Research Machine Shop tour / Brown & Sharp 618 / MY Top 10 hand tools list 

Cora struck it lucky when she found you and your family. You can see how much she loves you all, and it has been good to see her worry and stress drop away as she realised over time that she had found her forever family.

Thank You Steve. that shop tour was drool worthy. You sir have the DREAM job. Not a assembly line, not a job shop... a RESEARCH Shop. Working with brilliant people and turning their dream idea into a finished research tool. Whatever else you do in life, you will know that YOU participated in some development that changes mankind forever. Also: Great on the grinder. and Cora is sooo cute...

The smile on your face when the surface grinder moved smoothly was as priceless as all of your videos!!! Keep up the good work, and Thank You!!!

This is the same thing I do for The University of Delaware. I run a small machine shop and build stuff for the labs and professors for experiments and work on lab equipment such as centrifuges and table shakers incubators and such that is crazy I have been watching you for years and either missed it or was not paying attention and thought you worked at a machine shop making parts for repairs and stuff. I get all my projects on napkins or a thought and they are not quite sure what or how they want it made and I do a design and they look at it or I will try to make it out of 3d printing and then they can see it and maybe try it out to see if it works or fits their needs and then I will make it out of metal or whatever they need. I have found out that the 3d printing saves a lot in materials and time so you don’t spend a lot of time on remake of a part and stuff. I love my job never the same part over and over different every time and it makes it interesting keeps me begging for more.

Hi Steve you need to install a wicket door into one of those large doors,it will save you lots of pain.

That's a nice, neat little shop you have at work, Steve. So nice to hear someone praise where they work, instead of complain!

"Macgyver something " to a child of the 80s/90s that was the coolest TV show and still inspires me to use what i got to fix many problems. Self reliance Great channel !!

A one off job shop has got to be the machinist's dream job.

I have one of those boost packs (different brand), mine has seen use 4 times in the last 24 hours, as my car had its previous battery suddenly die, I was headed out on a trip, when i got in the car, it barely turned over, so I boosted using my pack, arrived at my destination (london) and parked up for a few hours, came to go home battery dead, got me started again. arrived home late so this morning i used it to boost the car again while testing (alternator was giving good output) then a 4th time to get me down the auto shop and pick up a new battery (turned out the old battery was 9 years old). so yes i can fully attest to keeping one of those in the car, 4 starts (of a 2 litre diesel) and it was down to 50%power, (and is on charge being topped up as I type)

Need more squirrel footage. I always look forward to your video and great explanations and detail. Thanks.

I ordered a bottle of the Full Tang hot sauce from Amazon and arrived yesterday. It is a very good and recommendable sauce. Also, great care was taken to not only properly buble wrap it but also place it in a corrigated cardboard box to survive any rough handing. Both of my observations go to prove Bradley's pride and care in what he does.👍🏻

Happy Saturday morning Steve, Cora, Hot Sauce, and Grits! Cool departure from the normal video. Glad about the grinder, it shows great promise for nthe future. Enjoyed the shop tour, Tools, and Hot Sauce. The adjustable wrench is also known as a Spud Wrench, I carry one on my tractor for adjusting top links and lining up pin holes. Thanks for sharing as always, God Bless! Happy Father's Day

Steve, the scissors are telephone “cable splicer” scissors, I carried a pair of them with my splicers knife in a dual pouch for over 32 years. They’ll cut anything if held correctly ; 1)Pinky finger in top hole. 2)Ring finger in bottom hole. 3)Thumb on screw head pivot. 4)Pointer & Ring fingers under scissors. You now have a pliers grip on a pair of scissors with the squeezing power of a pair of pliers! Good luck 👍

Thanks Steve. I think of those scissors as telephone shears. I buy those every time I find a brand that I don't have yet. My favorites are Wiss and there is one that is made in Germany. I also want to get a pair of those Nipex pliers.

About the hot sauce, I bought 2 and gave one to my friend who is a hot sauce freak. Both of us liked the flavor and the heat was not too great for most folks who eat tabasco. He made some pickled eggs and put that sauce in them, what a great treat. Thanks for turning me on to your friends great product.

Great to see that Browne and Sharpe grinder is ok! That's a sweet piece of gear. Thanks for the work shop tour! I got my experience in a small proto shop just like that!

Shop light a good idea would be to get an old phone pole, and mount it to the side of the door, about half way to the house along the road, with the light on top of that. Then you get both yard light, and light on the shed and drive, but not as big a bug problem. Bring the cable down, and run under the ground in conduit, and up the side to the old light position, so the power is exactly the same. If you want you also put a photocell up by the shop top, and then no need to turn on at night, plus you can place a smaller one to light up the side of the shop by the creek, 10W will do, to give light at the side, and same for the other side and the rear. At least LED floodlights are lower power than the old version of a 125W mercury vapour lamp, though the old mercury lamp, provided you bought a good quality one, would last, running dusk to dawn, for 3 decades or so.

Hi Steve, when you were saying about the jerky travel on the B&S surface grinder my first thought was air in the system, good to see topping up the oil sorted that. Another little tip, try to minimise stopping the spindle when you're working the machine, but if you do have to stop the spindle for any reason, remember the wheel will move a gnat's cock on restarting due to inertiia so take a light skim with the diamond before resuming grinding. All The Best from sunny-ish Midsomer Norton.

Excellent video as always ,enjoyed the shop tour . It’s a good thing to take pride in one’s work ,your enthusiasm drives others .

I'm a machinist at University of Alaska Fairbanks it's a research R&D shop, I enjoy it a lot. yes I have a shop at home. good video thank you

"I love the kalamazoo" but Steve, wouldn't it be great if DoAll made a horizontal bandsaw to match your vertical bandsaw and your mill. Now that would be cool! 😂😂

That’s great that the grinder just needed a drop of oil. I have a pair of the Knipex parallel jaw channel locks and I use them all the time, the grip they manage to produce is impressive.

Got to appreciate it when you win one!

You didn't mention it but after you added the oil the wheel was completely disengaged. The sound change was significant. So nice to have a simple fix occasionally. Good video. Thanks

The Kent w/ MillPWR is an excellent combination. Like you Steve, my home shop resembles my day job shop. The first machine that I bought was a big ACRA mill with the earlier version of MillPWR after using a Kent 5 series with G2 at work.

My favorite tool as a mechanic of many decades is a Snsp-on 1/4" ratchet that has a 3/8" drive lug. It is smaller than the shorty 3/8" ratchet and if kept clean and oiled, will withstand all the torque your hand can apply. Mine is over 40 years old and going strong.

Good morning Steve, Elizabeth and family. Very best wishes from Wales in the UK.

Those Klein scissors and 11-in-1 screwdriver are on my list, too. I also have one of their earlier 10-in-one screwdrivers which had one less nut driver size. Your day job shop looks great, and it was delightful to see the surface grinder smooth out with some more oil in its tummy.

Hello Steve I started working in 1968 at TMW in Reading PA. The company bought a bunch of these grinders for parts production only they had automatic down feed on the down feed wheel (you could set down feed wheel to stop at a set (ZERO) The Auto down feed could be set to take as many tenths off up to a thousand at time on the pass of the table under the grinding wheel ) These grinders ran sometimes 6 days a week 3 shifts for years making parts for knitting machines and medical products. Fast forward 42 years I retired being a Tool and Maker till running some of these machines bought in1968 I know they ran relatively maintenance free other than required service and oil changes You got yourself a good machine

I had the same issue with my 8x24 NORTON, so far I'm running on about 18 gallons of like you stated, very expensive oil. Good to see you had success with adding a little bit more oil to the unit. Probably needs another 5 or more. Good video. George from Indiana

Oh it's a lovely feeling when something works out the way the grinder did. Turned it from hunk of cast iron to a machine.

Thank you Steve for the awesome video. Your grinder is up to snuff looks like a wonderful machine. Stay healthy wealthy and wise on my family's best to your family good day

Maaaaaaaaaan, what a nice big shop! Real deal pro stuff. I'd absolutely love to have access to a place like that.

You might like a bug zapper on the corner of the shop. I should help with bugs . Since the light draws so many. Plus its fun to hear them being zapped from short blips to long gazzaps.

That dumore drill press is in the catalog as a "micro jig boring machine" it is amazing.

good look at the shop and tools steve

For your bug problem there's two things you can try. The first is an amber lens as the bugs don't see things in that wavelength and don't seem to cluster around amber lights as much. The other is obvious which is a bug zapper.

You need to build a bug zapper grid by that door 😂. Big enough to zap a sparrow!

Noticed the cable for the mag chuck is dragging as the table thavels left and right, don't want it to rub through. Love your varied content. Alan, UK.

I bought a Milwaukee battery powered 3/8 ratchet on the strength of watching you work on your truck with it - already it's indispensable! Thanks.

So nice sir

Good news on the surface grinder. 👍

I can testify the little sunex bit n ratchet set is pretty good. Wife got it for me years ago.

That shop is so awesome thanks for the tour

So happy for you with the Browne & Sharpe grinder! Also, my family loves the Full Tang hot sauce.

Thanks for your visit to the work shop, Steve. Nice.

Nice to see the grinder working the way it should and to step back in time to get a look at where it began. Thnks.

Thank you for sharing. Very much enjoyed the video.👍

I suspect that the grinder has a tight spot and the pump was pushing a bit of “foam.” Whenever it hit the tight spot, the air in the fluid would compress and the table movement would slow. 🤓

Hey, I run a small CNC job shop and I usually make 1 offs too. Todays a rare day that I get to make 10 pats of the same design. Cool shop tour! I very jelly of a few tools. I also love to see how other small shops do there shit, so thanks!

A trick for using less oil in a temporary situation is to put some scrap blocks of metal in the sump to take up volume. It is not a long-term solution. You can also fill a softdrink bottle with water and cap it tightly. Don't use wood or concrete or bricks, but sometimes large hard stone will be okay, like graywhacke or granite.

Nice tour. I have a Tormach 8L in my shop, it is a timesaver for sure.

Hi Steve Have you considered a yellow light for the shed. i believe they have been design for bug control, they are cheap and seem to work. Great work shop tour.

paused your video and went and got me some Full Tang

So happy the surface grinder worked out and that's a very nice machine shop thank you for the video

Full Tang is AWESOME hot sauce!

Steve I also have a set of those Knipex Cobras and a set of the Knipex smooth jaw Pliers / Wrenches. My only beef with them is when you're left-handed, it's tricky to push the button to adjust them. The work-around required is to change to your right hand to use your thumb, then swap back to your left. A bit of a pain, but they're so good in all other repects, it makes up for the left-handed tricky part. I also agree with your choice of the Klein multi-bit screwdriver. I believe they call it a 7-In-1.

Hi, Steve, it's Fletch from the UK, I have an answer to the problem with bugs outside your doors; its don't turn the outside light on till you are in the workshop { Simples int it } you know it makes sense.

good video steve and elisabeth

Thanks for the shop tour. I spent twenty years as an Instrument Maker and Research Engineer at Northwestern University Medical School in Chicago. Hard not to envy your workplace. I wish the shops I worked in had been as well-equipped as the one you work in. Or, for that matter, your shop at home! I smiled as I listened to your description of the ways that job requests come to your shop, and to @jamiequesenberry821 comments. My version, "If I can imagine what I want, surely you can make it!"

Damn, that Steelworkers adjustable wrench is just gorgeous. :o

Mr. Summers another thing to check is the transfer cylinder connection on the underside of the table. A shop I worked at once bought a used Norton and when we tried to get the table to move back and forth it would bind up. The nuts under there need to have a little play. Thank you for your efforts, Mike

The hot sauce was excellent. Request larger bottles :D

Steve, i bought and repaired a similar 618 that had autofeed front to rear etc too. The filters for the oil I used NAPA brand and can look the numbers up for yu. Also the cogged belt that drives the table can be bought at NAPA for 20 per cent of the cost of an original. I loved mine but sold it to do another.

Something I didn't see in the comments was the handle stopped spinning as well with the additional oil so that was disengaging correctly after that. Now for the clean up! :D

Consider sticking a motion-sensor on your outside light. The bugs are congregating because it's powered up.

I ordered the Full Tang after the first video and I love it! It is among the hotter sauces in my collection, but I really like the flavor. It's not obnoxiously hot, though. I will buy more.

When you think about it would you run your car with only a third of the oil it needs, great to see it work shows the quality of the old machines.

Good stuff

Steve you would cry when you see my place of business. We have a 2000 ton press and when we blow a seal in one of the four motors that drive the press we can send 500 to a thousand gallons of hydraulic oil into the pit it’s recycled but it’s expensive to replace

Thank you for the shop tour at your employer. I have a similar love affair with the Kalamazoo band saw and the Arboga (or whatever brand ot trades under) drill press for the same reasons that you do. My employer has both machines and I used them regularly. Our Kalamazoo spent a couple of decades as a multi shift production saw before being replaced with a new machine (same model). Its second life was our maintenance shop saw where we ran it regularly for another 25 years. I want one for my home shop SO badly. It is big enough for sizable stock, but handles small workpieces with finesse. It is a dream to use. Other brands and models have their strong points, but this model is so simple, robust and well rounded that it is my personal favorite. Multi piece and really heavy stock usually ran on the production heavy automatic saws, but even in production quantities, our second production Kalamazoo pretty much ran non stop around the clock. It eventually got down graded to a Hydromech upgrade. The Hydromech had lots of very cool features, and was highly engineered, beefier, but was so inferior to the old simple Kalamazoo in quality. Abom loves his Hydromech, and I bet that his intermittent job shop use will prove a very fine match for that brand, but my experience with that brand was very disappointing. I still want the simple Kalamazoo. The Arboga is much the same way as the Kalamazoo. It is loaded with features that enhance function without cluttering the landscape with complexity. It keeps the simple simple while adding or upgrading features uncommon on similar sized machines from other makers. Geared head with simple speed changes, two speed reversible motor, all table and head adjustments and clamps easy to use, enough mass for rigidity and a small footprint. The fancy styled quill feed handle knobs are a nice touch too. Our shop had a production Grob band saw similar to your DoAll. That is a very nice alternative to the DoAll. Did DoAll make any of their equipment? My experience with DoAll is rebranded product. I have a very heavy DoAll drill press (a big brother to your Wilton/Arboga). It is a very well built machine (rebranded by a Portuguese firm that folded, making purchased repair parts obsolete). It is a beast, but it is too cumbersome to use for simple tasks. I find myself using lighter duty machines more often. The Arboga is just a nice well rounded option.

Great Video

Nice tour. Been considering that small bench top Dake press.

With your B+S grinder.... You may not have noticed that cable plugged in the right side which is 'rubbing' as the table oscillates. This can cause insulation to chafe off of the wire over time.

If this uses a ram to move the bed , then the slowing at mid travel may indicated a worn ram barrel where the fluid is leaking past the piston. The mid travel area is where most movement will have occurred during the machine's life

Steve, your workplace shop seems to be smaller than your home shop 😉 we won't tell Elizabeth.

Success, looking forward to seeing the B & S in full working order, regardless whether you keep it. Thanks for sharing

Add Knipex parallel jaw pliers and you'll have 11 favorite tools. Need little force to hold, never mar the bolt or nut, and fits anything like the Knipex channel locks. Don't delay, buy today.

Well I got 3 of Hot SAauces back in March, it is a dang good hot sauce. Hot yes, but still good. I wanted to thank you for the Sauce as well, good job on it.

The machine shop is interesting. I now see where you get your mechanical work knowledge and experience. Are your regular small parts (nuts and bolts, screws, etc.) bought in bulk and "pre-0expended" for use by anyone in you shop, as needed, without lots of paperwork? I worked in the summer once in a US Navy test agency where this was done to speed up results. About the bugs on the large outside door. Perhaps some fine-mesh screen door material sprayed with a conductive layer and charged with a small, low-power electical charge could be naikled to the door outside and drive away any bugs trying to land on or near the door center where you open it. An electrical OFF set-up?

Keith Rucker. Knows all, tells most. Fire him any questions, surely he will be able to fix your issues. 😊

The pump is definitely cavitating? Probably needs 7-8 gallons to pickup properly, depending on the pickup tube length? Nice surface grinder, Steve.

Steve, this video cost me $100 because a bunch of my friends watch your videos and we put a bet on what you do for a living, I guessed a nuclear scientist from some of the stuff from your earlier videos. Bradleys sauce is awesome and let him know that I have sent bottles to UK, Germany and Belgium to my colleagues there..

as for the light over the door , maibe move the light to the middle of the yard on a pole or in a three and just point it to the door , that way the biggest swarm is somewhere around the light and not near the door would suggest spending some time on that cnc lathe and mill if only to learn the cad drawing program you have a few machines at youre home shop that you could convert to cnc if you wanted to and still have other machines to do stuff on by hand still be a good idea to get an a frame crane , in this case it couldve helped getting that grinder off the palled , guess the pallettruck is too light for it , maine if you have a few toe jacks you can lift it up then pull the pallet out from under it , be sketchy though if one of those jack slips out from under it nothing stops it from going over (you shouldnt even try to stop it or hold it up) maibe just lift the front and wreck the pallet by slamming the blocks in the middle and the front then lower it and do the same in the back , then start pulling planks and stuff from under there untill its allmost on the ground before setting it on skates , that way if one of the toejack slips the thing will at least stay standing

I had the same problem with bugs at night. So I moved the light away from the shop about 20ft and it still lights up the front with plenty of light.

Put light at distance and switch which light is on before you open the door. Ileagle in some states, umfair to the bugs.

If you REALLY need a tool for low clearance, VIM HBR3 and HBR5. I haven't found anything more compact. VIM also makes some nice, short sockets with 1/4" hex rear but for some reason they are only sold individually. I'm probably going to pick up their sockets in 10mm and 8mm for working on the cars.

replace those bulbs outside your shop with bug light bulbs, they give off a different color that won't attract as many bugs

Great video Steve!!

yo0u will never go wrong with knipex pliars

Interesting that while your Top Ten had several Klein hand tools, when Western Electric was supplier for the Bell System, it also sourced most of it's hand tools from Klein which I also fell in favor with during my tenure.

Replace your light with LED it will greately reduce your bug count. Bugs don't detect the lightwave of led as readely as other forms of lighting.

I will order some hot sauce.

Yes I bought a bottle of that sauce it is hot for sure, does it mean water can not be added to dilute it, I would recommend everyone buy a bottle

Weldon sir

Hi Steve, you have plans to get that Miller air cleaner going? Im interested in how effective those are. Really cool to see your shop at work, what an awesome job! Odelay!

Comment for the algorithm!

Send a sample of oil for contamination. don't add oil until you have the results back, otherwise you waste oil. You were lucky as there could have been so much grit and metal in the fluid that you would have to drain all the oil you put into it and then run some karosene or some other fluid through it to clean it. for future use.

Evening Steve,

When you were grinding the chuck, it sounded like it was cutting more at the beginning of the stroke in both directions. Does that mean you should snug up the gibs before grinding in the chuck and table, or is that amount of table rock unavoidable? Edit: or is that phenomenon due to the spindle lifting maybe? Is it just the weight of the spindle providing downforce against the lifting screw?