Dez’ workshop builds- foot powered shrinker/stretcher stand.

Well, continuing with the distractions from the main event, I decided to stick those bits of steel I’d cut under the makeshift chassis table so they were out the way. Maybe I should make this a general workshop equipment I’ve made/modified thread, I dunno.

Anyway, before they could go under it I needed to drill and tap for the wheels. Ignore the big 16mm holes in the centre, I was gonna put the levelling feet on there but after measuring it all set up they weren’t long enough so I axed that idea and decided to put these massive beefy castor wheels on here instead so I could drill and tap into the thick steel.


Again pictures don’t really convey the scale very well, the bolts I’m tapping are m10 and the wheel on its swivel is 7.5” tall overall. They were salvaged of a massive industrial metal bin that had got a bit run over by truck. No sure on exact weight rating but the centre bearing is the best part of 2” diameter so I’m sure they’ll do what I need.


The actual ‘chassis table’ itself is basically just these-

Again hard to judge scale, but they’re 10” deep, 5” wide and 15 foot long each. Yes, 15 foot 😂
I figured it was better to make one too big than too small. Tbh they were a total bargain, I could have nearly weighed em in for what I paid for em.

They were currently stood on 4 blocks of wood on the flattest bit of floor and shimmed up so they were level and square, and had various smaller bits of box welded between them set up at 4 foot wide, so I could put a chassis on there. My new bits I’d cut would go across each end to tie the ends solidly and make it mobile.

Like this-


As you can see it was all clamped together, checked for square and then welded up.



It was then jacked up and the wheels bolted on.


Other end was done too-




I still have more ideas for additions to this but making it movable is a big step.

Magnificent topic. Love things like this... And when I eventually get the workshop built it will be inspiration!

Well this is definitely turning into a ‘general workshop build’ thread.
Now the chassis table moves I decided to add a storage solution to it to tidy up a bit before I build the actual bench. This is basically just a wire bottomed shelf/rack that drops into the base between the RSJs, and can be slid back and forth or lifted out of its in the way.

It’s purpose is materials storage. I have some wall racking for long lengths, but once bits get chopped down to under about 6 foot long they tend to get stood in a corner instead as they're then too short to sit on 3 of the rack supports so they’re easy to knock off. But it’s a bit rubbish trying to look through them when they’re all piled together in the corner and it’s hard to see the shorter ones. I have a box under the bench for bits under 2’ long, so this is for bits between about 5 foot and 2 foot in length.

So, I raided the leftover materials pile and found some 2” angle and some galv weldmesh. The width is determined by the bit of mesh and the length is determined by how much angle I had!


I then cut some little bits of 40mm box to take up the gap to the inside of the RSJs and stuck some 40mm angle to those for it to hang off. Then welded them to the angle iron frame.
It slots in place perfectly.




Then I used some more 40mm angle reversed and welded in as braces to stop the mesh sagging.


Then the mesh just drops in, and I sorted through all my offcuts, labelled them and stashed them away.
Should have cleaned it down and painted it really but I’ll do that when I paint the chassis table.

I'm glad you put the photo of the offcuts in the tray - as I was reading it I though to myself that it would be just my luck to use all the offcuts building a tray to house them...

Following this closely, spent many of nights on the Garage journal looking at these old service stations and have been wanting to build one myself for a while, only think that was putting me of was getting the nice smooth bevels. Top work going on at your gaff at the moment though!

Feb 13, 2020 20:55:14 GMT Dez said:

Well as this is retro rides, I can’t actually start the thing without backtracking and doing 3 other things first, can I? 😂

Part of my overall holistic workshop approach I’m taking this year is that if something is in the workshop, it has to pull its weight. So it has to work perfectly and be something I actually use often enough to justify.

First victim/beneficiary of that is this-


Its a hydraulic hacksaw. More specifically It’s a speedax 9”. Everyone who’s got 9 inches likes to show it off, right? Just be careful who you show it to or you’ll end up on a register.

Not sure why it’s a 9”, it must either be able to cut 9” or has a 9” stroke or something. It’ll do 4” square anyway so that’s all I really care about. For scale, the bit of blue box section in it is 50x50, so it’s a big ol’ lump.

I bought it a bit before the fire, tried it once, found a problem, every other job I needed to do was in a hurry so I didn’t get round to fixing the issues before using it properly. In the fire it just got a bit wet as it was in the unburnt corner, and it’s sat in the salvage storage area ever since.
But since I’m going to need to cut up a large amount of steel stock for this build, now would be an opportune time to sort it out.
It actually seems a fairly decent bit of kit, it’s doesn’t seem to have any discernible wear, and has a proper belt driven coolant feed setup.

It plugs in and works-ish, but the issue i’d identified was belt slip on the drive belts. I replaced the belts and it didn’t help much, but as you can see here the adjuster is maxed out.



So i decided the easiest thing to do was just cut that bit of angle off with the adjuster slots in, and let a bit of angle into it next to the back plate, so it resets the adjusters about halfway down the slots.

I took it off, stripped all the pulleys off and wire wheeled em all up and cleaned and regreased all the bearings.

Then I cut and ground the huge amount of weld off attaching the bit of angle. It looked like this has been messed around with at least twice before judging the old welds going on.


Cleaned up and location marked for the extension.


And in place. The angle was fractionally bigger than the bit on there so I just sloped the outer edges to meet up, you’ll see what I mean in a mo.


Other bit back on and ground up.


I then refitted it, did it up a bit tighter and the belts don’t seem to slip now. Not that I really got to try it properly, as the hydraulics had got loads of water in where they’d put the fire out, turning the fluid to emulsion-


Lovely. The hydraulics are odd on one of these in a couple of ways. One, it has an open hydraulic reservoir inches away from a swarf-creating blade. Hardly ideal but it seems to not effect it too much.

The other thing is the term ‘hydraulic hacksaw’ itself.
The name would suggest that the hydraulics would be in some way responsible for the cutting, wouldnt it? Well they’re not. The to-and-fro of the blade is created by nothing more exciting than an electric motor, a few pulleys and a crankshaft operating on a blade frame on a slide by means of a connecting rod.
What the hydraulics do is control the descent of the blade. If you look at the size of the counterweight above the blade, it weighs a ton. Under its own weight it just jams the blade into the workpiece way too hard, snags up and either breaks the blade or slips the pulleys.

I’m still struggling to understand exactly how the hydraulics work, but I’ve not fully stripped the valve block yet. What I think happens is this-
There is a small piston driven off a second crankshaft on the main driveshaft, that seems to pump oil into the bottom of the big piston that holds up the hacksaw arm. It has a knob with a needle valve that seems to go into the end of the smaller piston, acting as flow control. But then it’s not really a pressurised system as there is also a bypass hole on the bottom of the big cylinder that bleeds back into the reservoir. If the pump stops the arm would drop. So I guess it’s never fully capable of stopping the arm descending, it just slows it so it drops gracefully/gradually, and you can adjust that with the flow control valve.

This is the reservoir once removed from the saw and stripped down. Yes, absolutely everything is cast iron!
I’ve now got all the bits in the parts washer and will continue tomorrow once all the emulsified oil has been cleaned out.

we've got a smaller one of these at work, i suspect its days are numbered as the new workshop foreman is getting rid of all the old stuff bit by bit

mortcars - you need to put your name on that. I've found if you don't ask, you don't get!

On a completely unrelated note, is your avatar Ginger Wildheart?

As a distraction from the distraction from the distraction, I’ve done something else entirely unrelated to the bench build, which I still haven’t started. It is a workshop equipment build though.

This is mostly cos a car that came in for a little bit of welding turned out to need a LOT of welding, so I’ve been doing that.

As part of this I’ve got a lot of curved flanges to make, so I bought a shrinker stretcher.
I got the deep throat Metz one as my mate used one to make a rear 1/4 with good results (so good you’ve probably seen the Metz advert with it in).
Managed to blag it for £230 on the phone as there was a problem with me ordering online with a discount code, which is good as it’s about £45 less than the advertised price and £20 less than it would have been with the code if it gone through online.

Tbh it’s better than I was expecting, a definate step up for the smaller cheaper ones in terms of capability and quality.

For the minute I’ve made up a plate-



To bolt to to the top of the last remaining slighlty burnt ramp post I saved-


It’s usable like this, but I’ve ordered a load of bits to make it foot operated, as it’s hard work and fairly awkward using it with the hand lever.

Massive progress on the shop!
I see in the last pica hand operated tyre machine.
I am contemplating getting one and I'd value your impressions?

I’ve got the smaller Metz Shriner/stretcher and found it brilliant. Although I wish I’d bought the deaper one to do compound panels. I’ve been toying with making a foot operated stand so will be interested to see what you come up with.

May 22, 2020 22:41:44 GMT quickrack1 said:

Massive progress on the shop!
I see in the last pica hand operated tyre machine.
I am contemplating getting one and I'd value your impressions?

I get on with them. They can be hard work physically at times, and they require technique that needs to be learned, but for occasional use they’re good. Part of the reason I like them is I do quite a lot of stuff with tubes, and with these you get more ‘feel’ for what the tube is doing than with an auto feed machine.

Downsides are they take up quite a bit of room, and they really have to be bolted down solidly so you can’t really have one that you just wheel out when you need it.

This type that actually clamps the back bead is better than the ones with a bar and pin that goes through a bolt hole, and works on centrelss wheels.

May 21, 2020 12:28:36 GMT neilsdavies said:

mortcars - you need to put your name on that. I've found if you don't ask, you don't get!

On a completely unrelated note, is your avatar Ginger Wildheart?

oh everyone knows i get my eye on anything thats leaving before its binned and yup its Ginger Wildheart, good spot

May 25, 2020 10:30:38 GMT mortcars said:

May 21, 2020 12:28:36 GMT neilsdavies said:

mortcars - you need to put your name on that. I've found if you don't ask, you don't get!

On a completely unrelated note, is your avatar Ginger Wildheart?

oh everyone knows i get my eye on anything thats leaving before its binned and yup its Ginger Wildheart, good spot

Anthem single cover, iirc! My wife and I have seen GW in various projects around 30 times each over the years. The Wildhearts were once described as the biggest band that no-one had ever heard of!

And bringing this thread back on track, tomorrow I get the keys to my new house, and more importantly, my new single garage... 

May 28, 2020 20:39:54 GMT neilsdavies said:

The Wildhearts were once described as the biggest band that no-one had ever heard of!

And bringing this thread back on track, tomorrow I get the keys to my new house, and more importantly, my new single garage... 

As in "Vanilla Radio"?

Jun 2, 2020 20:04:44 GMT shampooefficient said:

May 28, 2020 20:39:54 GMT neilsdavies said:

The Wildhearts were once described as the biggest band that no-one had ever heard of!

And bringing this thread back on track, tomorrow I get the keys to my new house, and more importantly, my new single garage... 

As in "Vanilla Radio"?

Yup, have seen them numerous times all round the country too. Check out phuq's avatar also 😉

Anyway back to semi thread relevance, we're hoping to move in the not too distant future and the outbuilding that comes with it is crying out for a similar project build so watching this one with interest.

It seems to be a game of how long can something take to get to me, or how many times can a supplier get something wrong at the minute.

I ordered all the bits to make the next stage of the shrinker stretcher stand a couple days after my last post, and I eventually got them all today 🙄

First the supplier I bought the bronze bushes off cocked up that by mislisting the ones I bought, so I bought a size that didn’t actually exist, and based my other purchases around it.
That is not a 1” bore bush.


Their unhelpful response was ‘soz, that doesn’t exist, have a refund’. No good when I’ve already based my other purchases off their wrong dimensions as that would be the money on those bits wasted.

So I went through their catalogue and found a metric equivalent that only needed the centrebore reaming out .4mm, and was otherwise the same. Nothing like doing other people’s jobs for em....

(1-3/8”OD is 34.93mm, so 35mm is close enough) width didn’t really matter.
This is to fit into some thick wall 45mm CDS I have, after a little tickle with the lathe.

I’d also bought some 1” EN8 bar for the shaft and a bit of 1” ID tube to use as a crush/wear tube.
The bar took nearly 2 weeks to turn up because Hermes.


In the meantime I’d roughed a pair of these up out of 1/4” plate.



I also bought a pair of M14 Clevis that turned up next day with no hassle so I forgot to take a pic of them.


So now I can start putting it together. I will add some design notes as to why I did what I did though, as it seems no one does when they make these things.

A flurry of activity on this today, mostly due to me really needing it up and running for a job.

First I made some holes in the plates. Some functional-



Some cosmetic.


Might add a few more later, I can’t help myself.

Then I turned up some bushing housings out of the thick wall CDS tube-


And pressed them into the holes.


Then glued them in.


After a quick tidy up the bushes were also pressed in, then reamed out from 25mm to 1” (25.4mm).


That meant the shaft now fitted. It was fitted then the brackets welded on, after a bit of tweakage to ensure good allignment.





If you haven’t already guessed, these will form the main rear pivot. But to do that I need a hole in the front of the ‘column’ for the foot pedal bar to pass through. Now the brackets were welded on I could calculate it’s position and mark it out-


Corner drill-


Then cut out and tidy up with a file and carbide burr.


This is how the foot pedal bar will fit-


With a pedal mounted on the front end and the linkage to operate the shrinker/stretcher on the back. But things ground to a halt about here as I didn’t have a 35mm holesaw, so I’ve got to go grab one in the morning.

I did knock up the brackets to join the lower clevis to the bar though, and found some appropriate bolts for them.


So if I can grab a holesaw in the morning it should be operational tomorrow. Still some finishing and tarting up to do, but I want to make sure it operates as intended first.

I was hoping for a nice old brake pedal or something for your stomper

I suppose the SHS will take more of a beating and give you more leverage.

Jun 23, 2020 8:29:08 GMT varelse said:

I was hoping for a nice old brake pedal or something for your stomper

I suppose the SHS will take more of a beating and give you more leverage.

The appearance will be improved later, and will have a decent pedal pad on it.
SHS is about sort of matching it to the pillar, ease of keeping clean, and it was lying about.

So, it continues. I picked up the holesaw from toolstation, and it allowed me to chew a hole through the lower arm for the tube that the pivot passes through. Here it is with that done and welded in.


I also made a couple of collars for the outer sides to prevent the brackets spreading.

Still need to finish them off yet though once it comes apart again.

So with that mounted I decided to make an upper stop so the arm wasn’t clonking metal-on-metal when it returned. I had a leftover rubber compressor foot (cos they came in a 5 pack which makes no sense at all) so I shaped up an offcut of angle and drilled and tapped it to form a mount.




This welds inside the pillar so it’s hidden.

To get the arm to return, it needs a return spring. I bought a trampoline spring off eBay for 3 quid or so to provide this function. It also sits inside the column. At the bottom it had a m8 nut welded into the lower arm to accept a (electric)motor lifting eye I had kicking round, then at the top it has two holes drilled in the sides of the column with some 10mm bar threaded through for it to hook onto. It was moved up half an inch from the resting position of the spring so it’s returns nicely.


The lower brackets were welded on, and a length of 16mm rod cut to make the main rod that pulls the linkage. The ends of this had to be turned down a touch so they could be threaded to m14 to suit the clevis.

Only problem was it was too long to go in the lathe and turn without being whippy. Wasn’t a problem for long 😂

So some spinny spinny happened


The ends were then tapped so the clevis could screw on. Then it all went to c0ck.

First the top end hit the body of the unit as the angle was too acute. That was easily sorted by bending it to a more suitable angle. Also notice the flat ground on each side of the 5/8” bar that the handle is made of so it’s now 14mm.


One problem overcome, I then welded on the top linkage bits like this.


So it works!
Except it doesn’t. The ratios are not correct. The movement at the pedal doesn’t equate to enough movement at the jaws. What I had come up with was guesswork based on pictures of other commercially available solutions, but it wasn’t quite right. I had plenty leverage but not enough travel.
So I shortened the top link as much as possible, and moved the pivot down the lower bar as far as I could. Close, but still not enough.
In the end I had to cut the hole in the front of the pillar bigger to allow more upwards pedal travel , to give me more swing on the arm. Rather tedious having to redo it all but needs must.

Lower pivot is now here, reducing the leverage ratio from 3:1 to 2:1 after I’d cut down the arm a bit as I really didn’t need it to be that long. I overestimated the amount of leverage needed by quite a bit, but underestimated the travel required by just as much.

At the top the arm is now much shorter, the ratio is about 1.6:1 to the lower arm.


You can see here where I cut the slot further up by over an inch. This raised the pedal end by about 2.5”, giving me the swing I needed.


The complete assemblage. You can see here I chopped 8” the length of the pedal arm as I still had ample leverage without it, and I’d only fall over it otherwise.


So then it was obviously time to waste a load of offcuts playing 😂
I’m rather happy with the ratios and ergonomics, you really can rattle along a piece rather quickly.
George from the workshop next door came in and had a go too and was rather impressed.


This is 1.6mm steel. Took a few passes but that’s pretty impressive.


I still need to have a ‘cosmetics’ session for it to be finished, rounding some corners and adding a pedal pad and holder for the other set of jaws before paint, but it’s now functional and that’s what’s important.