Welcome to opalholicsanonymous.com where opal season lasts forever.

Pink, this is the Hillquist automatic gem drill. When working properly, it automatically raises & lowers the drill to allow clearing grit from the hole, and coolant water to run into the hole. This one needs new round belts and a new spring. I'll probably never use it. I just want to restore it and put it on display with some other vintage equipment & supplies I have. You can guess the age of this piece by the grease cups on both ends.



Don't know if my wife will share me. I've been tearing things apart & putting them back together since I was old enough to open the old mans tool box. Just natural curiosity I guess. I love seeing what makes things work, and seeing if I can make broken things work again.

Got the motor for my cabber rebuild all wired today. Waiting for a dry day to soda blast the machine down to bare metal. Drizzled all day today. High humidity & soda blasting don't mix.

This Soda blast goes well with high heat & humidity.

LOL. you can keep the humidity.

Bump Wheel. there's no rubber or sanding strip on this one. At about 2:00 on the picture is a slot which runs all the way across the wheel. Next to it on the inside of the wheel is what looks like a bolt. This bolt also has a slot in it. One end of a sanding strip goes through the slotted rim and through the bolt. The strip is then wrapped around the wheel and the other end is pushed through the slot & bolt. The bolt is turned with a screw driver to tighten the strip around the outside of the wheel. A lock nut is tightened to lock the strip in place. After tightening the belt there is a small gap between the ends of the belt. In use, this causes a slight bump to be felt while sanding. Thus the name "bump wheel".

Ahhh, the good old fashioned bump wheel!
Thanks for showing us!

Does it bring back memories ? Posted it to show Pinkdiamond what a bump wheel looked like.

Oh yes, it does.

This was the first wheel I ever used back in the day, I remember my hands tingling after using it from all the constant vibration.

Yup. I cut my cabbing teeth on SC grinding wheels & bump wheels too. Those were the good old days. These youngsters have got it too easy with their diamond wheels to learn on.

Thanks so much for showing me that. Do many cutters still use bump wheels?