Wall-Mounting Clips for Oil Cans?

[Pete W.]

Hi there, all,

I've mentioned elsewhere that I'm doing a few improvements to my workshop.  One of these is to mount some commonly used tools and lathe accessories on the workshop wall behing the lathe.

I have a couple of Wesco pump oil-cans and I'm sure that the Wesco product range used to include wall-mounting clips for their oil-cans.  A Google search for those clips didn't get any hits.

I don't want to use Terry-style tool-clips for the oil-cans.  Has anyone seen any of these clips recently? 

[awemawson]

Rare Earth magnets are remarkably useful for such things. You can get them with a countersunk hole in the middle making mounting easy. Two in a vertical line work best for oil cans: ebay abounds with them.

[flutedchamber]

I use conduit hangers.  They come in all sizes, up to 6 inch or more.  There is quite a range of adjustment so you can tailor it to your oil can size.  I even use them to hold my grease guns.  Any decent electrical supply store should have them for not much money.

[Eugene]

Pete,

I hesitate to comment because I'm very much a novice at all this, but would there not be a hazard in reaching for tools or oil cans behind the lathe? You'd have to be very punctilious about stopping it before doing so. I had just this in mind when I was building my own tool storage cabinet(s), which are indeed on the rear wall but well to the side.

Eug

[garym]

Hi Pete,

Screwfix do the spring clips:

http://www.screwfix.com/c/screws-nails-fixings/hose-tool-clips/cat840130

One of the first and best things I did when converting garage to workshop was to mount commonly used tools on the wall behind the bench.

edit: sorry I read it as "I want to use Terry clips......"

Gary

[Pete W.]

Hi there, Fluted Chamber, Eugene and Gary,

Thank you for your posts.

Fluted Chamber, are you in the UK?  I've spent my working life in the UK electrical and electronic engineering industries and I've never seen conduit clips like the one in your picture.  I have seen clips like that for mounting large hi-power wirewound resistors.

Eugene, the tools I'm planning to mount behind the lathe are all items that, of necessity, require the lathe to be stopped before they're fitted.  The 'wall-zone' concerned is behind the tail-stock end of the lathe - the motorising unit & counter-shaft clutch take up most of the space behind the head-stock end.

Gary, the tools to which you linked are clones of the Terry tool-clips I mentioned in my original post.  I do have a stock of them in various sizes and I shall use them for such items as the draw-bar for my Clarkson chuck and the 'bumper-bar' I use to expel Morse Taper items from the head- or tail-stock.

I just have a yen to use Wesco clips for Wesco oil cans.

Slightly  but I've recently filled the ML7 QC Gear-box with SAE 30 oil using one of these:



It did the job fine but now it's an oily fluff & grit magnet!!          
How do you guys store yours when it's off-duty?  I suppose I could put it in a polythene bag and sneak it into the cupboard under the kitchen sink!         

[awemawson]

I somehow have ended up with two of those nightmares 

OK they function just about if you need to suck oil out of inaccessible places, or squirt it into filling holes where the designer didn't think you'd need to be a contortionist.  However they leak horribly, and oil passes the seal in the plunger and gets above the plunger, so when you pull it up it squirts oil from the 'gland'  They also drip oil for hours after use.

Mine live in a plastic crate along with a couple of big grease guns, and needless to say the bottom of the crate is horrid !

[Sid_Vicious]

The oil syringe pictured is a nightmare to use, the only way I have had some luck with it  is to screw it apart and let the seal on the plunge sit in oil for a couple of days before use. Then the seal is so full of oil it actually seals.
Another solution is to go to a drugstore and buy some really big syringes and put a piece of hose on it. The biggest I can get locally is 50cc so if there is much oil that shall go into the machine I would try alternative one.  But to not have the oil dripping after use tie the hose up against the body with a strips and hang it up on the wall.

[Pete W.]

Hi there, Andrew and Sid, thank you for your posts.

SNIP
Another solution is to go to a drugstore and buy some really big syringes and put a piece of hose on it.
SNIP

Sid, I don't think my oil syringe can be dismantled.
Your post reminded me of a drugstore experience - I really should have known better!!  One of my other hobbies/interests/vices is microscopy.  Someone wrote in one of the microscopy magazines that hypodermic syringe needles were really good to use as probes to move parts of specimens about while mounting them on slides.  Next time I was in our local branch of Boots I approached the pharmacy counter and naively asked if they sold hypodermic needles.  The result resembled the scene you get when you lift a paving slab off an ants' nest, but scaled-up to human dimensions!  I took it that the answer was 'no'!

Some months later, I had a short spell in hospital and on discharge was sent home with a handful of syringes pre-loaded with heparin and a sharps receptacle for their safe disposal after use.  Needless to say, none of the syringes got into the sharps receptacle - they're all in the microscopy tools box!

We did experiment with refilling our own printer ink cartridges - the refill kits come with syringes and needles, too small to use to fill my QC gear-box though.   

[Lew_Merrick_PE]

Your post reminded me of a drugstore experience - I really should have known better!!  One of my other hobbies/interests/vices is microscopy.  Someone wrote in one of the microscopy magazines that hypodermic syringe needles were really good to use as probes to move parts of specimens about while mounting them on slides.  Next time I was in our local branch of Boots I approached the pharmacy counter and naively asked if they sold hypodermic needles.  The result resembled the scene you get when you lift a paving slab off an ants' nest, but scaled-up to human dimensions!  I took it that the answer was 'no'!

Here in the U.S. such "responses" are common in pharmacies and clinics.  However, veterinarian's do not seem to have such an immediate call the cops response.  I normally get large bore sharps for injecting adhesives from my local vet hospital.

[flutedchamber]

"Fluted Chamber, are you in the UK?  I've spent my working life in the UK electrical and electronic engineering industries and I've never seen conduit clips like the one in your picture.  I have seen clips like that for mounting large hi-power wirewound resistors."

No, I'm in the US.  I always thought those clips were used worldwide.  I learned something today

[Pete W.]

Hi there, Fluted Chamber,

The type of conduit clamp most commonly used in the UK is the 'spacer bar saddle clip', it looks like this:  http://www.tlc-direct.co.uk/Products/CO20SAD.html 

The one pictured is enamel finish, they also come galvanised.  The spacer bar (or base-plate) sets the conduit off the mounting surface by a standard distance that corresponds to the position of the semi-pierced knock-outs in the back boxes for the switches and sockets (aka 'receptacles'?).  There's also a faired-off or streamlined version called, I think, a 'hospital pattern' clip.  That has minimal nooks and crannies to trap dirt and bacteria.  Then again, maybe I'm getting mixed up with plumbing pipe fixings about that one?

There are also a couple of ranges of plastic conduit with accompanying plastic saddle clips, couplers, elbows, etc., etc..

I wasn't a professional electrician but I have installed a few lengths of conduit in my time.  When I was learning (by watching a 'proper' electrician working nearby instead of attending to my own job!) the lubricant for cutting the threads on the ends of the conduit was tallow or beef dripping - nowadays it's something much more chemical that has a hazchem rating ('do not dispose of in drains or water courses'!) 

[Bluechip]

There's also a faired-off or streamlined version called, I think, a 'hospital pattern' clip.  That has minimal nooks and crannies to trap dirt and bacteria.  Then again, maybe I'm getting mixed up with plumbing pipe fixings about that one?

You're right. That's what they were called. Galvanised or occasionally stainless for really posh jobs .

Brings back memories of stinking rancid tallow infesting my overalls.  And two skinny trainees trying to screw-cut 2" stainless solid drawn conduit with Easterbrook Ratchet dies. Purple in the face, gasping for breath and eyeballs sticking out like a racing dog's goolies and we'd only managed two threads ... 

Long time ago .... 

Dave

[krv3000]

hi well just a tip don.t go in to big cemist stors  just go to your lockel one and xplane it helps if you tack sum refrence materale with you ie a book or a magasen and xplane wat you intend to use the items you are after for  i got sun cemicels for blacking steel from mine and she was very hepful as most of the cemicels listed in the book that i had was ether band or nonegsistent