Beware American DIY Videos

[Dick]

99% of metalworking, gunsmithing and woodworking videos are American. There is some good stuff but too much of it features big and expensive machinery to do simple jobs. That tells me that big machines are plentiful and cheap in the US and/or general prosperity is such as to make such machinery relatively cheap compared with the rest of the world. Perhaps the worst example I’ve seen is that drilling and tapping through the primer pocket of a cartridge case to make a simple COL gauge, by a guy calling himself the “Ultimate Reloader.” He did the job on a big lathe that would cost at least R250K in SA, but not content with that he held the work in a very expensive collet rather than a simple chuck. Then, to complete the nonsense, he tapped with a 36TPI tap that’s not standard even in the US. Some of us understand this very well, but guys not experienced with DIY can’t reasonably be expected to, so it is in my humble opinion incumbent on those offering DIY methods and solutions to keep them as simple as possible. Its perfectly legitimate to explain how something can be done more easily on expensive equipment, but then both options should be explained. That COL gauge is the most astonishing overkill of a simple job that could be done with a hobby drill press and a readily available metric tap.

I needed to make a pair of simple wedges for extracting a morse taper arbour from my little hobby drill press. While I didn’t need instruction for that I figured there’s no harm in looking at how others do it. I found a video by Tubal Cain. The factory wedges that can be purchased are of particular angles – Jacobs angles per the Jacobs chuck manufacturer. They are something like 3 degrees, but I didn’t take note exactly because it is utterly unimportant what the angle is – you just need a shallow angle and that both wedges must be the same or at least visually close to same. He went as far as measuring a factory wedge with an expensive Starret protractor of the sort that few hobbyists will have, to establish an exact angle that he didn’t need.

Then he gripped a piece of flat stock in an expensive machine vise on a big Bridgeport or similar milling machine and cut it to the desired wedge shape with a big end mill cutter. Then he cut the slot (it ends up like a fork) first by cutting a hole with an end mill then completing the cutting with a band saw; another tool which few of us have. It really is extraordinary and amounts to cracking a nut with the proverbial sledge hammer and is useless info to all except those with machine tools as expensive as his. I have just made a pair with bench grinder, drill press, hacksaw, files and a lot of elbow grease. The flat stock from which I made them is a bit narrow, and the angle a bit steep, so it remains to be seen whether they’ll work (haven’t tried yet). If not I’ll have to try again.

The same is true of many woodworking videos. Americans build kitchen cupboards with extraordinarily awkward and labour intensive frameworks to which panels, doors and drawers are then attached, while we build them with the vastly simpler and more effective box construction. I recently looked at an “easy to make shaker doors” video which showed traditional mortice and tenon joints (four per door) and grooves into which are inserted the panel. “Easy to make” didn’t mean simpler construction, it meant using fancy machinery to cut those joints and grooves. All you want with a shaker panelled door is for it to look OK. I make them by gluing timber (MDF) strips on the perimeter of a panel. It looks exactly like a panelled door but vastly simpler and no fancy machinery required.

Although not directly relevant to the content of this post, I might later have something to say about the design and construction of drill presses, and the almost universal use of morse taper arbours to carry chucks. But just to give an idea of what I mean, I’ve just had the devil of a job getting chucks off two drill presses, one of which has left me with the challenge of extracting the arbour from the quill. But more about that another time.

[SoldierMan]

Was searching on Youtube on how to remove a stripped allen head bolt and one of the videos was a British guy. He went through all the different methods, expensive and not, simple and complex and that was all I needed. There are some great How To DIY videos out there and there are some not so great ones too.

[oafpatroll]

99% of metalworking, gunsmithing and woodworking videos are American. There is some good stuff but too much of it features big and expensive machinery to do simple jobs. That tells me that big machines are plentiful and cheap in the US and/or general prosperity is such as to make such machinery relatively cheap compared with the rest of the world. Perhaps the worst example I’ve seen is that drilling and tapping through the primer pocket of a cartridge case to make a simple COL gauge, by a guy calling himself the “Ultimate Reloader.” He did the job on a big lathe that would cost at least R250K in SA, but not content with that he held the work in a very expensive collet rather than a simple chuck. Then, to complete the nonsense, he tapped with a 36TPI tap that’s not standard even in the US. Some of us understand this very well, but guys not experienced with DIY can’t reasonably be expected to, so it is in my humble opinion incumbent on those offering DIY methods and solutions to keep them as simple as possible. Its perfectly legitimate to explain how something can be done more easily on expensive equipment, but then both options should be explained. That COL gauge is the most astonishing overkill of a simple job that could be done with a hobby drill press and a readily available metric tap.

I needed to make a pair of simple wedges for extracting a morse taper arbour from my little hobby drill press. While I didn’t need instruction for that I figured there’s no harm in looking at how others do it. I found a video by Tubal Cain. The factory wedges that can be purchased are of particular angles – Jacobs angles per the Jacobs chuck manufacturer. They are something like 3 degrees, but I didn’t take note exactly because it is utterly unimportant what the angle is – you just need a shallow angle and that both wedges must be the same or at least visually close to same. He went as far as measuring a factory wedge with an expensive Starret protractor of the sort that few hobbyists will have, to establish an exact angle that he didn’t need.

Then he gripped a piece of flat stock in an expensive machine vise on a big Bridgeport or similar milling machine and cut it to the desired wedge shape with a big end mill cutter. Then he cut the slot (it ends up like a fork) first by cutting a hole with an end mill then completing the cutting with a band saw; another tool which few of us have. It really is extraordinary and amounts to cracking a nut with the proverbial sledge hammer and is useless info to all except those with machine tools as expensive as his. I have just made a pair with bench grinder, drill press, hacksaw, files and a lot of elbow grease. The flat stock from which I made them is a bit narrow, and the angle a bit steep, so it remains to be seen whether they’ll work (haven’t tried yet). If not I’ll have to try again.

The same is true of many woodworking videos. Americans build kitchen cupboards with extraordinarily awkward and labour intensive frameworks to which panels, doors and drawers are then attached, while we build them with the vastly simpler and more effective box construction. I recently looked at an “easy to make shaker doors” video which showed traditional mortice and tenon joints (four per door) and grooves into which are inserted the panel. “Easy to make” didn’t mean simpler construction, it meant using fancy machinery to cut those joints and grooves. All you want with a shaker panelled door is for it to look OK. I make them by gluing timber (MDF) strips on the perimeter of a panel. It looks exactly like a panelled door but vastly simpler and no fancy machinery required.

Fully in agreement with the gist of your post. The case COL gauge video was one I had forwarded to a friend for whom I had made a threaded case to illustrate exactly your point. A drill press press provides more than enough accuracy for the task and some sub-calibre tubing, a threaded rod, a tap and a grub screw is all you need to make the 'device' such as it is. You could do a perfectly usable job on the case with an egg beater drill and a tap. The level of overkill on some of the DIY stuff you see on YouTube is thermonuclear and it seems most often to emanate from the US. In fairness the US probably makes 90% of YouTube content. I was lucky enough to spend lots of workshop time with my great grandfather and my dad as a youngster so learned from a very early age that you can figure out a lot of problems and then make a plan to solve them with what you have at your disposal.

A word in 'defense' of Tubal Cain is that he was a 'shop teacher' and has been making educational products and content in the form of project kits, plans books and videos since the 70's at least. He collects machinery and tooling and his videos are probably more aimed at informing people on how to use the tools than on how to make the things. Pretty sure you have mentioned him here before so you may well know about his story.

[Wild coast]

Dick looks there is a gap in the market for you to make some vids… watch this space

[Dick]

Dick looks there is a gap in the market for you to make some vids… watch this space

Oh, hell, Wild Coast, I'm embarrassingly old school. Haven't even figured out how to post pics on Gunsite, or even how to make movies with my camera though it has the capability. I'm good with tools but not much else.

[Dick]

A word in 'defense' of Tubal Cain is that he was a 'shop teacher' and has been making educational products and content in the form of project kits, plans books and videos since the 70's at least. He collects machinery and tooling and his videos are probably more aimed at informing people on how to use the tools than on how to make the things. Pretty sure you have mentioned him here before so you may well know about his story.

Didn't mean to shoot at him particularly - he just provided a good example of what I meant. But there's something else. The "real" Tubal Cain is the guy who wrote for Model Engineer for decades and whose text books are still published by Tee Publishing I think. The American Tubal Cain must have taken that nom-de-plume knowing that the British Tubal Cain existed. And if he didn't he should have. It reminds me of the US gun writer (I forget whom) published in a book about Glocks that cast bullets are not fired anywhere outside the US.

[doobleedee]

a good Youtube channel on small machines is Blondihacks, Her Mill isnt exactly cheap, but its pretty small :P

[oafpatroll]

Didn't mean to shoot at him particularly - he just provided a good example of what I meant. But there's something else. The "real" Tubal Cain is the guy who wrote for Model Engineer for decades and whose text books are still published by Tee Publishing I think. The American Tubal Cain must have taken that nom-de-plume knowing that the British Tubal Cain existed. And if he didn't he should have. It reminds me of the US gun writer (I forget whom) published in a book about Glocks that cast bullets are not fired anywhere outside the US.

I'd forgotten all about that. I have a few of the original Tubal Cain's excellent books including his Building Simple Model Steam Engines. "Mr Pete" which is the Johnny Come Lately Americans other moniker should really have come up with his own.

[dammitgriff]

I stumbled across this channel just yesterday, Mark Novak doing a conservation video of a GEW 88.

https://youtu.be/4CeigOFL1T0

Many more firearms on his channel. This one is of a teardown, cleaning and reassembly of a Colt Burgess 44-40:



R\Griff

[oafpatroll]

Novak is a no nonsense craftsman type. No machine masturbation on his channel that I have seen. A fantastic tip I picked up was to use toilet sealing wax ring to blend repaired portions of an old wooden stock with the original bits. Works remarkably well.

He does preservation and restoration in the true sense of both of those words. Most US 'restoration' content whether it relates to guns or cars results in stuff that doesn't remotely resemble the state in which it left the factory in it's shine, symmetry and overall finish. Sympathetic restoration is as much art as science and when it's done right it's very obvious.