Adam Savage's One Day Builds: Making a Die Filer Machine!

hey guys Adam from tested here in my cave with a one-day build it is not this piece that is the one they build it's a support piece for this but this is a magnificent machine and we can show you pictures of it now working because that will happen at the end of this video this is a machine called a die filer and they are excellent for doing high precision fight close-up filing of clock parts I learned about this device on clickspring it is a kit sold as a bunch of raw cast iron pieces by a company called MLA or metal lathe accessories run by a lovely gentleman named Andy Lofquist I have been slowly packing away at this kit for about a year and a half now and that meant that I had to take this giant chunk of cast iron chuck it into my lathe chuck it into my mill make reference surfaces and bed bushings in it using high precision things like Reimers and Chucky Reimers and telescoping gauges and making sure everything was square and using bearing surfaces interference pits I've learned a tremendous amount as a machinist and none of that is being covered in this video what I'm now about to do is to finish this machine it is on the home stretch and what I will need to do is actually mount it with a motor and that is what today's one-day build is the table surface before my die filing which will be a new tool added to my shops tool roster the motor that I have chosen is this this is the actual this is a motor from a shear line mill it's the drive motor which means it's adjustable in speed it's a really really lovely piece of kit it's highly recommended among builders of this kit if you turn it on actually here I can put a mark on this so you can see it goes very slow yeah that's like what is that probably 200 rpm very very slow to quite a reasonable speed that is awesome I was able to purchase that and I'm going to mount it so that it drives my die filer and I need to mount them both to a table surface and so that's why the piece of cardboard is sitting on my workbench it will be the template for the table surface and the various slots and holes that I will cut in that surface to hold on to all of this equipment so here we go in order to get the correct orientation and sync in my main drive shaft go and hop on the pulley that I turned that matches this boolean sirloin little V groove belt here and you know unclick spring when he's setting pulleys like this in a clock or setting two things two gears that must mesh Chris uses a thing called a DEP thing tool I don't have such a thing so I need to use my eye and some careful measurements and also I need to build some adjustability into this machine to allow me to achieve the proper tension on this beaker belt and I think that what I'm going to do is I'm gonna I'm gonna trace around all of the pieces of this construction as well as where the holes are and I think where the holes are in the cast iron piece in the wood below I'm actually going to make them slots to allow me to adjust the distance between the motor and the die filer okay so this looks to me very very they look very well aligned right now they really really do it's it's hard to conclude that they're not you know I mean I also do have a little bit of slop in a V group doughnuts it allows you to be a degree often still and still work just fine okay so now I have I've traced the die filers outer profile onto the cardboard as well as its two mounting holes I'm gonna do the same for the shear line follow the link below if you want to know about the specific pen I'm using this is a pike a marker it's one of my favorite new tools I've added to the shop Tom Sachs introduced me to him and we did a tool tips video about them okay but yeah so I think I've got pretty much everything here this is gonna be interesting I'm gonna have to figure out a way I guess hmm I think I'm gonna have to drill and tap into the underside of this arrangement on the shear line arrangement and I think that may set the tone oh yeah yeah yeah that may set the tone for how I how I achieved this bill but suffice to say I think I've got the outline here so now the question is oh right and I kind of want to describe the outer extents of this because I don't want it I definitely don't want this going out over the edges of my table that's just something I feel pretty personally is important to me I also want a lamp I want two lamp and I've got a bubble here okay so this is the lamp and to be honest this lamp could actually live well maybe it kind of wants to live a little higher oh look at that sits on the body of the shear line lays it quaint nicely so if this went there that's quite nice the table sits here right that's that's kind of nice being able to come in here and see that you turn it on yep and that's that's actually pretty complete so now the question is how big all right that is my outer extent right there on that side and this is the outer extent on this side and again I will remark this once I cut a piece of wood out the size that I'm working out here I will then redo the drawing and the hole placement on this with each of the pieces mounting the shear line first because that's the harder one I have to mount that one blind okay so that is Square to the tables edge and it's about a half inch away from that and I appreciate that that now I need to draw two lines this way and I'm not going to do them just like this but again I'm gonna go actually I think I can go right to the edge on this one so we'll go that's that and then this over here hopefully okay my gross measurements I think I should put some of this stuff away put the fucking words back in their box I am I tend to make basic measurements and then adjust so it looks like the piece of wood I'm going to be using will be 13 inches let's see could I make it twelve by twelve twelve by twelve is so nice I could easily you know what it says it wants to be thirteen by eleven and a half let's do it that way thirteen by eleven and a half that's where we're going take a look that's the untrimmed edge from the factory and there's my table-saw edge there we go there's my table-saw edge and there right there is my untrimmed there right there it's the untrue factory yeah alright this here is the table top of my die filer Meier's crazy today and I may paint this later it's certainly feasible but for right now it's just going to be raw wood so I'm gonna put the parts back on this piece of wood and start marking out where the holes go I've got an interesting issue and that I want all this to be very Square to the table like this so I'm and I have two mounting holes here one here and one here I'm only marking one right now because I'm gonna use that to mark the other yeah that's an ugly hole marking that doesn't give it well I've actually given it you know what I need a transfer punch that's what I need these are transfer punches they precisely match the internal diameter of holes let's see here there we go that's the right one and they allow you to transfer a marking from one thing to another so let's put this back in here get it close and we'll give it a little swak swak with a wacky cracker there we go okay great I see my marking and I'm going to draw a line across the board across the board and then I can't even see that you know what I've got a shreds for this you do it on the other side okay now we'll do this transfer punching punch again and we're gonna get it I'll be right about there I'll do another one right there excellent and here you can see actually I'll make these marks a little bigger so you can see them better and now I have fantastic reference points one and two or just where I'm hoping this goes however I'm not done at all because those aren't the first holes I'm drilling I'm gonna machine those as slots on my mill but I also need to measure out where the shear line goes and great great great that's pretty good now that I know that the die filer body is Square to the table I can start worrying about the shear line yeah and I'm gonna get my die filer out of the way here so I can trace all the way around it this is where mechanical pencils are in my opinion way better than regular sharpened pencils because there's just always a sharp edge with which to get your reference on so mounting this guy is my first task that means I want to separate it from the motor body chuck it into the mill ah you know what I could do I can thread a hole here there and then another hole at a specific distance and then I can match that hole pattern on the plywood okay so let's separate I'm gonna put this by might need that and we'll leave that over there a big solid body yeah it's big chunk of aluminum there's no reason I shouldn't be able to drill there there and down there yeah as long as I get the first one right I'm just matching a whole pattern all right to the mill Boy Wonder great that's a nice fit let's Center it out there are there are certainly slightly more accurate ways to measure Center on the whole but that is total position for the mounting I need to do for this particular topic I'm going to use big okay over here zero I think I've a nice solid Turkey to move it in there something to go to a nice round right here for 10:32 hold let me get some oil on this equation getting an acid brush from behind the camera or a couple we got some way I'll hear some cutting oil I'll just get that on there I don't have a tap I should oh four of our holes and we've got their positions marked out here so we can transfer those positions all the way to the piece of wood when I get it chucked into this mail and I am gonna be milling that piece of wood can't wait to show you that all right typewriter tapping cutting fluid on there and we'll start with the first hole this tapping block allows me to make sure I'm going in perfectly straight and it's actually a thing that every machinist makes for themselves or a lot of them do this is how I was taught when I was learning how to use machines from an excellent operator on Bicentennial man and look a lot of the stuff you see me do where I'm tapping holes by chucking it into a drill like that's where that precision doesn't really matter I've just mounting a thing to a thing but on this I really want to be surpassingly exact I really would like to be and so I am taking the extra time to use the bits of equipment I have to make sure that I am nice and accurate also a tapping block makes it easier to spin your tap out of the hole because you're not torquing it side to side so doing this there's a lot faster when you're using a tapping block this tapping block and you can see I've got the normal major holes I use for all sorts of different taps with their sizes listed on them so hole number one it's finished let's move on to hole number two now normally with tapping you kind of want to go backwards but this is um this is an aluminium alloy that the base of this is made out of and it's pretty soft and I can feel from the resistance especially since I'm be using a kind of a fatty tap like a 1024 so what I'm using 1024 or 1032 I think it's a 1024 I think for the softer materials I like the rougher threads mechanically that seems more sound yeah oh no that's a 32 alright that's fine or aluminum especially some going through wood so what you'll see is that I'm not necessarily backing it out there we go and that's because I'm using a spiral point again you can learn what a spiral point is in the test video I did about tapping a spiral point instead of having to break the chips manually yourself does all the chip working inside a tapped hole for you it's actually sends the little bits of swarf ahead of you okay that I think is the end of that I don't have to see what size tend 1032 I think I'm gonna go with some button now some flat heads under the wood that allow a little wedgie fit alright I love tapping so much I find it super relaxing the trick with tapping is look I'm operating I'm using this tap on a part I only have one of if I screw it up and break the tap inside I gotta drill more holes and I gotta clear some hardened pieces of Steel out of there the stakes for tapping are often really high because tapping is usually something you're doing later on in the process and that means that you've got more time invested in the part that you're making and that means that tapping can be fraught yeah you can get into a lot of trouble I've ruined a lot of parts as they were nearing completion just by not paying attention while tapping a lot of people have this experience the fact is is that instead of being terrified of tapping I've grown to really love the Zen of it also for those who like tapping this starett tap wrench is honestly one of the most beautiful little tools in my whole collection I just love this thing I discovered this also on Bicentennial man Chris the machinist on that job was a very generous teacher I've had a lot of different teachers in machining over the years a lot of people who have guided me and they have not always been the nicest people to me hahaha I think even they might admit that but that's fine we all have our different ways I think I need a bottom tap for that hole I don't think it's deep enough I'm gonna use some Phillips head screws let's see here those are ten twenty fours these are ten thirty twos oh yeah there we go that's nice okay so this size which is the 3/4 size is great it gives me a quarter inch of grab which is fantastic ah look at that nice let's go to here just I'm just making sure that all my tapped holes are actually deep enough for me to get purchase on my wood and they are and we'll test hole number one in just a second Oh actually this is hole number three oh yeah and you Hey you also grabbed that's great so we're gonna use 1032 three-quarter inch machine screws that are Phillips head so I am about to do some milling on this piece of wood right here but notice it doesn't seem to fit into my vise but that is an illusion because can actually accommodate this piece of wood and I'll show you how we can do is we can remove the vise jaws and change the position on where they mount on the vise I'll show you that just a sec once I get both jaws removed so what we can do is we can mount those jaws here and here that's one of the great things about a good machine vise is that you can change the position of the jaws in order to get a lot more purchase on irregularly shaped objects without having to remove the vise that's a bonus plus if you your vice tuned-in you've actually tuned you've trimmed your mill to the table and then you've trimmed it to the bottom of the vise and if I are using as parallels Technos if all you're using is parallels then you're always going off the base of the vise and moving the jaws shouldn't matter too much when you put your jaws back in original position you wanna make sure everything is super clean besides that you're good to go oh look at that all the holes fall into the open area this is great alright so I open the vise up here actually going to toss a couple of pieces of wood into the jaws so that I don't mark up the wood and then I'll grab it nice and tight go nice and I'll get centered over hole number one all right yeah again normally I would check this Center this I'm going to use a center finder to just choose the position of hole number one now normally I'd chuck this into a pellet but it's slightly less accurate to check it into a chuck however because of the type of machining I'm doing it's not that important so ah look at this close and then we'll come over here and we'll get our main position again I don't need to be so rigorous about piloting these holes because wood is so much softer than the metal you wouldn't believe how much robots can wander on metal alright here we go superwoman now I'm gonna measure this against the shear line and make sure my measurements are all good all right amount of the shear line and I like its position so I have marked the final position of the slots for the body of the Defiler and that is what I'm about to cut next so first let me get out the center fighter again just make sure I'm directly above where I want to be that's the center of one so that's 1 0 and then the center of the second one we would say is at now I'm about to mill this in a way that will make machinist a little upset and that is I'm gonna check this end mill right into the trail check here I know I know you're not supposed to do that I know and I don't do it with metal anymore I used to I used to make OPA I don't do it anymore but to be honest for something like this it's totally reasonable completely reasonable to make some marks if let's do one inch slots will have a full amount of one inch of movement so that would be half inch from either end so there's a half inch mark will go like this there one goes to there this one that's one extreme that's the other so here we go there we go don't try that at home if you check a end middle into a drum Chuck you will you will not make accurate cuts in metal you just won't you think the drill chuck is really precise it's less precise than you think and it's less precise than this machine however for milling things out of wood it's completely sufficient now part of me wants to clean all this up but part of me and the point that is friends with Tom Sachs is the part of me I'm describing now let's just leave all the marks as they were and I think Tom all right a little bit its sides and its support and its legs now I'm marking the parts I'm going to cut out because no matter how carefully you plan you can lose track of your reference marks of which side you're cutting to etc so the more notes you can make about where everything's supposed to end up that reference it oh good on this front I want to take out that piece okay I have my marching orders now I'm gonna make a little happen good ah but just window thank you for inspiring me to the kick and you think I love a bunch of flesh keeps my hand away I'm gonna gang cut these two together which means I'm gonna double stick tape them together that'll allow me get more efficiency out of my cut without having to clamp these two things are and it'll also make my cuts more consistent I have lots of different kinds of double stick tape around my shop and I use lots of different kinds sometimes you want a high stick sometimes you want low stick sometimes you want temporary stick it's got to be ready for all those options all right this is great I didn't know double stick tape was strong enough but YouTube taught me that it is here we go time to make some cut now I have my three long pieces of my two side pieces all cut out you know what I've done mm-hmm yeah I've done it wrong so close however actually does that work is a kind of work I was so clever this is supposed to join this like this with these cutouts on the underside by not asking myself the question hey am i cutting this upside down I screwed these up entirely now I have to make another set of them another pair it's not too onerous okay I'm not gonna make you sit through it I'm just gonna get up done well you're welcome here is the wrong one and here is the right one yeah this garbage gone I'm done with thee one of the single most important questions you can ask yourself while making stuff is am i doing this wrong am i doing this in a surpassingly dumb way am i building this backwards am i building this upside down did I get my chirality flipped somewhere along the line yesterday today an hour ago a minute ago keep asking yourself if you're screwing up it is a fantastic shot practice I didn't do it and it cost me an extra twenty minutes to make those it's one of my favorite things to do is smooth out my parts you just got one full of hundred grit yeah please it is a yeah it's a beautiful built I'm very pleased with it no ace I'm very pleased with the tolerance of all these pieces that is definitely something I've improved on so 10 I 10 when left to my own devices to build things slightly too high tolerance and the real question is when you're making something to a measurement it's like yeah you got to you got to ask yourself what the use cases I have to ask myself what the use case is like am I going to assemble this once or am I going to have to assemble it every day those are two different answers regarding the amount of tolerance you want out of a system okay that is really nice that is great we're just gonna great invisible okay we're gonna get it on yeah we got six bases to cover one two three four five six let's cover that again I really like the tolerances so nice it's just you know when you take that extra time to make sure that something is really meeting its partner and doing what it's supposed to be doing meeting your expectations you take the extra time man it really makes a significant difference yeah last piece of thunder assembly and so six surfaces again one two three four five six oh whoops oops jumping the gun got spread it around excuse me now I'm ready to attach this to this and this is how we're gonna do I'm gonna put it on the front here and trace it out and this way I will know where to put in my pin nails cuz they'll be on the underside right yeah alright let's glue it up not a single blow through we have to be pleased with that have you started mounting this whole puppy together we are on the home stretch I've got my board my base my table I've got all my mounting hardware it's time to put this bad boy together first up would be this the share line lathe spindle here I'm Maggie my shop assistant today is Maggie my dog we're gonna get all four of these started with the big Phillips and then we'll use the drill driver to get them the rest of the way I don't like to use a drill driver to start machine screws if I don't have to because it tends to it's easy to cross thread cross threading is when a screw goes in off wise and crosses the threads of the hole that it's supposed to enjoy spending the rest of its life in and when you cross the red man you make your day so much fun right that is one solidly mounted puppy actually I think I can mount I think I can mount this guy to it yes I can oh I have to get this around the spindle in dog great it's separated it's the tiniest bit tighten it down got a nice machine flat on that drive oh you slipped out again slippery little monkey ah look at that thank you your line for making such easy to assemble unassembled and reassemble parts and pieces all the way backwards again keep asking yourself am i building this backwards that's the one ah so nice how all that starts to work okay let me get some Korean Won oil on here I have cleaned out the inside of this guy okay I need to make another one of these little Teflon washers that's it now the washer goes on now the Woodruff Keene which I got great there we go and now oh whoops right wanted to get this on I have to kind of get a little bit of a stretchy poo ah I'm so excited about this okay let's get some hardware on the backside of this doing nut and 8 wing nut washer and a wing nut you know Jamie I can't imagine you're watching this but I know Jenny hates washers he has a whole speech I disagree I really like them alright let's bring that out to there right then huh making that rattle I didn't subject you to the problem-solving of that which required me to dismantle part of the cherylin lathe assembly and reinstall it just moved a couple of relationships a few thousandths of an inch and now it sounds like this very pleased by that and this is an excellent excellent fit and finish we do need a locking clamp back there I am okay time to put the rest of this guy together these parts have all been cleaned and this whole machine actually rides in a in a bathed in oil as it were love these tolerance fits so exciting let me just get some oil going on oh it's not turning it all right oh I probably need more tension on hit that's more speed than I need sounds great alright I'm pretty pleased sir let's dismantle a little bit put in this little felt oil dam there I made this beautiful little brass piece that sits on top of it oh so happy with how these pieces look it's just a sexy device I'm gonna keep it running while I put this in just in case so nothing stops working unexpectedly so this this little shield acts as a kind of a um it acts to keep metal filings from falling into the machine and it's also how you actually grab your files and that's one of the files type a file it's got a quarter-inch base to it just long now all right I have cut a little rubber gasket for this face piece that gives you access to the inside the reason the inside of the machine is sealed is because it's actually bathed in a little way so it's a it's the whole mechanism sits in a bath of oil it's really awesome so now I I can tighten these down on brink wink wink and this allows me to actually have oil sitting in this thing and it's not going to leak out just like changing a tire I'm always going to secure the opposite screws all right here we go would you love how quiet that is isn't that glorious too I'm really into that all right let's um let's get some more oil in here this is the table this was a hell of a piece of turn and I have to tell you come on it's that so I have to tell you this whole thing is built to the really the most exacting tolerances I've ever achieved in my personal life like I have never machined a whole bunch of stuff to interference fits and stuff like that and I I just have to tell you it's it's intoxicating and delightful this is a tool for the tool this will actually live on the tool okay I really like these bond to us because they are like little hammers Lillehammer z' that okay right and I can see I've come to the edges here so business yep you know for someone who spent a lifetime taking apart their tools to make them operate better and make them function better making one from scratch it's pretty cool all right I've got the machine working I'm gonna let it run for a while kind of break it in whoa whoa whoa why'd you stop why'd you stop um all right we got it working I had to mill a little channel to allow oil to move around let's see how much I adjust no it's still dead smacks Center the table is smooth and beautiful the operation is quiet let's get the gasket back in see if I can't seal up the faceplate there you go we think I'm quiet that way that's really awesome do all right let's clean up this table so we can see what we've got all right I think it's time to try I think it's time to try out a piece of metal on this thing let's give it a shot I'm giving it a lot of torque and it's holding up that's great I love it there you have it my one day build a nice solid table for my brand new die filer and that is such a pretty tool it's nice and quiet and best of all I made every part of it myself BAM that is the sweetest kind of tool you could have one that you don't lose that thanks for joining everybody see you the next one day build stay safe stay indoors

Channel: Adam Savage’s Tested

Views: 706,891

Rating: 4.9262614 out of 5

Keywords: tested, adam savage, one day builds, one day build, adam savage one day build, adam savages one day builds, how to, adam savage tested, tested adam savage one day build, inside adam savages cave, workshop ideas, tool organization, tool organization ideas, workshop organization tips, shop organization project, lathe, mill, chuck, live center, woodworking, adam savage builds, tested one day builds, adam savage one day builds, die filer

Id: ZNwvjaIW-pU

Length: 60min 10sec (3610 seconds)

Published: Sat Apr 25 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/oblivious-stoner]

I still find it quite wholesome

[u/usagizero]

Over an hour video, mistake is about 37 minutes in.

[u/UrHeftyLeftyBesty]

If you’re going to buy a $7k watch, spend the extra 12 minutes to get it sized.

[u/2JZ-NO-SHIT]

r/peopledyinginside

[u/jimmy3285]

Well you know what they say about the man who never made a mistake.

[u/KimJongUnsDoctor]

Almost as bad as Kevin dropping his chili

[u/Corona4Everyone]

Adam is quite the "West Coast" human

[u/Nivius]

he look so old