The Shape of Things to Come

Variety is the spice of life as they say. A good friend of mine is a car enthusiast, and can be found on most any afternoon in his garage working on a project. I often visit him and discuss his projects over a beer and once in a while lend a hand in some small way. A week ago I had asked him if he had any scrap from a plexiglass project he'd been working on. He promptly supplied me with a small piece of a sheet of smoked plexiglass. Here are a few of the resulting tools I made from his generous donation. It's good to have friends with varied interests.

To make the calipers I used a coffee can as a template to start the circle, then I eye balled the change in the curve. I cut the first piece on the band saw and used it to duplicate the part. Once the first set was cut out, I drilled out the hole for the hinge. First try on the drill press I really put the screws to the plexiglass and it cracked and snapped off right around the hole. I lopped the end of the two parts off on the saw and started again with much less pressure.

Once the first set was drilled I assembled it with a small screw, washer and wing nut. The screw was too long so I threaded the wing nut on the screw and clamped it down in the vice. Using a small dremel tool and a cut off wheel I cut the screw down to size. Because the wing nut was in place it pulls the threads on the end of the screw back into alignment, and the screw remains completely usable.

After that it's all lather, rinse, repeat!

The band saw is an invaluable tool for making tools. I would be no where with tool making if it weren't for the band saw, grinder, sander, etc. The dremel tool has a lot of good attachments, and can fill in for a lot of different tools. I haven't found anything that replaces the ease of use of a band saw though.

The ribs were drawn out on the paper that protects the plexiglass, then cut out using the band saw. After that I just took them to a bench grinder and knocked all the edges down. Going slow and using soft even pressure can give a fair edge to a rib. I was in a bit of a hurry on these, and being pressed for time it was required that I run a file over a couple of my edges to remove some chatter from the grinder. This could be left if desired for texture. These were designed to be smooth interior bowl ribs so I knocked the edges down to a smoother state.

Plexiglass acts similarly to wood in some respects. It cuts well, grinds easily, sands quickly, cracks under too much pressure. It's rigid like a wooden tool, but is very smooth, and can be sharpened to a knife edge. So in that respect it has an advantage over wood, which can't get very sharp and dulls very quickly. It's a pretty superior material for making rigid tools. One downside is that it's very slick when wet. I like to use a very large bit to cut finger grips in the surface. I don't cut all the way through, just partially, so there is a concaved mark just under half way through.