Get me a Cat so I Can Beat a Rug With It

I got my Smartflix account started. I tried to rent a series of videos on big machine tools, but the Smartflix site is confusing; it lacks the typical, logical, flow chart structure. I ended up with the wrong videos in my queue, and I assume it was because I got mixed up and clicked on the wrong thing. The people at Smartflix were very nice about it and changed my queue. I still got three DVDs from Swarfrat because I didn’t get the queue changed in time to prevent Smartflix from sending them to me.

Swarfrat.com is a site for mini-machine-tool enthusiasts.

I don’t plan to get small machine tools, but the videos were here, and I knew they would be great entertainment, so I watched a couple anyway. It’s wonderful stuff. They start out with shop safety, which is something that needs to be beaten into all of us over and over. And then they present the machines, including crucial but non-glamorous topics like layout.

The guy who emcees the videos popped up during the FBI warning on one of the DVDs and said Swarfrat wasn’t too thrilled about rental outfits distributing their material. That was pretty funny. He said you can go to their site and rent the DVDs, and that if you buy, Swarfrat will apply the rental fees to the DVD cost. Whatever. I don’t want to get caught up in federal tort litigation. I just want to lie back and watch other tool nerds make chips.

Oddly, the Swarfrat DVDs have the same problem the Smartflix site has. The menus don’t work well. I’m still not sure I managed to see everything. They need a “scene selection” feature.

I can’t tell you how much I enjoyed this stuff. I love my woodworking DVDs, but this stuff is even better. There is something more mysterious and seemingly forbidden about machining. So few men can do it. How many machinists do you know? Okay, bad question. My readers will say things like “500.” But normal human beings don’t know many. Yet everyone knows several woodworkers, provided you use the term “woodworker” loosely.

The Swarfrat dude is a motorcycle lover, and he demonstrated toolmaking skills by making tools to take old bikes apart. This is exactly the kind of thing that gets me excited about tools. Every man runs into problems he can’t fix because he doesn’t own the secret, bizarre tools he needs. He may be completely unaware that such tools exist. And what could be better than using tools…to make tools? It’s like having a breeder reactor.

He made some T-handled items for pulling and pushing things out of motorcycle parts. They had brass things on them. It’s hard to describe. Let’s say you want to push something. You make a threaded brass deal which goes around your threaded tool. One set of threads on the brass thing attaches to a motorcycle part. The other set of threads is what the shaft of your tool runs through. You attach the brass thing to a part, and you turn the handle, rotating the shaft of the tool, which pushes it into whatever you want to push.

It was beautiful. Watching the crappy brass stock turn on the lathe was like watching ballet. Except that I hate ballet. It started out as a drab brownish cylinder, and as it turned, bright, glossy brass emerged. And when he knurled the brass part, I felt like standing up and applauding, as a representative of all men who know nothing about tools and can’t make anything.

One thing upset me. He used a TIG welder, and he kept talking about how much control it gives you and so on. ENOUGH. I am not getting a TIG welder. They cost like forty million dollars. Although…hmm…oxy-acetylene is much cheaper, and supposedly it does lots of stuff…

I wish the King of Swamp Castle would come in here right now and yell “NO MORE TALKING ABOUT BUYING TOOLS!”

LANCELOT: You see, I thought your son…was a lady.

KING: I can understand that.

I wish there was a tiny welder out there that gave me amazing control for welding small stuff. NO I DON’T. FORGET I SAID THAT. It probably exists and costs ten thousand dollars.

What does it matter? When the Obama Depression kicks into full gear, we’ll all be lucky if we have a hoe and a crescent wrench.

I am stalling on getting a lathe and a mill because I’m convinced that within a month or so, a wave of companies will fail, and used tools that now sell for X will sell for X/2. People will sell them for scrap because the shipping costs will be more than the tools are worth. Or we’ll just set them up in vacant lots and worship them as idols, while we grovel for filth like Denis the Anarcho-Syndicalist Peasant. Not to be confused with Dennis the Blogging Peasant, who is having a ton of fun dissecting Roger Simon’s strange new book. He notes that one or two of Simon’s claims seem to be maybe not totally consistent with the truth. To put it kindly. Which Dennis doesn’t.

I think the Dark Ages are coming back, and we’re all going to live like the people in Mad Max. Everyone, not just the folks in San Francisco.

I’ll need a mohawk and a crossbow.

Get yourself some of these fine machining DVDs. While we still have electricity.