Ready for the Forklift

I moved a bunch of crap around in the garage, and now there is room for my milling machine. I am freaking out for the second time in two days. Maybe I’ll freak out every day from now on.

If I use this thing five times and then sell it at a loss, it will still be fantastic. I have dreamed of this for ages. One way or the other, the story will finally have an ending.

I want to make my crab-cracking thing. I want to make the world’s first worthwhile garlic press. I have dreams about milling the heads on the Harley; supposedly the 2001 engines were manufactured so they didn’t get enough air, and you can fix it with a mill.

I watched the ATI lathe videos for a while today, while taking notes. It was fairly dull, but I paid for it, so I was determined to get my money’s worth. He ground a bunch of tools on his belt grinder. I have to give him credit. I have seen three video guys grind tools so far, and it’s always boring, but this guy seems to have the best approach. IF you don’t mind shelling out for a Burr King. That would be the hitch. You can spend like $1500 for a hotshot belt machine, or you can buy a bench grinder for under a hundred. Hmm…tough choice.

I’ll bore you with the lowdown on grinding. Rudy Kouhoupt has a video where he uses a bench grinder. He milled himself a special tool support with a sliding doodad with an arm on it which you can adjust with a protractor. You screw the doodad down and rest the tool on it as you grind. I think. It would take like a day for a skilled machinist to make his special grinding table, but when it’s done, you get tool angles that are accurate to within a degree. And your tools are probably way more accurate than they need to be.

Adrian Pendergast has a video where he walks up to a spinning grinder with no guards on it, jams a tool into it, and gives it hell. He guesses at the angles. Sparks fly all over the place. Seems to work.

Then there’s the ATI guy, who does about three times the amount of work Pendergast does, switching belts twice to get a high polish on his tools.

The Pendergast way looks pretty tempting.

Get ready for some interesting posts tomorrow.