Thread: todays tools gloat

Hi,

Went to the local markets last weekend and bought these:

brown&sharp.jpg
moore&wrighfeeler.jpg
moore&wrightradius.jpg

The pictures aren't too good. But for $20 i picked up a Brown & Sharpe Whitworth thread pitch gauge, a Moore & Wright metric radius gauge, a Moore and Wright imperial feeler gauge and a Eclipse scriber. The Moore and Wright metric thread pitch gauge I bought from Ebay for the same price including delivery.

The market gauges all were dirty and needed a good clean up but in good usable condition. I had to individually clean each leaf of the Brown & Sharpe gauge during the week but came out pretty good.

I've lubricated them in oil or vasoline.

Ben

picked this up in inverell today . i like it , and i needed it .and it was cheap enough that i could not leave it behind .
johno

Not exactly tools but a bit of a score.

I found out about the closing down of an old hospital which also had a half dozen mechanical/woodworking/electronic/other workshops but was too late to pick up any of the machinery or tools for the fitting out of our mens shed. Speaking to the guy managing the close down and he said, "Come down and take a look around you might find some suitable furniture for the mens shed". Spent the afternoon there and picked up two SS trolleys, a near new fridge, a microwave, a chemical storage cupboard, a half dozen 2 drawer filing cabinets (good for small project storage) and some other bits and pieces. The chemical storage cupboard had a bunch of empty containers except for a full 20L container of Rocol Cutting fluid - "Can I have this", I asked - "Sure take it". Bonus I thought.

Originally Posted by BobL

except for a full 20L container of Rocol Cutting fluid - "Can I have this", I asked - "Sure take it". Bonus I thought.

If that is the very thick black cutting oil, it is probably $300 or more worth...

I was out of neat cutting oil and bought a 5l container of it.. quite expensive, but you can thin it out with oil... I am getting a fair bit of used transmission oil from a mechanic friend to use as cutting oil on the various machine tools...

Originally Posted by .RC.

If that is the very thick black cutting oil, it is probably $300 or more worth...

I was out of neat cutting oil and bought a 5l container of it.. quite expensive, but you can thin it out with oil... I am getting a fair bit of used transmission oil from a mechanic friend to use as cutting oil on the various machine tools...

It's Rocol Ultracut Longlife. It's not as expensive as the Clear but still has an RRP around $350 for 20L
Recommended dilution is between 20 and 40:1 so it goes a lot further than the stuff from H&F.

Spent another half day down at the old rehab hospital scavenging for the mens shed fit out. The place is like a rabbit warren. Apart from the odd piece of furniture, the old wards are mostly empty, quiet and even a bit spooky. There's hardly anyone around apart from security guards on the gates, a couple of young blokes scooting around on motorised trolleys consolidating any remaining "stuff", and couple of administrators. Yesterday there were a couple of technicians in green forensic type coverall/suits and masks dismantling a large piece of gear with lots of large copper plumbing that was being taken away in covered 44 gallon drums we kept clear off.

In the services/admin areas of the place there are piles of old furniture, junk, and hospital gear everywhere, mostly just scattered on the floor so you have to rummage amongst the rubble and open up and look inside cupboards to find stuff. There is also stuff piled out in the open, and in garden sheds and other outbuildings.

Pickings today included, 2, 4" Dawn vices, various lengths of small steel angle, strap, tube and rod, including some nice 6 ft lengths of SS strap. A box of assorted grinder/buffer wheels, a set of 8 wall mounted racks for storing metal rod/tube etc , a couple of work lights on articulated arms, 2 "dust picker" arms (small dust hoods mounted on movable arms), a near new 2HP DC in a garden shed that obviously no one bothered to look into, and a couple of CO2 fire extinguishers. We also picked up several dozen large signs made of Al sheet up to 5mm thick and 8 x 4ft in area and some smaller ones made of SS.

One of the things we "discovered" in one of the workshops was a large upright, 3 wheel 3P, variable speed metal cutting bandsaw, it must weight 500kg? - too big even for our shed - plus we already have a small multi speed Metalfast upright metal cutting BS. We also found a mechanical parts pressure washer built into a bench that would be worth getting out although I have no idea where we would put it.

One of the areas was used for wheelchair and gopher modification/storage/repair/charging where there were dozens of old wheelchairs and gophers. Piles of old bits and lots of new bits in there as well - one of our members found a complete old school gopher that he's going to do up. Conveniently for us there were even two sets of checker plate aluminium loading ramps to get the gopher onto and off the trailer. That area would be prime for gopher motor picking if one had the time.

Furniture wise we picked up 3 smallish Corian type topped tables for the mens shed crib room, and 6 more 2 drawer filing cabinets.

We're going back again next week. Things we will be looking at getting out of there include
A set of welding curtains,
More furniture like stools and chairs
A large piece of 1/2" thick steel plate that we will need a decent trolley to get out to the car park.
A dedicated metal dust extractor (all plastic housing and impeller) full of and covered in metal dust.

I swapped a small arc welder for this little Drummond lathe, the round beds are an intriguing design. Haven't had a real good look at it yet but it doesn't look like its done too much work over the years. The spindle is missing and I only have 8 gears but I'm happy with the deal. Another project to add to the queue.

M&W 1-4" micrometer, in its case for $50. Auction of garage equipment. Seems to hold an accuracy of +/- 0.002 over the whole range. Closer that I can work to, at the moment..

Originally Posted by BobL

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We're going back again next week. Things we will be looking at getting out of there include
A set of welding curtains,
More furniture like stools and chairs
A large piece of 1/2" thick steel plate that we will need a decent trolley to get out to the car park.
A dedicated metal dust extractor (all plastic housing and impeller) full of and covered in metal dust.

Well we went back twice this week and got all this and more.

In what had been an electronics room there were two wall height collapsable steel cupboards about 1/2 shelving and half small (125 x50 x 300 mm) drawers.

Initially we were only after the cupboards/drawers themselves but they were full of stuff, about 1/3rd full of old software manuals and the rest was bits and piece of medical gear and electrical/electronic components.

The software manuals and most of the medical gear were stacked on the floor but we did pick out
- 2 medical gas pumps
- 6 gas struts
- 3 electrical actuators
- 2 Blood pressure monitors
- rolls of assorted HD single and various 2/3/4/6 core flex.
- rolls of various sizes/types of medical gas tubing.
- some small but really nicely made scientific lever action type clamps

While unpacking the cupboard I took a cursory look at the contents of each of the drawers with the electronics components and made a quick decision on the entire contents of the drawer - yes or no.
"No" got dumped onto the floor and occasionally had me scrabbling to get something that might be useful.
"Yes" got dumped into 3 x 20L plastic buckets and taken back to the shed.

This afternoon I quickly sorted through the stuff and this is what I reckon we will keep.
6 gas pressure gauges ranging from 400 to 2500 kPa
~ 50 assorted capacitors
~ 2 dozen assorted switches, including push button, toggle, and microswitches.
~ dozen mains plugs and kettle cord style plugs and sockets
~ 4 dozen current and thermal cutout switches
~ 50 banana plugs and small alligator clips
~ dozen pots and ~ dozen pot knobs, nice ones.
~ dozens of BNC connectors
~ 100 cable glands and grommets and various plastic cable clamps.
~ dozen BNC, banana and alligator clip test leads
dozens of assorted trimmers
Hundreds of different fuses
Hundreds of different resistors including a few power resistors
Plus Plus.

About half the stuff is RS branded still in its original packets.

Originally Posted by BobL

- 2 medical gas pumps
-
- 2 Blood pressure monitors

- rolls of various sizes/types of medical gas tubing.

all the stuff that old farts need...lol

The Traf swap meet turned up a few goodies today

The Mitu anvil micrometer set $25

The Sutton1/2" end mills 10 bucks for 3

The Mitu imperial dial gauge 10 bucks

One vendor had quite a lot of machining stuff at good prices . Taps and MT drills all new and top brands .

The carbide bits $10 PER BOX .

I also got a new in box Pratt Burnerd 5" 3 jaw chuck MADE IN ENGLAND not Asia

Nice buy Mike.About a fortnight ago I picked up a M&W internal micrometer in a tin box for $15, missing a couple of the long extensions though.
Kryn

Originally Posted by KBs PensNmore

Nice buy Mike.About a fortnight ago I picked up a M&W internal micrometer in a tin box for $15, missing a couple of the long extensions though.
Kryn

15 BUCKS IS A GOOD BUY the extensions turn up on ebay uk often , you ask the seller to post to Aust. and they nearly always oblige

The chuck cost me $100 but it was worth it .

Originally Posted by KBs PensNmore

Nice buy Mike.About a fortnight ago I picked up a M&W internal micrometer in a tin box for $15, missing a couple of the long extensions though.
Kryn

I threw out a full set of extensions,up to 12" last month. I had them sitting in the shed for about 10 years and never came up for a use for them. Its amazing how much stuff I toss out and then need a few weeks later.

Originally Posted by snapatap

I threw out a full set of extensions,up to 12" last month. I had them sitting in the shed for about 10 years and never came up for a use for them. Its amazing how much stuff I toss out and then need a few weeks later.

Bl...y typical, always finding these things out after, I did that once with an old CB AM radio, threw it out and a week later I get asked to make a rocket ship play house for an autistic lad. Any time you are going to throw something out, why not put it in the classifieds, never know someone could use it.
I'm currently making a milling vice out of a drill press vice that was broken and thrown out from the metal supply place that I frequent.
Kryn