Confirmation?

A huge pile of machining stuff will arrive today. Enco shipped the vise separately, so I don’t know when it’s coming, but at some point during the day, I will find myself in possession of things like parallels and 1-2-3 blocks. I can’t believe I did this.

There has to be a reason for this. It’s so strange; it doesn’t seem natural. I hope the purpose eventually becomes clear. In the meantime, I can’t wait to get started.

I started reading Josephus yesterday. He wrote a short autobiography, a history of the Jews, and a history of the wars between the Jews and Romans. The bio was like something Barack Obama would write. “I first realized I was a gift to the world when my mom told me the nurses in the maternity ward had used my halo as a reading lamp.” I skipped it and went to The Antiquities of the Jews.

This is interesting stuff. Josephus was the son of a priest, and he was born at around the time of the crucifixion. He had to be familiar with the Babylonian Talmud and the Jerusalem Talmud, as well as any other bits of history and wisdom the priests passed down to their sons.

Josephus says the angels had sex with women and gave rise to a race of evil people.

The modern Jewish position is that angels can’t do things like that. Most Christians agree. The book of Enoch, Josephus, and the book of Jasher contradict the current view. So who is right? Maybe the answer can be found in a principle of Jewish theology, which says–I hope I’m stating this correctly–that older authorities generally outweigh new ones.

Josephus presumably had some reason for making his assertion. A Jewish priest who was proud of his scholarship wouldn’t throw an item like that out without some basis. He must have received his information from those under whom he studied.

The Talmud is supposedly nearly impenetrable without experienced guidance, and presumably, a lot of orally relayed information that was known in ancient times has been lost. But it makes sense to assume that it can be accessed indirectly through the writings of people like Josephus.

I have to wonder what he left out.

Anyway, this tends to confirm my own suspicions, and it certainly helps the Bible (both testaments) make sense.

I better get started, wiring up the garage for the mill.

Give me Your Opinions

I ground a lathe tool. I just eyeballed it; I am hoping the guys who say the angles aren’t critical are right. It only took me forty-five minutes of intense effort. Think it will work?

76.Something

I might as well put up the stuff I wrote before I found out Mish Weiss was having a new medical crisis.

I received a funny answer to an Ebay inquiry. I asked a guy selling a mill if he had photos of the ways. He got back to me today: “I didn’t get a chance to take pictures of the table or ways but there is really no reason to as they will appear as new with the exception of a light use patina. No gouges, holes or any sign of wear.”

I love it. I don’t need to see the ways, because he has seen them. That’s what I call service. You don’t need to verify the condition of this guy’s merchandise to keep him from cheating you, because he’ll verify it for you. I’m sure he would be completely honest.

If you think Ebay protects you from crooks, think again. If you read the fine print in the Paypal “fraud protection” stuff, you will find that it boils down to “It is just barely conceivable that we will refund an inadequate portion of your money if you get royally screwed. But we will do our best to avoid it.”

Say you buy a milling machine for a thousand dollars (one of those imaginary low-mileage Bridgeports I keep hearing about), and you have it shipped for twelve hundred, which is a realistic figure (unlike the mill price). If it’s junk, you get a full refund. If you ship it back at your own expense. What a deal! And depending on the language in the ad, you may not get your original shipping fee back. And unless you’re very careful about checking the fine print before you buy, you may end up getting an item with no protection whatsoever.

I’m not sure what the EbayPal folks think “Buy With Confidence” means, but it definitely doesn’t mean you can buy with confidence, unless “confidence” means “confidence that I have no recourse if I get screwed.”

The new insulation in the garage worked. The result, when the AC is on, isn’t so much a lower temperature as a gentler temperature gradient. It used to be cold on one side of the garage and warm on the other, over by the garage doors. Now it’s cool all over.

With no AC, the picture is still very promising. I went in to the garage this morning; the outside temperature was around 85. Inside the garage, it was under 77. Amazing. I always thought the roof was the big heat source, but I guess I was mistaken. I was afraid heat would come in through the roof, and the insulated doors would hold it in, turning the garage into a Bridge-Over-the-River-Kwai-type oven. But that didn’t happen, so the roof must be the lesser problem.

I’m wondering if there is some kind of cheap rigid insulation I could staple to the roof. Putting rolls of fiberglass up there would be a month in hell, but there is probably some board-type product that goes on with staples and does an okay job. I know there are spray-on products. I can just picture that crap raining down on my tools.

Maybe it’s overkill. The roof is white, so it reflects a lot of heat, and hot air likes to rise, so maybe the open space over my head is not a big problem. A guy who worked in commercial real estate once told me that square footage was more important than a room’s height. I don’t know if that’s true.

After I get done praying for Mish, I’m going to go out there and just…not sweat.

The Great Wall was Nothing

I have succeeded in creating an insulated garage. Kneel before my tool prowess.

Now I have to see if it gets any cooler.

Fiber is my Middle Name

There is a lizard in the kitchen.

Yesterday I harvested a bunch of Orinoco bananas from the yard. I cut the stem and left the bunch outside. Banana trees are full of sap similar to latex, and I knew it would drip out of the cut and turn into glue wherever it landed. This morning I brought the bunch in and cut the hands off on the kitchen counter.

While I was cutting, I thought I saw something shoot out of the bunch and into a cluster of canisters. Big roach? I dismissed it. Probably my imagination.

As I cut, I saw movement under the bunch. I lifted it, and there on the counter I saw a lizard tail, squirming and jumping. But no lizard. Gross. I figured I had cut the lizard up with the knife, and that the rest of it would eventually fall out of the bunch. I eventually realized the lizard was not in the bunch. He must have been the mysterious moving object. I probably trapped his tail under the bananas, pulling it loose.

So now he is in the kitchen somewhere, grousing about having to grow a new tail. His old one is in the garbage disposal.

I actually got a few mangoes this year, and boy are they good. The best mangoes imaginable. It’s almost like eating ice cream.

I will never understand why people raise the big round bland varieties, like Hadens and Tommy Atkins. My trees are Carries. Infinitely superior. The mangoes never turn red; maybe that makes them less appealing to growers. The best varieties are green and yellow, but they don’t catch they eye in a produce aisle.

Last year the squirrels cut all the mangoes off, without exception, and the possums ate them. Green. We still have squirrels and possums, but the mangoes have been spared. And it looks like I’m going to have a good first-year crop of ponkans, which are loose-skinned tangerines. What a relief. I was starting to wonder if I would ever get fruit other than Persian and key limes.

I also have a big pepper crop, including a lot of Trinidad Scorpions. How many of my neighbors have those? Very few, I’ll wager. They would combine well with mangoes. And my dragonfruit cactus has several tiny fruit on it. Those things are fantastic. What kiwis would be, if they succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. When they mature, they should be about the size of a navel orange.

The tool news is good. I finally have everything I need to do basic machining. Or at least it’s on the way. I went with a Parlec vise instead of a Kurt D675. The price difference is small, but the design has some improvements, including a bigger screw, a wider opening, and more clamping pressure. Machinists speak highly of them, so I don’t think it’s much of a gamble. The manufacture is Taiwanese, and the design is American.

A new Kurt is a little over $400. People said I should buy a used one, but the prices are insane. You can get one for $200, if you don’t mind holes and worn jaws and missing paint. That’s just stupid. If a product sells new for $400, a good used example should be $150, and a risky piece of junk like the ones on Ebay should cost $75. Some used tools tend to be very reasonable; I got a beautiful Jacobs Super Chuck for $50, and you can get a nice Albrecht for twice that. But used Kurt vises are generally a ripoff.

I bought fly cutters, a small set of import end mills, the chuck, an arbor for the chuck, collets, parallels, 1-2-3 blocks, edge-finding stuff, a 1/8″ corner-rounding mill, a roughing mill, some blanks for the fly cutters, a clamping set, and a few other doodads. A lot of this stuff was dirt cheap. The vise is what killed me.

I emailed the mill dealer and asked if I should go for the optional work light, but he said they’re overpriced and not as good as a light with a magnetic base.

I drove myself crazy yesterday trying to find good deals. I keep feeling guilty for buying a mill. But I know that’s stupid. It will have no effect on my financial future, and it’s something I’ve dreamed about for decades.

I have to finish insulating the garage today. Then maybe I can try to grind some turning tools. It looks like I should get a few new tool holders for the Phase II tool post. Otherwise I’ll have to switch tools all the time, which will be a pain. The post came with five tool holders, and two (the 201 and 202 holders) look exactly the same. It would be nice to have a few extras, but right now, I am equipped to use the lathe. I even have Ridgid oil for the mill.

I forgot to buy V-blocks. Guess I will put them on the list with the tool holders.

I was an idiot to buy that old lathe. If I ever get a chance to replace it, I’m going Taiwanese. Unless it surprises me and turns out to be a jewel.

The mill should arrive next week, I guess. That means moving the compressor and running 30 feet of conduit over the garage rafters. Fun. A compressor is a hard thing to move because it rests on little feet a good distance apart. You can’t shove pipes under it and push. I have a Genie Lift, but it’s not really right for a compressor. I may have to give up and scoot the compressor on the concrete.

I have an idea for a writing project. I was thinking I might write a bunch of essays explaining why I’m a Christian. I am not a bona fide teacher or leader. The Bible describes qualifications for clergymen, and it’s not me. Established married men, with good habits and so on. But anyone can give a testimony. Something to think about.

Better get in the garage and get the insulating over with.

Parting Works!

I parted one of my aluminum bars tonight. I guess that will seem boring to most people, but I was in the garage for three hours, and they passed like ten minutes. I had a blast.

I fixed up most of the wiring on the lathe so I could push it back against the wall. This is not something you want to do every day with an 1100-pound machine. I had left the machine pretty far out because the wiring wasn’t done.

I decided to use plain old Alumaflex conduit instead of the expensive waterproof stuff. The upper end of the conduit was going to be open toward the front of the lathe, so it wasn’t going to stop fluids, and I have no plans to hose down the lathe anyway. And I already had a box of conduit.

I tried out my new 11″ back plate to see if it would clear the metal panel I made for the VFD, and I had like an inch of clearance. More than enough. That was a good Ebay score.

Once I got the lathe back closer to the wall, I decided it was time to try out the parting advice I had received. I tried indicating the 8″ aluminum bar, but just like last time, it was hopeless. It’s so heavy the weight pulls it out of line when you loosen the chuck jaws. I had to give up and mount the three-jaw chuck. Carrying that 4-jaw job around and holding it while trying to get the spindle threads to catch is not much fun, so I really did not want to take it off.

I mounted my new cobalt blade in my toolpost with around 1 1/4″ extending out. I had to do that, because the work was 2″ thick. I put the lathe in back gear, got the angle as close to 90° as I could, and fired the motor up.

My only problem was that the blade wasn’t rigid enough to cut perfectly. When I got close to the center of the work, the blade flexed enough to sink under the work and leave a 1/8″ nipple on it. I suppose this is only a problem when you part something fairly thick.

I’ve been told to avoid parting things, because it’s slow and likely to break tools and mess up workpieces. I may get a cheapo portable band saw. There is no way I’d use my wood band saw on aluminum. I’d have to get a special blade and change the speed, and it would be a pain. The saw is supposed to be good for both wood and metal, but that doesn’t mean I have to use it on metal.

When the parting was done, I put a new face on the work with an AR tool. The face was gorgeous. You couldn’t get a prettier finish without polishing it. Then I turned the dial two thousandths and turned the whole cylinder down, to within 1/8″ of the chuck. I did this at about 1350 RPMs. The finish was not good. Lots of vertical lines. Maybe this is not the best tool for the job. I could grind a radiused HSS tool. I guess if I moved slower, the finish would be better, but it would take a week to go three inches.

I turned the post 45° and chamfered the work with the AR tool. I hope that’s kosher.

I love machining. It’s as much fun as using a good table saw, only without the sawdust.

I have to find out whether turning the dial one thousandth reduces the diameter by one thousandth or two. I didn’t see that information in the manual. I guess the calipers will tell me.

Crap Gone, Footrest Installed

Here’s a big shock. I’m currently feeling extremely smug.

But I have a good reason this time. I used tools competently again.

My dad had a problem on his boat. He had a helm chair with a footrest attached to the stanchion with a sliding aluminum collar. The footrest was toast, and the collar refused to come off. I posted about it here earlier.

He wanted to cut it off, but I insisted I had a better idea. I had a bunch of threaded rod and some scrap lumber. I cut a few holes, put it all together and ended up with this (now I have to see if the camera-phone photos worked):

I’ll bet everyone wants to know where to get a pair of boat shoes like that. I think Dad got the only pair made. You can also bowl in them.

That’s a better view.

I cut three pieces of threaded rod, attached nuts and washers, ran the rod through three holes in a piece of scrap wood, attached the rods to the collar, and used a wrench to raise the collar. The stupid thing didn’t loosen enough to slide, so I had to keep turning until it was way up the stanchion. Then I used a hammer, banging the underside of the wood. I would say it took 15 minutes, but it didn’t involve much exertion, it didn’t damage anything, and it spared the [admittedly worthless] parts.

Here is the new footrest. I really like Garelick helm seats and footrests. The old ones were Pompanettes. Pompanette makes horrible crap, at Bentley prices.

I had a better idea for a tool that would let me use an impact driver on a single bolt, but it didn’t occur to me until I was already at the boat, and it would have involved more parts, and it probably would not have raised the collar enough.

Dad was impressed. As if I had perfected cold fusion.

Smugness surrounds me like a warm, fluffly blanket. If you’ve ever worked on a big boat, you know how satisfying it is to defeat it when it tries to make your life hell with an insoluble problem.

His big Garmin GPS has a problem. When you turn it on, you have to hold the power button down to keep the power on. It shuts off as soon as you release it. Garmin suggested a factory reset technique, but it didn’t work. Helpful nerds are encouraged to opine. A repair costs $350 plus shipping.

The Transformation is Complete

I am completely out of my mind. I ordered a milling machine. I mean, a MILLING MACHINE. Like a cast-iron Tyrannosaurus with an electric mixer where its head should be. I may have to take the motor off to get it in the garage.

I think I did good. I got Taiwanese, with a Chinese DRO and an X power feed. I was going to get a step pulley head, but the distributor shafted my dealer by selling the last pulley machine while we were working on the deal, so they cut him a nice break on a vari-speed machine. It’s a little more expensive, but not much. And I didn’t have to get the coolant system, which I didn’t want, and which was part of the vari-speed package.

I decided not to go with the rigger my dad represents. For one thing, they procrastinated about getting back to him (I had him call), and for another, I don’t think it’s a great idea to have Teamsters who hate my father deliver an expensive object to my home, where they can take a long, leisurely look at my other tools and decide which ones would look better in their garages.

I found a guy who was very helpful on the phone, and who seems professional. He’ll take delivery and bring the mill here for a good price. He’s insured. He will check the mill for damage when it arrives, so I don’t have to. Great. I always make things harder than they have to be, so this is a nice change.

The motor may have to come off. The mill is very nearly the same height as the garage opening. I alerted the seller and the rigger. We’ll see what solution they propose. For all I know, the rigger has a giant machine that can turn a one-ton mill sideways.

What on earth is wrong with me? I guess once you embrace your own eccentricity, nothing is impossible.

On the up side, I really can’t imagine buying another expensive tool. Because now I have one of each. There will always be little tools I’ll want, but no more giant iron hulks.

Man. I have to get a vise, plus some cutters, collets, parallels, and maybe a clamping set. And an edgefinding set, I suppose.

Small strokes.

Tomorrow I’ll try to find time to see if the parting blades I ordered work. If so, it’s lathe party time.

Thanks, everyone who gave me advice.

It Behooves You to Use the Right Thing

I have some lathe tooling on the way, so I’ll finally be able to work the aluminum I bought. Problem: Enco put the cutting oil in a separate package, and it won’t be here until next week. What to do? Nobody around here sells cutting oil.

Do I even have to say it?

Time to buy a can of lard.

Poorly

Today I threaded my first screw. Kind of.

“Kind of” is a giant exaggeration. I learned how to make the longitudinal power feed and half-nuts work. In other words, the lathe was doing everything it was supposed to do in order to thread properly, but Gilligan was at the helm while the Skipper used the head.

I did, in fact, create threads of sort on a piece of steel. However they were extremely crude, and I managed to snap two corners off a three-cornered carbide insert. I snapped the first corner off by turning the drum shift the wrong way when I was trying to back the tool out of the threads. The tool continued on its way, ramming into the shoulder I had turned earlier. The second insert snapped when I reversed the direction of rotation. Something caught it from behind.

I decided to play with the quick change box, using one setting to erase the threads made using the previous setting. Probably not good practice, but fun.

It doesn’t matter. The point of all this was to learn how to make the lathe work properly. Making me work properly is a separate lesson.

The Clausing instructions aren’t very good. For example, there is a knob on the lathe mounted so the face is perpendicular to the floor, and the directions say it’s engaged when “vertical.” So I guess you snap it off the lathe and turn it on its side. I think “vertical” refers to the positions of the three letters on the front of the knob. If “A” is at the noon position, the “A” setting is engaged. And so on. Seems like it works that way.

I still don’t understand the 29.5-degree business for threading. I can’t say I’ve studied up on it. Since it didn’t matter today, I stuck a threading tool in the tool post, used a dead center in the tailstock to set it on the level of the center of the work, and fed it perpendicularly into the metal. I think it would have worked, had I shot for a coarser thread and avoided running the insert into things. It finally occurred to me to use the VFD potentiometer to control the movement.

The Moly-Dee seems totally wrong for turning. Not that I would know, of course. I was moving the shoulder farther down the work today, using the Moly-Dee as fluid, and it seemed like the AR tool refused to bite until the Moly-Dee burned away, indicating that it was lubricating really well but failing utterly as cutting fluid. WD-40 was even worse. People have recommended Ridgid pipe threading oil as a general cutting fluid, so I have some on the way.

Once the tool started to bite, it produced two types of chips. Tiny straw-colored chips or long blue ones. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe I’m supposed to be shooting for the least color change possible. The tool just sat there unless I applied considerable pressure, so I couldn’t make colorless chips.

I don’t know if I’m supposed to use the power feed when turning a piece to a smaller diameter. I figured it would be impossible to adjust. The manual cross feed seems jerky. I have seen the phrase “slip stick” used to describe machine tool motion, and I think that may be what I saw today. But I eventually overcame it.

I sat down and began an instruction manual for the lathe, in English a mere college graduate can understand. I wrote nine pages today, and I took it with me to the garage. Helpful.

It’s pretty sweet, sitting on my shop stool, making good use of the backrest, watching lathe videos and screwing with scrap in the newly air conditioned tool oasis.

I think I have the four-jaw chuck worked out. Once you start using it, you realize you have to do one axis at a time.

I have a list of things I need to do, to get to the point where I’m actually doing something. Might get there in a week.

Also: Swarf Disposal

I was about to go study machining and fool with the lathe when I realized I had questions. Answer if you can.

What’s the best way to clean up swarf? The shop-vac doesn’t seem to have the juice to suck oily steel up efficiently. Maybe I should get a dustpan and a hand broom. Funny how the books and videos don’t tell you what to do after you make the mess.

I ordered a boring bar. But it’s big. How small a hole should you expect to be able to bore with a lathe? Do you always use boring bars, or is there a certain point where you give up and use a drill followed by a reamer?

More

Someone wanted to see the little bit of turning I did yesterday.

Possible Lathe Project

First item: prayer request. Reader Ruth says Sarah M., the daughter of a friend, has breast cancer. She is not doing well. Her tests keep turning up bad results. The cancer has metastasized to her brain. She is in early middle age, and she has kids. They do not know the cancer has reached her brain. Her mother is a Christian, but Sarah is not. Her mother wants people to pray for healing and for her salvation.

Ruth has had cataract surgery, and she would appreciate prayer for a good outcome.

Mish now has a white blood cell count of 200 per ml. If it hits 500 for three consecutive days, it means the transplant was a success.

Back to obsessing on my all-important hobbies.

Last time I tried to find someone to move a machine in the Miami area, I got nowhere. I don’t know why. Ordinarily, I am the champion boolean Googler of the whole universe.

I have been trying to find someone to move a machine here from a freight terminal, so I could use a dealer who was helpful to me. The local dealer doesn’t need help to get the machine here. Yesterday, I decided to try Google again, and I found a bunch of movers right off the bat.

Weird thing: one of them is someone I already know. My dad has a client whose employees are Teamsters. I helped my dad when he negotiated a contract with them. The name of the client’s business popped up on Google.

The crazy thing about this is that I didn’t know what the business actually did. I knew they had big trucks. That was about it. I didn’t really have to know. But their entire business is moving heavy machinery. So I asked my old man to see what they could do for me.

I may go with the local dealer anyway. The other guy has sort of drifted off. I asked him to give me some quotes, and I don’t have them yet. Maybe I was more concerned about giving him my business than I should have been, but I don’t like letting a salesperson help me and then buying somewhere else.

In any case, funny coincidence. And it shows how little a lawyer may know about his client. That’s a good thing, I guess. You don’t want to pay a lawyer to find out things he doesn’t need to know.

I’m wondering if I should start looking for a follow rest or steady rest. Yesterday I chucked a piece of half-inch dowel in the lathe and screwed around with it. When I applied pressure with the cutting tool, I got some deflection. The metal bounced back and produced a serviceable cut (which might not impress, if the dial indicator were applied), but it seems like a stupid way to machine.

I guess the dowel was about 8″ long, and I had maybe 6″ sticking out of the chuck.

That was stupid, now that I think about it. I could have chucked the entire 30″ piece, with 2″ sticking out of the chuck. The spindle is hollow. I guess I don’t need a rest unless I have to machine most of the length of a thin or long workpiece, or I’m forced to work a long way from the chuck. I suppose I also have to figure out when turning between centers is the best idea.

Jim Dunmyer linked to something about the correct way to use a 4-jaw chuck (thanks, Jim). I better go copy it and put it in a Word document and put it in my notebook.

The Grizzly I stupidly chose not to buy has four brass screws in the left end of the spindle, facing inward. They’re there to steady the free ends of long items. That seems like a neat idea. Last night I was thinking a good project would be to make something like that. My lathe has an aluminum wheel at the left side of the spindle, held on with set screws. I could make a new version of that, with a collar sort of thing added, through which I could run four brass screws. I don’t know if I’ll ever need it, but it would be a good training exercise. Boring the holes would be tough without a drill press or mill, but there may be a way to do it.

I wonder how hard it is to make a steady rest, once you have milling capacity. Seems like it shouldn’t require much precision, since the bars or screws that support the work would be adjustable.

Or I could wait forty years for a used one to become available.

Shoulder!

Today I twiddled around with the lathe. I gave up on trying to part the fat aluminum cylinders I bought. I had a half-inch steel dowel from Home Depot, so I cut off a piece and stuck it in the chuck and fooled with it.

I assume Moly-Dee is not an ideal cutting fluid for steel. It seemed to lubricate and nearly prevent cutting. I have something on the way which is supposed to be more appropriate.

The carbide indexable tools are working fine. I cut a little off the end of the dowel and made a shoulder. That was about all I had time to do.

Now what do I do with an eight-inch dowel with a shoulder?

There is no Cheap Fun

First thing: can anyone tell me how to dissolve aluminum galling?

My dad has a helm seat on his boat. The pedestal is a stainless pipe. There is a footrest attached with an aluminum collar. The collar has galled to the pipe. I put Kroil on it last night, and I applied a 3-foot pipe wrench today. Nothing happened.

I think he needs a new footrest.

I was going to finish insulating the garage today, but the defective kit I received put an end to that plan. I’m trying to figure out to do about my desperate need for a milling machine.

A local company will put the mill I want on my driveway for $150. They sell the mill, and they arrange the shipping. If they damage it, they still own it, and I can use small claims court to force them to give me my money back. That’s a very good deal. And no headaches. My only challenge, if you can call it that, will be to rent an engine hoist and move the mill into the garage.

Here is the problem. I wasn’t able to get much information from these people about the machine itself. An out-of-state dealer volunteered to educate me. He has been extremely helpful. I’d rather buy from him, but he says he can’t match the liftgate delivery. He says a mill is too big for a liftgate, and that the other company is full of it.

I located a rigger and asked for a quote, to bring the mill from the terminal and put it in the garage. Haven’t heard from them yet.

Last night I saw a problem with this idea. I figured the riggers would not be responsible for damage, so I’d have to eat the cost if they destroyed the mill. That is too big a risk to take. But now people are telling me riggers have to carry insurance for this kind of thing.

Someone else recommended renting a forklift. But I’ve never used one, and shippers have a way of showing up several days late, after your rented forklift has been taken back to the lot and you have been charged for it. I don’t want to get screwed on the rental, and I am not eager to learn how to use a forklift by moving an expensive machine with it, at my own risk.

The forklift is not a good idea.

I’m kind of inclined to tell the out of state guy, “Sorry, but this is just too messy.” He sent me several long and helpful emails, and I would like to reward him with my business, but this is turning out to be a real pain.

Last night I started thinking about what a major undertaking this was, and I thought of the pretty and functional machining I had seen in mini-mill videos, and I asked myself once again if a real mill was a good idea. So I started checking out smaller toys, like Rong Fus. It’s ridiculous. The cost is maybe 65% of a real mill’s price. A big mill/drill is not cheap. And to get that 35% discount, you have to give up a huge amount of potential. There are things you won’t be able to do, or which will take a lot longer.

The Millrite is still possible, and it’s cheaper, but although it looks very clean, I would not really know if it was sound until I had used it for a while. By that time, it would be too late to return it, and getting anything major fixed would be an impossibility.

I guess a big mill is the better option. Maximum capacity and versatility, and the cost is not that far from the cost of a mill/drill. And there is virtually no possibility that I would ever want to upgrade.

Now, if I could just luck into about a thousand pounds of free tooling.

I’m in the Pink

Insulation WORKS. Somehow, I am surprised. I knew it was supposed to work, but it’s still weird to see it happening.

I stuck an air conditioner in the garage. It worked, but the garage doors are sheet steel, and they do not make for ideal cold retention. So I ordered a couple of kits from Home Depot. You can’t get this stuff down here. I guess no one in Miami uses garage insulation.

I installed the first kit. The second one was missing parts, so I had to send it back. Still, even with one door uninsulated, the temperature down to under 74 degrees in the middle of the garage. It wasn’t cold near the air conditioner and warmer near the doors, as it used to be. I guess things will get even better when the second door is done.

Now that I’ve seen what the kits consist of, I think I could have gotten the same results with a roll of insulation and some duct tape. I don’t know if it would have been cheaper. At over $60 a garage door, the kits seem expensive to me. You can also buy foam and stick it up there, but it isn’t as good.

I hope there isn’t a reason why no one else in Miami does this. I hope the fiberglass won’t trap water or anything. I blocked some vents, but I think I have enough of them already. It would be simple enough to alter the insulation and let the air out.

Sitting next to the insulated door, I feel much more “indoors” than I did before. A sheet of metal isn’t much of a sound barrier. There is something oddly comforting about the fiberglass. Which, aptly enough, resembles a comforter.

My new lathe challenge is parting. The lathe came with a parting tool, but it goes with a rocker post which doesn’t really work. I tried to fake it up using washers to support the tool post, but the work started barking at me, so I quit. I have some cheap parting blades on the way from Enco. That should fix the problem.

I have no idea what I’m trying to do. I stuck aluminum in the chuck and started playing. I don’t have an objective, except to get familiar with the lathe. I want to start by cutting one of these dangerous 8″ aluminum bars down to 4″. So parting is important.

I considered doing it on the dry cut saw, but that’s a good way to ruin the blade, and I think that blade runs about $140. I’ve read that some people part by holding a hacksaw over a piece of work while it turns. I don’t think they do this with 2″ T6. I gave it a shot, and all I managed to do was cut a shallow groove surrounded by random scratches.

I want to do some boring, just to say I did it. This is a can of worms. The manly way to bore is to find a piece of metal, make a boring tool to fit in the end of it, add a set screw, anneal the end of the tool so the screw will bite into it, and get to work. Something like that. I would rather do that than buy a boring bar right off the bat, because it would teach me something (maybe that buying boring bars is smart). But I don’t have any 1/4″ cobalt or HSS to turn into boring tools, nor do I have a way to create a slot for the tool, nor do I have any way to install a set screw. I don’t have a tap and die set. And I can’t part off a suitable piece of the scrap dowel I was hoping to use.

I ordered a few bits of cobalt, just to play with. Plus a cheap protractor, to help me grind tools.

I have learned how to harden tools. I watched W.R. Smith video. He does it with a piece of steel wire, some roach powder, and a torch. But I guess I don’t need to harden anything. Lathe tool blanks are hard to start with, aren’t they? I’ll have to check. I assume hardening is useful if you overheat a tool, isn’t it? Danged if I know.

I now have a workspace that could be considered functional. It’s a big step forward. Toward being a completely eccentric goof with a garage that rivals Bob Vila’s worst drunken fantasies.

I’m pooped. I had to cut and hang all that fiberglass, and I had to take off and reinstall a garage door part to make it work, and I had to clean up and then shower the fiberglass off. I’d say one door is a two-hour job.

Working on the milling issue. This will be the final piece of evidence they use at my competency hearing. I don’t care. I will mill or die trying.

Time for food.