The Charcoal Foundry

Charcoal Foundry, the first book in the "Metal Working Shop From Scrap Series", gives you plans for building a metal melting furnace and instructions on basic pattern making and molding. All the information needed to set up a foundry in your work shop can be found in this book. Simply stated, if you can build a sand castle or make a mud pie, you can make a sand mold to produce castings for your metal shop projects. The main ingredient in these projects is scrap aluminum and pot metal. The only tools you need to get started are ordinary home shop hand tools, many of which are probably already in your possession. Much of the remainder is found as salvage or cast-off and little expense need be involved. The charcoal foundry is simple to build and operate and the initial cost is so low that it can be in the reach of nearly anyone. And the fundamentals of pattern-making and molding are easily understood and mastered. Once you have built the charcoal foundry and the metal lathe in book 2, there is little beyond your reach by way of shop equipment. Build as large or small as you wish and you are your own parts supply company. If you already have some machine shop equipment, you will find that adding a foundry to your shop greatly expands your capacity. Being able to produce your own castings for accessories and equipment is a great advantage. Design your own, make a copy or follow a plan. It's easy when you're in control and can produce your own castings.

Now that you have established your metalworking shop and progressed in the various skills of the crafts you may want to expand your metal casting operation. Build this gas fired crucible furnace so that you can turn out castings for your projects faster and easier. Designed especially for the home shop foundry. Very quiet in operation. Easy to light and simple to operate. The body and lid raise for safer crucible handling. Operates on natural or bottled gas. Costs only a fraction of the price of a commercially built unit and it will melt aluminum, brass and even gray iron. This unit will really upgrade your shop and you will enjoy the convenience of gas fired melting.

Using castings from your charcoal foundry (see Book 1 in the series: The Charcoal Foundry by David Gingery) and simple hand methods (no machine tools needed!) you can build a sturdy and accurate bed for a metal lathe. Then additional castings, common hardware items and improvised equipment will add the headstock, tailstock, carriage and all the remaining parts to complete the lathe. Illustrated with photos and drawings to show you all you need to know about patterns, molding, casting and finishing the parts. The lathe specs. include a 7" swing over the bed and 12" between centers. Adjustable tailstock with set-over for taper turning. Adjustable gibs in sliding members and adjustable sleeve bearings in the headstock. A truly practical machine capable of precision work. Once you have a foundry to cast the parts and a lathe to machine them you can tackle more exotic projects.

Build your own Metal Shaper. Exotic is a mild adjective when applied to this shaper. It will cut splines, keyways, gears, sprockets, dovetail slides, flat and angular surfaces and irregular profiles. And all of these with a simple hand-ground lathe tool bit. Obsolete in modern industry, of course, because milling machines do the work much faster and cheaper. But you can’t beat a shaper for simplicity and economy in the home shop.The shaper has a 6" stroke and a mean capacity of 5" x 5", variable and adjustable stroke length, automatic variable cross feed and graduated collars. You will be proud to add this machine to your shop.

The Milling Machine is also known as book 4 from the best selling 7 book series, 'Build Your Own Metal Working Shop From Scrap'. Especially designed for the developing home shop. It’s a horizontal miller, but it has the full range of vertical mill capability when used with the angle plate on the work table. Extremely rigid and versatile. The work table is 2 3/8" x 12" with a 3/8" T-slot and it travels a full 12". Eight speeds from 43 rpm to 2430 rpm. The spindle raises as much as 6" above the work table and the transmission is designed to follow the vertical travel without straining the column or changing the belt tension. Accessories included in the project are angle plate, face plate, fly cutter, tail-stand and compound slide assembly with which you can do large swing lathe jobs. Still no need to look for outside help. It’s a miller and more, and you can build it your self.

The Sheet Metal Brake is also known as book 7 from the best selling 7 book series, 'Build Your Own Metal Working Shop From Scrap'. I almost left this one out of the series and I would have if it were not for my friends who tell me they are always wanting to bend some sheet metal for a project. This one uses no castings. It’s a welding project using standard structural steel and common hardware items to build a compact portable bending brake. Its a 15" brake as detailed but you can scale up or down in size within limits. Definitely not a heavy duty brake but you can make neat bends in 26 gauge metal to form duct, boxes, drawers, belt guards and dozens of items for your shop projects Some have beefed up the leaves and pivots so that metal as heavy as 20 gauge can be bent sharply.

In this New York Times bestselling “imperative how-to for creativity” (Nick Offerman), Adam Savage—star of Discovery Channel’s Mythbusters—shares his golden rules of creativity, from finding inspiration to following through and successfully making your idea a reality. Every Tool’s a Hammer is a chronicle of my life as a maker. It’s an exploration of making, but it’s also a permission slip of sorts from me to you. Permission to grab hold of the things you’re interested in, that fascinate you, and to dive deeper into them to see where they lead you. Through stories from forty-plus years of making and molding, building and break­ing, along with the lessons I learned along the way, this book is meant to be a toolbox of problem solving, complete with a shop’s worth of notes on the tools, techniques, and materials that I use most often. Things like: In Every Tool There Is a Hammer—don’t wait until everything is perfect to begin a project, and if you don’t have the exact right tool for a task, just use whatever’s handy; Increase Your Loose Tolerance—making is messy and filled with screwups, but that’s okay, as creativity is a path with twists and turns and not a straight line to be found; Use More Cooling Fluid—it prolongs the life of blades and bits, and it prevents tool failure, but beyond that it’s a reminder to slow down and reduce the fric­tion in your work and relationships; Screw Before You Glue—mechanical fasteners allow you to change and modify a project while glue is forever but sometimes you just need the right glue, so I dig into which ones will do the job with the least harm and best effects. This toolbox also includes lessons from many other incredible makers and creators, including: Jamie Hyneman, Nick Offerman, Pixar director Andrew Stanton, Oscar-winner Guillermo del Toro, artist Tom Sachs, and chef Traci Des Jardins. And if everything goes well, we will hopefully save you a few mistakes (and maybe fingers) as well as help you turn your curiosities into creations. I hope this book serves as “creative rocket fuel” (Ed Helms) to build, make, invent, explore, and—most of all—enjoy the thrills of being a creator.