Tom's experimental swarf brushes

You're welcome! One idea I played around with was a sliding bridle on the long wire version. It was just a flattened loop of 1/8" welding rod that would slide up and down the column of wire thus "choking-up" on the wire to make it stiffer and control splay.

The short one are often ground to a custom profile to do a specific job. It's a bitch to do and costs many times the price of the brush but the customers are happy with the resulting job done by the brush.

I still think that brush with an oil proof synthetic fiber would be cool, not scratch paint.

And I use your brushes nearly every day in the shop. Many many Thanks!

Gunner

"First Law of Leftist Debate The more you present a leftist with factual evidence that is counter to his preconceived world view and the more difficult it becomes for him to refute it without losing face the chance of him calling you a racist, bigot, homophobe approaches infinity.

This is despite the thread you are in having not mentioned race or sexual preference in any way that is relevant to the subject." Grey Ghost

snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com...

Just curious, did that idea play a part in the development of the expanding wire bore brush?

Dave

We do form an attachment to our tools. Some evoke good memories of who we got them from, or where we were at the time. I have a treasured few that were given to me by men who were old European craftsmen when I was a young man. I learned a lot from spending my lunch and breaks talking to guys who were machinists and mechanics in Germany during WW2. Some of these guys were long retired and often visited shops owned by friends and former employees. I would quit at one shop, and at the next job, along would come Andre, Waldemar, or any of a dozen interesting characters. They contributed to my life and that of many others by passing on techniques and knowledge not found in books. I hope to repay them by doing the same.

I think of Tony B**** when I use some of my oldest tools that I bought new. I worked in a VW-Porsche shop in La Jolla (San Diego) in the late 70s with Tony from "Joyzee" and 5 other young mechanics. We discovered that we were each missing a few tools every week. This went of for a couple of months. I trusted 2 of the guys, so we took turns watching the shop on a weekend from up the hill. Tony came in about midnight on Friday (we all had keys) and went in and made his rounds thru everyone's toolbox, including his own, and took a few items. Toolbox locks are to keep honest people honest. We had a little meeting Saturday and didn't invite him. Tony was late to work Monday morning because someone stole his car early that morning and ran it off a cliff near the shop. While he was in transit, someone else went into his garage and removed every tool there. When he arrived at work, the Boss was on an "errand" somewhere. Tony walked in, the big doors closed, and he got a fairly good beating and was told to leave San Diego within the week. We recovered all of our tools, and divided up the rest of his. Sometimes I wonder where Tony is, and if he learned his lesson. Then I try to teach a younger guy something useful.

One of my favorite wire brushes is similar to this:

The one I have is light blue and comes in either stainless steel or fiberglass bristles. The adjustment mechanism is exposed, unlike the one above and you also get a pocket clip. I couldn't find an exact image of it off-hand.

I bit larger version based on the same principal would be nice/cool :)

Tony's Karma, heheh. Many have needed that lesson, and somtimes they get it.

I have a memory of a Bob that was like Tony, and pretty much the same lesson, although I doubt that it cures them.

That's a really handy brush, Leon. I have one with fiberglas bristles that was in KMart's camera department many years ago, packaged as a battery contact cleaner. That's not a particularly good use for it though, because it abrades the plating off the contacts.

I've seen the metal bristle versions in catalogs with either brass, steel (or stainless). I have a bound brass bristle brush like the ones for the pen-sized tools that I've been meaning to put in a tube or pen body.. wunna these days, for about ten years, I guess.

Sometimes they need abrading, especially after batteries leak a bit :(

You have to be really careful with those fiberglass brushes. The bristle fragments like to find there way into _YOU_ and are hard to see/get out.

If Tom shows some interest in something like this we can debate dimensions and such :)

That's basically a "Pencil End Brush". There a number of domestic manufacturers make them in different sizes and materials. They are expensive because they are a bitch to make in any kind of automated way. Basically a tube with some wire crimped in.

On Thu, 08 Jan 2009 14:31:51 -0400, the infamous Leon Fisk scrawled the following:

I've been meaning to get one of these prep pens for tight corners:

should work well on wood, plastic, and metal. I'll try one of Tawm's shaggin' brushes on the next metal corner I get, too.

And I see these at HF now:

probably have untempered wires and both ends would fall off the first time you used it. Any bets? Ah dinna thin so.

-- Books are the compasses and telescopes and sextants and charts which other men have prepared to help us navigate the dangerous seas of human life. --Jesse Lee Bennett

Wonder how epoxy in the base of the tube and bristles cut so they had a curl on the end would work? Cut the bristles, curl end down into tube that had been shot with a measured amount of epoxy.

Hmm I have a few of those but not from HF. I think they came with Weller soldering pencils.

A lot are made with epoxy and the parts are primed. A crimp is optional but I prefer it.

The glass fibre one I have was originally sold as an eraser for India ink drawing errors. I have found many other uses for it over the last fifty years!

Gerry :-)} London, Canada

dont you guys ever clean your teeth????

colgate makes superb swarf cleaning brushes ...in all sortza different colours.

how do you know when it is time to buy a new toothbrush? when you need to clean your chuck.

Stealth Pilot

You might find the first type of tool at an auto supply store, and the second type used to be supplied with soldering guns like Steve mentioned. Seeing the actual item before deciding to buy it may be better than orderingit, for those that don't have a HF store nearby.

The second type is a version of a decades old style soldering aid from back in the vacuum tube days. I think GC Electronics probably still has them in their product line.

The shedding of glass fragments during use is probably why my pen-type brush has lasted so long, but I've worked with fiberglas a lot, and that keeps me aware of the possibility of getting the stuff in my skin.

The one I have is maybe 1/8 x 1/4 inch on the working end. They work really well for all sorts of misc rust cleanup/detailing.

What I would be interested in is slightly bigger. Like maybe

1/4 x 3/4 inch and 1/2 x 1 inch on the working end. The holder would be maybe 6 inches long. Could have a slot cut along the side and use a T-bolt (or Knurled knob) into the wire holder for adjustment.

I've only come across the tiny versions made like this, nothing very big. Much more than an inch in diameter though and the usefulness would decline I think.

I'm just the dreamer, not the builder ;-)

We had those in the Army for cleaning Teletype contacts. I think the phone repairmen were also issued them.

I never figured out why they included a jewelers' saw in the tool kit. Were we supposed to saw out replacement relay contacts from brass shell cases?

Jim Wilkins