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Anyone have equipment they'd like to donate to West Africa?

JasonPAtkins

Hot Rolled
Joined
Sep 30, 2010
Location
Guinea-Bissau, West Africa
Hey all,
I realize this is a stab in the dark, and I'm not sure if it would be more appropriate in the buy/sell forums, but...

I run a little fab and machining shop in rural West Africa (Guinea-Bissau). We operate it as a non-profit, both to train metalworkers and to build/repair stuff for other aid and relief projects that need that kind of work in a place where it's hard to find. We make everything from grade school desks to metal roof trusses to factory machines. I end up doing a lot of machining on old parts for the community since often replacements aren't available and I'm the only machine shop for 30 miles.

One of the big projects we support is a drinking water filter factory that we're setting up there in-country. Waterborne diseases are a big deal there, and the idea is to set up a factory that's self sustaining which can use local labor and local (almost completely) resources to make affordable, effective drinking water filters. My shop has modified several of the machines in use at that factory, built the factory building, and has scratch built (mostly from scrap) a couple of the other machines they're using.

So, we have a shipping container going over in the next month or two (leaving from SE Michigan), and are looking around for a few pieces to fill holes in our equipment profile. If anyone has equipment they're not using anymore, are ready to replace, or would just like to help us out with - or if you have a line on someone who might at least be willing to make us a good deal. We're a 501(c)3 and can provide a letter acknowledging the donation for tax purposes. Some of you have donated drills and a few other things in the past, and I've really appreciated it. I've been around here a while, and several of my posts have shown the kinds of work I do.

I have a few specific things we're looking for:

1) If anyone has a box of drills or taps that they're never going to get around to sharpening, I'm happy to! I'm happy to pay for USPS flat rate boxes to ship any donations of little tooling.

2) CXA toolholders - especially normal 3/4" or 1" ones (like a CXA1 or CXA1s).

3) DRO setup for my 15x48" Colchester.

4) 8' apron or finger brake. 14 gauge would be best, but 16 gauge would still let us do most of the work we'd normally do.

5) 52" or bigger kick shear, or better yet gap shear. I have a 36" kick shear, and it is endlessly frustrating that all of our sheet metal comes 40" (1 meter) wide!!! I think a 16 ga gap shear would be about perfect, because it could *almost* slit a whole 2m by 1m sheet of 16 gauge down the middle.

6) Ironworker

7) Pyramid roll profile bender (like for angle, tube, and bar)

8) A couple of lista/vidmar tooling cabinets

9) Blade coil stock - my Wells 8m uses 3/4" blades, and I use everything from 4tpi down to 18tpi.

I'm doing my best to find what I can at auctions, but being a non-profit on a shoe-string budget, it's hard to bid against shops that are going to be using the equipment to make real money, haha...

Hope this doesn't sound entitled (no one thinks *they're* the one unjustifiably expecting the world to hand them everything for free, lol) - but I think there are some people around who would like to help out with the work we're doing. So, if that's not you, no need to get mad. :)

Just to fill in some details, in case it's relevant to what anyone might be willing to send - our power is 400v/50hz/3ph, but I run lots of 460v/60hz equipment with no problem. I have a Cincinnati Toolmaster MT (NMTB40 tooling) and a Colchester Mk 1.5 15x48" lathe (mostly turn with carbide inserts, mostly steel, and a lot of it hard scrap mystery stock). This container will carry over my first cnc machining equipment, a Tree J425 mill.

If anyone has questions about what we do, what other equipment I already have, etc - I'm happy to answer, either here or in a PM.

Thanks for all of the collective wisdom this group has shared over the years!
 
I wonder if worn out inserts are something you could use to braze into tools. What voltage are hand tools like drills and grinders? 400 volts seems high for corded tools.
Bill D
 
I wonder if worn out inserts are something you could use to braze into tools. What voltage are hand tools like drills and grinders? 400 volts seems high for corded tools.
Bill D

You're right, Bill - single phase is 230v/50hz european power - but I also run 115v tranformed lines because so many of my hand electric tools are US, so I can power just about anything single phase. (It's 50hz, but it doesn't seem to matter as long as you don't run stuff too hard.)

The idea about the inserts is an interesting one, but I do wear out enough inserts on my own already to have enough of those.
 
Don't worry about seeming entitled! You are working for a legitimate non-profit with a worthy cause, not some kid looking for a handout on gofundme, and you are making it easy for people to get the stuff to you. Best of luck!

One quick thought you may have already had is that you can probably search anywhere in the US on craigslist for stuff you want and people here could probably pick it up and ship it to MI for you.
 
My wife was once in the Peace Corps in West Africa. Coincidentally, she and I recently returned from an overland trip from Cape Town to Nairobi. I applaud your efforts! I suggest that this could be another solution for the what-to-do-with-my-shop problem faced by aging enthusiasts.

Let's go another step. Let's say I wanted to donate an ironworker. Since I live on the West Coast, I would obviously have to ship it to SE Michigan. To whom should it be shipped? Should I make contact with them and let them know it's coming? Practical details, please.

I was once building a meat smoker on a trailer (I started with a 120 gallon air tank.) I did a lot of the work in my driveway, using a small 230 volt MIG welder made by Lincoln. The lot next to my driveway was being developed at the time and one of the workers for the landscape company was extraordinarily interested in how I was building the smoker. He was from (I think) Central America and planned to return soon. He came by on weekends and evenings and asked a million questions. He lusted after that little welder almost palpably. I was tempted to give it to him at the time. Maybe I should have!

metalmagpie
 
Wonder if that old cable and switch gear we all have kicking around could help out? Three phase breaker boxes can get expensive fast. Of course it helps if then breakers are a make available in your country.
Bill D.
 
My wife was once in the Peace Corps in West Africa. Coincidentally, she and I recently returned from an overland trip from Cape Town to Nairobi. I applaud your efforts! I suggest that this could be another solution for the what-to-do-with-my-shop problem faced by aging enthusiasts.

Let's go another step. Let's say I wanted to donate an ironworker. Since I live on the West Coast, I would obviously have to ship it to SE Michigan. To whom should it be shipped? Should I make contact with them and let them know it's coming? Practical details, please.

I was once building a meat smoker on a trailer (I started with a 120 gallon air tank.) I did a lot of the work in my driveway, using a small 230 volt MIG welder made by Lincoln. The lot next to my driveway was being developed at the time and one of the workers for the landscape company was extraordinarily interested in how I was building the smoker. He was from (I think) Central America and planned to return soon. He came by on weekends and evenings and asked a million questions. He lusted after that little welder almost palpably. I was tempted to give it to him at the time. Maybe I should have!

metalmagpie

Yep, good equipment sure is enthralling in a place where there isn't much of it. I've been fortunate (and spent a lot of time) mining auctions here in MI (which, unfortunately for the economy here, there have been a lot of over the last decade). I've got good Miller and Lincoln welders, several of them 3 phase machines that I got for a song. You should see some of the welders being used in the country where I am, away from my shop though. We once had a truck break down in maybe the 4th biggest city in the country, and the best welder we could find to repair it out there took 20 minutes just to get his welder/generator to start, and then couldn't maintain an arc for anything other than tack-tack-tack. Made me glad to get back to my shop, haha... The worst part about that episode was that my Lincoln Ranger was on that truck, but it would've taken hours to unload the truck enough by hand to get down to the job box that had the leads shut inside it, haha...

Yes, we would be happy to give an ironworker a good home and keep it busy! I have a couple of different shops around me that are willing to let me use their loading dock and forklift, so anything like that could be sent to them. I'll PM you the address, if you decide to go forward with it (and we'd definitely appreciate it, if so!). Yes, I should alert them that something's on the way, and be ready to go pick it up when it arrives, because their shop is bursting at the seams already, haha...
 
Wonder if that old cable and switch gear we all have kicking around could help out? Three phase breaker boxes can get expensive fast. Of course it helps if then breakers are a make available in your country.
Bill D.

I'm not sure if it's the European way that was brought to Africa, or just the African way, but all of our building breakers are DIN-mount breakers.

I am usually able to pick American 3ph disconnect boxes up here for not too much by watching the auctions. I do have a small collection of those ready to send over as machine disconnects.
 
Don't worry about seeming entitled! You are working for a legitimate non-profit with a worthy cause, not some kid looking for a handout on gofundme, and you are making it easy for people to get the stuff to you. Best of luck!

One quick thought you may have already had is that you can probably search anywhere in the US on craigslist for stuff you want and people here could probably pick it up and ship it to MI for you.

That's an interesting idea, for sure. Perhaps if anyone was interested in offering that, they could let me know where they are, so I could start watching the CL posts there along with the MI ones I'm watching?
 
It sounds fascinating to live in west Africa. How stable is your power grid. Is the country safe and what is it like to live there.
 
It sounds fascinating to live in west Africa. How stable is your power grid. Is the country safe and what is it like to live there.

Guinea-Bissau is underdeveloped, even by West African standards, so things are a little different in the countries around us. Where we are, though, there is no power grid to speak of outside the capitol. The grid there is unpredictable, but has been on more than off for the last few years. Outside the capital, the only "grid" is generators, sometimes in neighborhood co-ops. In our town (one of the 10 biggest), there are a couple of neighborhood private generators that supply power to houses through a hodgepodge of wires strung on whatever tree or pole is handy. It's very unreliable, and no way it could power a machine shop. I operate completely from a big off-grid solar power system. The sun is the most reliable thing going where we are. :)

It's quite safe from petty theft except for a few specific times and places. There have been a lot of coups over the time I've been there, we had to evacuate once. The last few years have been better though, since there are west african peacekeeping troops there keeping the military in check. The instability kills development. It's a hard place to work, but the people of the country are very welcoming.
 
Guinea-Bissau is underdeveloped, even by West African standards, so things are a little different in the countries around us. Where we are, though, there is no power grid to speak of outside the capitol. The grid there is unpredictable, but has been on more than off for the last few years. Outside the capital, the only "grid" is generators, sometimes in neighborhood co-ops. In our town (one of the 10 biggest), there are a couple of neighborhood private generators that supply power to houses through a hodgepodge of wires strung on whatever tree or pole is handy. It's very unreliable, and no way it could power a machine shop. I operate completely from a big off-grid solar power system. The sun is the most reliable thing going where we are. :)

It's quite safe from petty theft except for a few specific times and places. There have been a lot of coups over the time I've been there, we had to evacuate once. The last few years have been better though, since there are west african peacekeeping troops there keeping the military in check. The instability kills development. It's a hard place to work, but the people of the country are very welcoming.

Our grid is also unreliable here in S Africa. We have gone from one of the cheapest most reliable power supplies to a grid that is close to collapse due to corruption. I ask because I live in a very violent country and need a place to find a new county to live in. Would you make it home ? Is it beautiful.?

You must have one hell of a solar farm to be able to run a shop.
 
Our grid is also unreliable here in S Africa. We have gone from one of the cheapest most reliable power supplies to a grid that is close to collapse due to corruption. I ask because I live in a very violent country and need a place to find a new county to live in. Would you make it home ? Is it beautiful.?

You must have one hell of a solar farm to be able to run a shop.

I don't know what your part of SA is like, but from conversations with others from SA, I don't think you know what unreliable means, lol. We only even *have* a grid in the capitol.

We don't have the kind of crime parts of SA have, but while you're less likely to die by being stabbed, you're far *more* likely to die by an infection you pick up at the extremely underfunded and poorly run hospitals.

It is beautiful here, but I don't think it has anything on the pictures I've seen of SA.
 
It's interesting to think of what we take for granted in the US...like electricity.

If you pm me your address in Michigan I can send some consumables.
 
About the finger brake...IIRC you have built a CNC plasma ?

Maybe import materials more, and build what you need locally.

Can you get by with a press brake ?

Many examples of home made press brakes using a couple of bottle jacks
(up acting would work nicely in your situation 8' long) and large threaded rod (make these on the lathe maybe 1 1/4" dia.) as depth stops.

Dies can be a simple set of plates set apart "air bending", and the punch can be simply piece of plate on edge.
 
About the finger brake...IIRC you have built a CNC plasma ?

Maybe import materials more, and build what you need locally.

Can you get by with a press brake ?

Many examples of home made press brakes using a couple of bottle jacks
(up acting would work nicely in your situation 8' long) and large threaded rod (make these on the lathe maybe 1 1/4" dia.) as depth stops.

Dies can be a simple set of plates set apart "air bending", and the punch can be simply piece of plate on edge.

Yes, you're right, Doug - I did make a 5x10' CNC plasma, and have started designing a hydraulic press brake. I have tooling over there for it already, actually, that was donated. If I have to, I will eventually get around to making it - but I've started realizing that while I have fun making tools, the time I spend making those is time I'm not spending helping people. I can buy equipment here that saves me the time of making it over there, and doing so frees up my time to make things that can't just be bought over there.

The principal thing that's held this project up over there is finding enough plate. It's not that easy for me to find good plate - I'd probably end up weld-laminating a bunch of rusty 1/4" plate scavenged from ship hulls to get up to the 1-1/2" or so I'd need for the uppers and lowers.

I do like making tools for the shop - I just have to be careful not to spend time doing that which I should be spending doing something else that can't be bought off the shelf.

Of course, I realize that we all have to balance time vs money, right?
 








 
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