What can you do with cheap tools?

[Greybeard]

For many years I only had one of those Black and Decker simple drill presses, as seen in groily's post. Managed some quite clever stuff with it. For instance, when I rebuilt the rear axle of my sisters 1925 Austin Seven. The diff case seals are felt rings held in place by tin 'Top-hat' shaped pressings. Those seal holders had been lost so I set about making some. I found I couldn't accurately cut the the shim steel with tin snips so using my B&D drill in one of those simple presses and an adjustable fly-cutter. I cut out rings of shim steel and fabricated the top hats using solder. The thin shim steel of course really wanted to slice my fingers off. It was rather like cutting out circular razor blades! I had to sandwich the steel between thin plywood pieces and cut through the stack. I managed it and as far as I know those pieces are still in use twenty or so years later. I've sketched the piece to give you an idea what it's like.

[Black Sheep]

The humble B & D drill press is also very useful for putting pistons back in brake calipers. Otherwise a bit of a challenge when you have fitted new seals.

[muskrat]

I modified one to do valve springs.
Cheers

[chaterlea25]

Hi All,
Waaay back when I only had use of an ancient flat bed belt driven lathe and needed to machine down the worn trailing arm pivots from a BMC Mini (before ceramic tooling )
I clamped a Stanley drill stand and drill horizontally to the lathe tool post and used a 2in. grinding wheel in the drill chuck to work as a tool post grinder 
It worked a treat,

I have also used that type of drill stand to dismantle rear shocks

John

[muskrat]

I still do my cylindrical grinding with a 4" anglegrinder in the toolpost and my threading in a flat bed belt drive.
Cheers

[Joolstacho]

Cheapo tie downs.
Use a couple to compress springs of rear shockers to dismantle them.
Too easy. Works!

[DuncanF]

AAHH, I was going to replace some shock springs today on my Bantam, was wondering how I was going to do it. Good lad, TA!

[Billybream]

First project of the new year, one of the press studs on my biker boots had popped off, found a replacement one that needed to be crimped on, but wondered how.
So into the garage and found a suitable sized drill tap with a taped end and mounted that into my pillar drill chuck and bingo worked a treat.