my hand and power hand tools built up slowly as I needed them. The basic shop tools above my mech toolbox were a bench grinder, a drill press ,a compressor , small oxy-acetylene torch and 4x6 horizontal bandsaw. Then a Lincoln 175T mig and Hypertherm 350 Plasma cutter. Then my 9x20 lathe and RF-30 mill/drill and 14" bandsaw all bought well used after much shopping and all needing mods and or work which made them very cheap. Everything beyond that has been tooling for the lathe and mill which is now much more than the original cost of them. My manufacturing needs are probably much different from yours so YMMV( your mileage may vary) but you asked what is a basic shop and that's mine.

I didn't start out to be a manufacturer I just came up with something for myself and it got a life of its own dragging me along. Sometimes kicking and screaming :) but I'm totally grateful and now after 30yrs of refining and streamlining and expanding the line little by little as it grows and was able after 20yrs to go full time. Now I've been contemplating automation. That's why I bought the lathe and the mill and now had to learn how to use them. Because I have to worry about production I don't have time to build things from scratch that can be bought. Building from scratch is saved for things that can't be bought off the shelf. But my goal has always to remain a one man shop all the while automating and refining as production dictates.

Extremely useful insight, I did indeed ask for your advice and that I got so I'm glad I joined the forums. I hope you don't see my post as passive aggressive or vexing, I merely only meant for a bit of conversation :)

This conversation encouraged me to look further into the issue of digital (aka "glass cockpit") vs. analog displays in airplane cockpits.

There are always many ways to interpret a single study, and I'm going to look further into this, but I must admit I was surprised to see that a study adopted by the National Transportation Safety Board demonstrated that glass cockpit airplanes have a higher fatal accident rate than similar analog planes:

Quote:

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Washington, DC - Today the National Transportation Safety Board adopted a study concluding that single engine airplanes equipped with glass cockpits had no better overall safety record than airplanes with conventional instrumentation.

The safety study, which was adopted unanimously by the Safety Board, was initiated more than a year ago to determine if light airplanes equipped with digital primary flight displays, often referred to as "glass cockpits," were inherently safer than those equipped with conventional instruments.

The study, which looked at the accident rates of over 8,000 small piston-powered airplanes manufactured between 2002 and 2006, found that those equipped with glass cockpits had a higher fatal accident rate then similar aircraft with conventional instruments.

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More: NTSB Study Shows Introduction Of 'Glass Cockpits' In General Aviation Airplanes Has Not Led To Expected Safety Improvements

Not at all aw4cs, I was afraid I had laid it on too thick. :)

I prefer to think we here on HMT are here to help each other and conversation as its done through posting can be a little tough to catch without body language and the tonality of speech. You will find the folks here are pretty low key about judging a person's process and execution.

I know a lot of us "experienced"( read "old farts") get jazzed to see a young person who wants to get his hands dirty and join in the fun of actually making something with your brains and hands.

There is a TON of talent here and really amazing stuff in the archives. I wish you the best of luck with your journey and hope you'll want to share what you come up with. Jump in, the water's fine ;)