And Have Burt Ward Wax the Batmobile

I can’t believe how much I rock. Check this out.

That’s the lathe, with a new old light installed, plus a 4-jaw chuck. And I added a couple of new wrenches. I think when you have a lathe, your best bet is to buy a couple of wrenches that fit the things you turn most often and just leave them where you can reach them. It beats running back and forth from the tool chest.

That light is from my old desk; the one I used when I was getting my bachelor’s degree. It was in a storage hole over a closet. Came in handy.

The light is attached to a piece of scrap I bolted to the wall. I had a 4″ section of 2″ by 3/16″ angle iron lying on the floor, so I drilled three holes in it and fastened it to the wall. Then I clamped the lamp base to it.

I also replaced the fine wheel on my bench grinder. Baldor ships these with fairly crappy wheels. It’s not that they’re cheap, although maybe they are. The quality is not the issue. The problem is that they’re not right for grinding lathe tools. I got an 80-grit aluminum oxide wheel from Enco, and I trued it (I think) with a silicon carbide stick. I’ll get one of those star wheel things if I can ever find a place that sells them AND has them in stock.

The spray bottle is WD40, from a Home Depot gallon jug.

I have replaced the worthless gear selection lever the lathe came with, and that white thing on the headstock is Moly-Dee. It is conceivable that I could turn something, if I knew how.

The 4-jaw chuck is mysterious. I tried to true up that piece of aluminum in it, but the weight makes it difficult. If you loosen one jaw so you can tighten another and move the aluminum, the aluminum likes to flop downward at the end and make things worse. Getting it within three or four thousandths of straight seems relatively easy, but I believe you’re supposed to be able to eliminate measurable error with one of these chucks.

I have the electrical parts to pretty up the wiring and put it away. Maybe tomorrow. In the photo it looks like the wiring is near the spinning stuff, but it really isn’t.

This week the insulation for the garage doors arrives. It’s very nice in the garage already, but insulation will probably make it even better.

I have to move the compressor to make room for the mill. That means running conduit over the rafters, about 14 feet off the ground. I can hardly wait! Maybe I should wait until my medical insurance kicks in.

Get me Taiwanese!

I got my milling machine puzzle solved. I thought I had it solved yesterday, but it’s more solved today. It is now just a question of deciding which Asian mill to get. I learned a few things that might be helpful to other people who are Googling around, trying to figure out which milling machine is the best buy. This may not be absolutely correct, but it’s close enough.

Forget Bridgeport. Forget all American machines. If you find a great deal on a mill some nutcase bought new and only used as a music stand, great, but generally, American machines are overpriced, and it can be very hard to find one that isn’t pretty worn where it counts. It might be worth the effort if there was something special about American milling machines, but there is not. They are not the best. So don’t bother.

You want a Taiwanese mill. Chinese mills are also okay, but they’re generally not quite as good, and Taiwanese is a safer bet. Sharp and Acer are two brands you can trust. If you Google, you will find a number of experienced machinists who say the better Taiwanese mills are superior to Bridgeports. Not “nearly as good.” Superior. And they definitely have more features. So whatever the truth is, they’re good enough for your garage.

You can get a top name brand for seven thousand and up. Something like that. You will never wear it out in your home shop. It will do anything a Bridgeport can do. Parts are readily available. It is not a risky buy.

There are cheaper Taiwanese mills that are fundamentally just as good. Made in the same factories, to the same tolerances. They may not be as pretty, and they may have fewer doodads on them. But under the bells and whistles…same machine, from the same assembly line, made by the same people, from the same parts.

One example–I may get one of these–is GMC. This is a company that split off from Birmingham. They will put a very nice Taiwanese mill in your hands for under five thousand dollars. They have customer service, but even if they did not, parts for the various Taiwanese mills tend to be interchangeable, because they are THE SAME PARTS.

There is some confusion (in my mind, at least) about where the final assembly is done on these things. I think some are finished off in China. But it probably does not matter.

The mills GMC resells are also sold by MSC as their proprietary Vectrax line. I checked, and these things go for over eleven grand. They come with DROs, but that doesn’t justify a $6000+ price difference. They’re also sold as Precision Matthews.

It ought to be obvious what I plan to get. A reconditioned (not fully restored) Bridgeport with an ancient motor and no warranty will cost around $4500, delivered. Any way you slice it, I have to pay a thousand dollars just to get it here, so that jacks up the price. It will have no DRO and no power feed, and it will be lighter and less rigid than a Taiwanese mill, and it will probably have a smaller table with less travel. The motor will probably be 1 1/2 HP or less, whereas the Asian jobs typically have 3 HP. The Asian spindles are bigger and stronger. A new Taiwanese mill with a warranty, a DRO, a power feed, and pretty new paint will run six hundred dollars more than a highly dubious Bridgeport. The resale won’t be as good (unless the Bridgeport really craps out), but it’s a better machine, and I am not planning to sell it. It’s a lifetime buy. Would you consider the resale value on an artificial hip?

It looks like Taiwanese for me. I might spend a little more and get a better DRO, but probably not, because thousandths are thousandths, no matter who designs the chip that measures them.

Grizzly and Shop Fox (Grizzly in white paint) sell Chinese mills. People seem to like the more recent ones. They’re a little cheaper than a GMC, and Grizzly has great service. But the product is probably not quite as good as Taiwanese, and the price is nearly the same. If you buy a Taiwanese Grizzly, I think they start at about 8K. So forget Grizzly and Shop Fox.

One other good option is the Millrite I saw locally. I can probably put that in the garage for under two thousand, and it probably has very little wear. It has the original paint, it looks great, and Millrites aren’t generally used for production. But sooner or later, it will limit me because of its size. And can you put a DRO or a power feed on a Millrite? I don’t even know.

That’s the summary. There may be little factual problems with it, but I’m satisfied that Taiwanese is my nearly perfect machining answer. I wanted a neat old American machine, but we just can’t compete with Asians any more. We can’t even come close. I bought a 35-year-old American lathe, and it looks like it has been through hell, and I had to replace the motor. I did the “buy American” thing, and I feel like I have been punished enough. I was a moron. Now I want a cheap tool I can actually use.

Also: Milling Epiphany

I had an interesting thought last night.

The general rule in my life has been that the worse things get, the closer I draw to God. But lately, I have been drawing closer to God because things are getting better.

People often ask why God doesn’t treat them better. Why he doesn’t fix their problems, when they have faith and go to church and pray and so on. Maybe I know the answer. If you forget God when things go well, you give him incentive to let you suffer. If you get more excited about God when life is pleasant, you give him incentive to keep blessing you. Doesn’t that make sense? After all, what’s important to God? Your income? Your health? Your peace of mind? Of course not. The most important thing is that you have a close relationship with him and walk in faith. So shouldn’t you expect him to do whatever causes that to happen?

I feel stupid for not seeing this earlier in my life. It should be obvious from reading the Bible. When the ancient Israelites did well, they started worshiping idols and ascribing their success to their own merit. And God withdrew his blessings, and they suffered. Then they returned to him. But God was content to keep blessing them, as long as they were faithful.

Seems to me that the wise thing is to credit God with your successes, keep up with your tithes and offerings and alms, pray and study regularly, live by faith, and get your butt to church every week. Maybe being a foxhole Christian just guarantees that you’ll spend your whole life in a foxhole.

I guess you can try to make an end-run around this kind of thinking. You can say, “If God is all-powerful, he can create a world where everybody is blessed no matter how they act,” or some such thing. All I can say is, we don’t make the rules. The Bible makes it pretty clear that God is not going to magically erase all suffering just because we don’t feel like doing things his way, so I think it’s stupid to fight the house rules. If you want that kind of God, you were born in the wrong universe. Maybe you should be worshiping Barack Obama instead. He doesn’t believe in suffering or consequences. Yet.

Now, what about my fevered search for a milling machine? I finally figured it out.

I don’t want a Bridgeport. The used ones I’ve seen are generally crap, and they have no warranties. It’s a sucker game, and the prices are way out of line with what you get. The reconditioned one I found might be perfect, but it’s too risky; someone who bought one from the rebuilder gave me information that put me off the buy. I might go for the high school machine, if I can get a good inspection.

Best choice: used Taiwanese. These machines are actually superior to Bridgeports, and gorgeous used ones are affordable.

Second best choice: new Birmingham with Chicom body and Taiwan head. I can get this locally and save on shipping.

Third: Shop Fox or Grizzly. People who own recent Shop Fox/Grizzly products say great things about them, and the customer service is top notch.

Turns out the Chaiwanese machines are heavier and more rigid than Bridgeports. How about that?

The puzzling is over, which is good, because my puzzler is sore. Now I have to find a mill I like.

Alert the Media

The quest for a milling machine gets more frustrating, the further I get into it. Ordinarily you expect to get CLOSER to an answer as you work on a problem, but it isn’t turning out that way.

I thought I had the solution. A guy selling “rebuilt” machines. I contacted him and talked to him. He said the machines were not rebuilt. They were reconditioned. That means they’ve had much less work than rebuilt machines, and according to one of his former customers, the reconditioning does not restore lost accuracy. So apparently, most of the money you pay for reconditioning doesn’t buy you any improvement in function. The former customer said he regretted the buy, and that he had to have the head on his machine rebuilt. And he said it privately, because he knew the “America first” crowd would get in his face if he did it publicly.

Guess what a rebuilt machine really costs? Roughly eight grand, plus shipping. So call it $9500. No thanks. I can get a new Taiwanese mill for that.

I started looking at Chinese machines and reading up on them. I’ve only learned one fact for certain: the people who always say you are better off with old American machines have to be ignored, because everything they say is useless drivel. Some of them hate Chinese people. Some are old union guys who can’t accept the fact that the free market proved they were wrong and drove machine tool makers overseas. Whatever drives them, they are all fools, and nothing they say has any value. Some Chinese machines are very good, and most are at least okay. Some Taiwanese machines are better than some American machines. And we are never going to have a big machine-tool industry in America again, so people who are upset about that need to shut up and deal with it.

Grizzly/Shop Fox has a few nice mainland-Chinese mills about the size of a Bridgeport, and some are cheaper than a RECONDITIONED Series I. So I am considering getting one. I’ll have a warranty, I’ll have someone to complain to if there are problems, I won’t have any worn-out parts lurking in the head or under the table, and delivery will be free or very cheap. How can you go wrong with a deal like that? The castings may not be as pretty as the old Bridgeport iron, but what good is a pretty machine that craps out and requires expensive repairs I can’t do? I can’t scrape or rebuild a mill, and how would I find someone near me who could do it? In Miami, you can’t find people qualified to run a weedeater. Seriously, that is no exaggeration. I had to build little shields around the bases of my trees. Skilled labor does not exist here. I think people come here because they are considered unemployable in Guatemala and El Salvador. So I’d have to sell the mill, because buying a new one would be a better deal than shipping it to someone who could repair it.

I wasn’t asleep during my ordeal with the “barely used” 1974 lathe I bought. I paid attention. I noticed that I was miserable. I am not eager to repeat that experience with a more expensive machine.

People are telling me I don’t need to worry about accuracy (i.e., a new or little-used machine), because it will be a long time before I’ll be good enough to take advantage of an accurate machine’s abilities. Does that make sense to you? To me it sounds like, “Spend four figures on a crappy machine, sell it at a four-figure loss, and then spend four figures on a better machine.” I have never understood people who say you should buy “beginner tools.” They invariably turn out to be disappointments, you always lose money when you sell them, and then you have to get used to their expensive replacements. It would make sense if cheap mills were cheap. But they aren’t. A good Millrite or BP clone, suitable for use by a serious home machinist, costs $3000-$4000, and a good “beginner mill” costs at least $2000. And a beginner Bridgeport costs $4000, delivered.

Why spend eight thousand dollars to get a four-thousand-dollar tool? Am I crazy?

I have two table saws. One cost $300, and the other cost $500. I will probably never use the cheap one again. The other one will handle any job I will be able to throw at it for the rest of my life, even if I use it commercially. I have two miter saws. One cost $200, and the one I should have bought in the first place cost $373. Is this a pattern I should repeat, with a decimal point added? Uh…NO.

People are also telling me a good machinist can do great work on a bad mill. Okay, and Jim Thorpe once ran the hundred-yard dash with another man on his back. Generally, though, he ran by himself. I’m pretty sure. Why make life harder than it has to be? Aren’t better tools BETTER? If bad tools are just as good, why do they cost less? I don’t want to do great work on a bad mill. I want to do bad work on a good mill, and then good work on a good mill. The same people who tell me I don’t need a good mill because I have no skills and can’t appreciate it seem to think that once I get the skills to appreciate it, I won’t want it. Does that even begin to make sense?

There is a used Bridgeport in Connecticut that interests me. If I can get a guy to inspect it and report on it for a hundred bucks, I may buy it. I’ve arbitrarily decided I won’t buy a mill that won’t hold five tenths, because I needed a standard, and five tenths seemed right. If the seller opines that an inspection will confirm that the machine meets the standard, I’ll spring for the checkup. If not, I guess it’s time to order Chinese.

Still Kicking

If you follow Mish Weiss’s blog, you have seen this wonderful news already:

There is a slight rise in the white cell count! Doctor cautions that Mish is still critically ill.
What this means is engraftment has begun. Abby’s cells are beginning to grow new cells for Mish.

A day or two ago, Leah put up a post indicating the doctors believed Mish was “slipping away.” I was afraid people would be discouraged from praying for her recovery. Here is what I posted in her comments.

From Numbers 14:

2 And all the children of Israel murmured against Moses and against Aaron: and the whole congregation said unto them, Would God that we had died in the land of Egypt! or would God we had died in this wilderness!

3 And wherefore hath the LORD brought us unto this land, to fall by the sword, that our wives and our children should be a prey? were it not better for us to return into Egypt?

4 And they said one to another, Let us make a captain, and let us return into Egypt.

5 Then Moses and Aaron fell on their faces before all the assembly of the congregation of the children of Israel.

6 And Joshua the son of Nun, and Caleb the son of Jephunneh, which were of them that searched the land, rent their clothes:

7 And they spake unto all the company of the children of Israel, saying, The land, which we passed through to search it, is an exceeding good land.

8 If the LORD delight in us, then he will bring us into this land, and give it us; a land which floweth with milk and honey.

9 Only rebel not ye against the LORD, neither fear ye the people of the land; for they are bread for us: their defence is departed from them, and the LORD is with us: fear them not.

Don’t be too quick to accept a bad report.

There is a peculiar phenomenon we see in the modern church, which is not evident in the Bible. People who pray for things give up while there is still hope. I don’t do that. I pray until there is no point in praying any more. There is nothing to be gained from saying, “Well, it looks like you’re not going to give me what I need, so I’ll pray for something that seems more likely.”

Garrison Keillor once said that if a sheep ever does what you tell it to, it only means you guessed right. God is not a sheep. I don’t try to guess what he’s going to do, so I can pray for it. I pray for what I need, and I try to have faith that he’ll do it. I’m no authority, but I think I’m right about this.

People have a way of trying to guess what’s going to happen, and then shaping their prayers accordingly. It’s a way of making excuses for God. They don’t want to have their faith shaken by failure, so they pray for things that seem easier for God to provide, or which he is more likely to do. So a person might pray for someone like Mish to be healed, and then when things got tough, he might back down and merely pray that she not suffer.

I can’t think of a Biblical example of a person doing that. I can’t picture Moses saying, “Look, if you can’t part the Red Sea, at least give us better working conditions back in Egypt.” There are examples of Biblical figures failing to get what they asked God for, but the general rule is that God provided explanations or at least warnings. Paul wasn’t healed of his thorn in the flesh, but it was needed to keep him humble. John the Baptist wasn’t delivered from prison, but Jesus took the time to inform him that he wasn’t getting out. That’s really not the same as giving up on a prayer and having to guess why it wasn’t answered.

I know people don’t like seeing their hopes dashed, but so what? It’s not fatal. Why is it wrong to continue having faith, through a sick person’s death? What is the advantage of quitting?

Jews say what you do matters more than what you believe, but Christians are different. We think faith itself has power. We think it is the conduit through which God exercises his strength. If you’re a Christian, you have to believe that when you stop having faith, God’s power stops working. So why would you stop believing? Faith doesn’t cost anything. All you risk is disappointment.

We always say we walk by faith, not by sight. But do we, really?

One of the things that makes it impossible for me to deny God is a miracle I received. I decided to join a church, and immediately, I got a flu-like sickness. A severe cold which would not go away. It lasted weeks. I prayed, and I refused to accept the illness, and I always, ALWAYS said I was healed, regardless of how it looked. And one day I saw a dark shape leave my body and exit the house through a door, and I was instantly healed. If I had just gone by my symptoms, that would never have happened. So how can I let myself pray that a sick person has a nice time until she dies? My own experience tells me that guarantees failure.

We’re like the Jews in the time of Jesus. They hadn’t had a prophet in hundreds of years, and they didn’t expect to see God work with great power, the way he did for Moses and Joshua. The Christian church abandoned the Holy Spirit centuries ago, we started substituting man-made rules for true, personal relationships with God, and we started making excuses for the almighty. He won’t heal for this reason. He won’t heal for that reason. Have faith, but don’t actually expect anything to happen. Because apparently, the word “faith” means something other than “faith.” Somewhere along the line, we decided that as long as we were sure of going to heaven, we didn’t need to get to know God or obey him or see his power in our lives. In fact, we tended to persecute people who expected God to behave the way he did in the Bible. As if they were the problem. Yet somehow we still consider ourselves more enlightened than first-century Jews who rejected Jesus.

What’s the difference?

I will not pray for Mish to die happily. She doesn’t need prayer to do that. She can get that from morphine. I don’t pray for God to pass me the salt, when I can reach for it myself. I pray for things only God can do.

I’m sticking to my guns. I don’t know what else to do.

By the way, here is the base I machined to fit my lathe. I’ve been fondling it all morning.

Victory

Man, this is incredible. I finally have a lathe!

I just did the finishing touches on the base for the quick change tool post. Now I have something to mount my tools on, and I guess I can throw my useless rocker post in the trash. Look:

The part I fixed is under the base, in the T-slot. I had to make cut after cut today, to get it in there. Finally, I had to finish it off with a file. I could have used the lathe, but it’s so hard to mount parts in the compound, the file was actually easier. And incredibly, it’s more accurate. I believe the part may have bowed a little when I torqued down the bolt that held it in place. On top of that, sometimes when I re-mounted the part, I didn’t get the exact height I wanted. So the part had some cuts that were essentially perfect, and some that were flawed enough to make it fit badly.

Believe it or not, it looks fantastic now. The file took out the little swirly marks the cutter left, and it flattened the imperfect surfaces.

What a relief this is. I was not able to use the lathe without a tool post. As of fifteen minutes ago, I have a machine tool that actually functions!

The base fits in the slot very tightly. There isn’t any friction to speak of when you shove it in, but if it were ten thousandths bigger, it wouldn’t go in. And if you turn it 180 degrees, forget it. It only fits one way.

Maybe that’s a good thing. I don’t want it wobbling around in there. And I can claim I made it tight on purpose.

If there had been any way to finish it on the lathe, I would have done it, believe me. But the file gave a better result, so I might as well pretend I planned it this way.

I love machining. It is easily the coolest thing I have ever done with tools.

Nothing is Simple

How big a deal is replacing a feed screw in a Bridgeport mill? I have my eye on a mill with a cheesy old power feed, and I am told I’d need a new feed screw if I upgraded to a Servo.

Base Taking Shape

I know everyone on earth is dying to know how I did with the tool post base.

I just quit. I have one side of the base completely done, and I have one cut left to do. I’ll be going back soon. The reason I’m not doing it now is that I started having swarf problems. I foolishly chose to wear flip-flops this morning, and I figured I’d change them if the chips really started flying. A few minutes ago, I became aware that if I walked normally, I stood a good chance of driving the collected chips into the balls of my feet and the skin between my toes. So I stopped, got in the shower, and washed my feet.

The lathe is not the world’s greatest mill. If I had a real collet, a milling attachment, and parallels, we might be getting more impressive results. But all I have is one bolt, holding the workpiece down on two pieces of wood, and I’m holding the cutter in a 3-jaw chuck, which can’t be the best possible way to do it. If it were, it would be hard to sell collets.

It’s a real pain, getting the layout lines on the work parallel to the motion of the compound. I have to keep adjusting the work. Also, it’s impossible to repeat a height adjustment precisely. Maybe paper shims or wood blocks deform too much under pressure. Nonetheless, the base will look pretty good when I’m done, and it will work perfectly.

I’m glad I came up with this jig, because without it, I would have to find a machinist…in Miami…who understands ENGLISH…who would take on a miniscule job.

I may start up again tomorrow. Food time is nearly here.

Gonzo Machinist Strikes Again

Raise your hand if you are one of the idiots who took me seriously when I said I was going to quit trying to mill the base for my tool post.

SHAME ON YOU. You KNOW I don’t have any common sense.

Here is the jig I came up with.

I have one tool which I am actually capable of using to make precision cuts, so I used it. I refer to the table saw. I cut two pieces of red oak a few thousandths over an inch in depth. I stuck them under the base. I enlarged a hole in an old piece of steel scrap, ran a bolt through it, and put it in the compound with the bolt pointing upward. I dropped the base over the bolt and added a washer and nut. Then I used a feeler gauge to figure out how many paper shims I needed under the base to get it to the right height. The base was too high as well as too wide, so I had to use the side of the cutter, not just the end.

Base after a few passes:

Final result:

I used a few drops of Moly-Dee (per pass) as cutting fluid, since that was all I had.

I was terrified the whole time. You can imagine what would happen if the cutter had managed to turn the base. I took tiny passes. Probably ten of them, plus a final climb-cut pass.

I know I did this all wrong, but the tools dictated the method. The result is fine. The major imperfections in the cut are from two sources: the sad effort I made the other day, and the sad efforts of the Chinese people who made the base.

I had to rest. It’s exhausting, focusing your attention on a cutter while making tiny, slow cuts.

I have three more cuts to make. Maybe I can find a way to use the dry cut saw to do the final ones. This doesn’t have to be pretty. It just has to fit in the slot in the compound.

If I succeed at this, I’ll have a functioning lathe!

The Jethro Bodine Way

I already hate not having a mill.

I decided to try milling the base of my quick change tool post so it would fit my lathe. Problem: no milling attachment. I decided to do it the desperate way. I used a C-clamp, and I rested the base on top of a piece of oak, paper shims, and a steel bar. I stuck my only cutter in my 3-jaw chuck. And I got a face shield, because I knew I was tempting death.

The first pass was okay. After that, the metal refused to cooperate. The cutter kicked the base out of the clamp.

That’s it. I quit. I don’t want bits of carbide imbedding themselves in my chest. I refuse to spend an entire day doing this badly on a bench grinder. I’m going to find a machinist and pay up.

77°

I am so glad I got a bigger air conditioner than I thought was required. The garage is comfortable now, but that’s about all I can say. The humidity goes below 50%, and the temperature gets down to 77 in the hottest part of the day. Livable, at least.

I stuck the new Baldor motor in the lathe, and it ran like a top. What a difference. I was absolutely right about the bad shaft making the lathe thump. I had to pry the pulleys off the old motor, but they slid onto the new one with ease, and they ran true when the power was applied.

I still have to figure the VFD out. It doesn’t like it when you plug the cord in and the drum switch is in forward or reverse. It gives an E13 error. That’s a new one, but it’s apparently harmless.

I lengthened the braking time to 5 seconds, and I also lengthened the deceleration time. I’m not sure how they can be different, since you would expect controlled deceleration to require some sort of braking. But I’ll figure it out. The VFD quit saying “E7,” so I guess I did good.

I’m not sure I can mount the backing plate on the lathe without moving the VFD. I should have mounted the VFD farther to the left, but I never dreamed it could interfere with a plate or a chuck, so it’s pretty far to the right. Today some kind of oil came from the chuck and/or spindle and flew up onto the VFD. I don’t know what the source was, but if it continues, I’ll have to move things around. I was not able to salvage the old Anaconda conduit stuff from the old motor, so I still have wires all over. Project for the weekend, I guess.

The backing plate is here, and it’s beautiful. I finally have enough junk to get started.

I don’t want to keep harping on the dubious deal I got on the lathe, but I have to say, that new motor makes a world of difference. The other two ran, but that’s the nicest thing you can say about them. One made a buzzing noise, and the other had a mangled shaft and made a funny sound when it turned. This one runs slick as wet ice. I feel justified in saying the other motors are crap. Good enough to keep for unimportant projects, but not what you want on a lathe that would cost twenty grand new. I don’t know how much a motor affects the way a mill runs, but with this lathe, every vibration goes right to the chuck. A clapped-out motor can’t be good for the work.

I finally got the garage more or less beaten back into shape. Once I get the conduit on the lathe, I can back it up another six inches and reclaim some floor.

Maybe soon I’ll be able to go a whole day without lying on the garage floor to turn a wrench in a greasy confined space.

I’m in Love

I have air conditioning. This is too sweet. I made a new conduit, crammed the wires in, screwed everything to the wall, rigged up a temporary receptacle, and turned it on. Right now I’m waiting for the air to cool down a little so I can install the new motor for the lathe.

Finally I have a workspace that is bearable between May and October. I’m beside myself. I feel like adding a dorm fridge and a chaise lounge.

It takes a fair amount of time to cool the space. I guess 18000 BTUs were not overdoing it. The machine has a “dehumidify” setting. I may give that a shot. I don’t really care if it’s warm, as long as I don’t drip sweat on everything I touch.

The correct receptacle is on the way. I am not going to drive all over Miami, or spend days trying to find it over the phone, talking to “bilingual” employees who speak four words of English. For nine bucks and change, I can have what I want. Sold. I can’t believe Home Depot didn’t have it.

I dread getting grease all over myself, but I console myself with the knowledge that I won’t have to do it again for a while. I can’t wait to hear the Baldor run. I’m hoping the lathe will run smoother. This motor has new bearings, and I assume the pulleys will sit correctly on the shaft.

I can’t stand it. I have to go out there and get to work. Man, this is wonderful.

I Got More Power

I’m all excited. Today I get to turn the new air conditioner on. And I need it! I worked in the garage for four or five hours yesterday, and by the end of it, I was really dehydrated. I kept drinking, figuring I would catch up. Before I went to bed, I drank even more, and I assumed I would overdo it and then have to get up in the middle of the night. Yet, to put it delicately, the results defied expectations. I slept all night.

The people at Home Depot probably know my face by now. I have to go over there soon and get a plug so I can fake up a receptacle until the proper stuff can be obtained.

I’m going to get a milling machine next. I don’t care how much aggravation it causes me. I am not going to go to my grave wondering what it would have been like to fulfill my decades-old desire to learn machining. Law school cost me $22,000 per year, and that’s just tuition. I have less than that invested in my tools, and they bring me a thousand times the satisfaction.

I went out to the garage last night and looked over my work. I felt a sense of gratitude I can’t even describe. I know it’s silly. What I have out there isn’t much. A few nice tools, a TV, and an air conditioner. But I feel like I got my own private resort.

Lately I’ve been watching House reruns. For some reason, I DVR’d a bunch of shows for my sister, and they were piling up on the machine, and I started watching them. Wonderful show. Hugh Laurie was already one of my favorite actors because of his work in the Bertie Wooster and Jeeves series and The Blackadder. If you haven’t seen his Prince George, your television has not justified its existence.

Once in a while, Laurie plays music on the show. He’s a pianist and a guitarist. He’s really good, too. He played a version of Georgia on my Mind which made me wish I could buy it on CD.

On House, he plays a rude doctor who solves patient’s problems through pure creativity. He fumbles around for half an hour or more, and then in the last few minutes of the show, he experiences a revelation, and the patient gets well.

I am not a jealous person by nature. I don’t really care what other people have, unless they’re obnoxious about it, or they got something important which really should have gone to someone else. But I started to feel jealous, watching House. I’ve had a lot of problems with my own musical efforts, because my memory and concentration let me down. And here was Hugh Laurie, a man who excelled in his chosen field, playing music beautifully as a hobby. And I know it’s irrational, but because he played a character who solved problems through creativity, he reminded me of myself. A better version of me. Back when I was studying to be a physicist, I used to solve problems by lying down and thinking about other things until the answers came to me.

Last night I read about him on the Internet. Seems like he’s not a particularly happy person. I may be wrong, but that’s the impression I get from the information I found.

I thought about that while I looked at my silly garage. I enjoy it so much, and my life is so pleasant. I could not believe I deserved the garage! You would be amazed at the intensity of the emotions I felt as I looked at it.

On the one hand, I was right, because as a Christian, I know people don’t really deserve the blessings they get. On the other hand, from a human perspective, it’s just a garage. Donald Trump had a 300-foot yacht with gold-plated faucets, and it didn’t make him happy.

I don’t feel jealous now. I got my perspective back. Also, House is a fictional character. And even if he were not, he’s so miserable, no one in his right mind would envy him.

You can’t look at what other people have and assume it would please you. You don’t know how they got it or what it cost them, and you don’t know what problems may prevent them from enjoying it. I see Bentleys and Ferraris and Porsches almost every day. Even though I don’t care much about cars, I used to think the people who drove them were very lucky. Then one day I realized that only a small percentage of them were paid for. And I saw a neighbor’s Porsche on a repo truck a few months back; that made me think. The grass is always greener. It’s good to realize that it’s an illusion. If more people knew that, the world would be a more peaceful place.

The little things I have bring me tremendous pleasure, and even though that is true, I am fortunate enough not to be bound up in them. If they burned in a fire tomorrow, I wouldn’t like it, but I would sleep well tomorrow night. That attitude is a gigantic blessing, and it must come from God, because it’s contrary to human nature.

I don’t think we’re supposed to get everything we want, or that our lives are supposed to be free from problems. But I do believe we’re supposed to be happy, and that overall, we are supposed to succeed. I don’t buy into the idea that all Christians should have piles of wealth, or that we should never get sick, or that everything we try should work right from the start. The TBN nuts used to preach that stuff because it got people to fill their coffers, and it’s wrong. But I think life is supposed to be good, and that we should feel blessed and content. And very often, we do get very good things.

Home Depot is calling. Who am I to resist?

Used Romex for Sale Cheap

I am wiped out.

I pulled out the old 8-3 Romex from my air compressor circuit. I replaced it with about 27 feet of 6-3. I guess that took three hours. Working with 6-3 Romex is a lot like wrestling an alligator, except an alligator can’t give you electric shocks. I probably went up and down the ladder 40 times.

After that, I stripped maybe seven feet of the outer insulation off, made a new 3/4″ conduit, and shoved the Romex through it. I installed the conduit and attached everything to the existing disconnect. That took maybe an hour and a half.

I can’t believe how long it took. This stuff is very hard to work with. And when it was all over, I found I had the wrong kind of circuit breaker. So I stuffed the 40-amp job back in the box. Hey, if it doesn’t blow, I know I don’t need to replace it.

I still don’t have a socket. But the wire and conduit already exist, so it will be a quick job. I’m irritated that Home Depot doesn’t have the right receptacle. I’ve decided to jury-rig it with a receptacle intended for a cord (those, they have), and I’ll order the right part off the Internet. I can’t wait a week for a stupid receptacle.

The whole time I was doing this, I was thinking how wonderful it would be to have air conditioning. I guess that means it was worth it. Next time, I WILL have air conditioning.

Hope I can get by with that 40-amp breaker. Smaller breakers are always better, when you can get away with them.

My Money is in Copper

I have returned from Home Depot. Guess what 6-3 Romex costs? A whopping $2.56 per foot. And I bought 30 feet. Plus some 3/4″ conduit and a 50-amp breaker. All this, just to beef up my compressor circuit by ten amps, so I can add the air conditioner.

At least I didn’t have to buy a 15-amp breaker for the unit itself. When I went out to look at the plug, to find out what kind of receptacle I needed, I saw that it had a breaker built into it. That saved me half an hour and maybe twenty bucks.

My plan is to yank the old 8-3 Romex, put the 6-3 in, upgrade the breaker to 50 amps, run conduit to the disconnect, run conduit from the disconnect to a location near the air conditioner, and install a socket. The 8-3 runs through a foot-long hole in solid concrete. I hope it’s big enough for 6-3. Otherwise…wait, this is no problem…otherwise, I’ll have to get out my mighty rotary hammer and spend TEN SECONDS reaming out the hole. Man, having the right tools is wonderful.

My new 4-jaw chuck arrived. It’s really nice. The grease in it is probably forty years old; it hasn’t been used. Or it has been used so little, you can’t tell. I wonder if I’ll ever be able to make myself use the 3-jaw chuck. Precision is addictive. The 3-jaw chuck says it was made in England, but I haven’t spotted a manufacturer’s name on it. I’m wondering if it’s a Cushman.

Before I got the new chuck, I was concerned about the hollowed-out backside. I had read complaints about this being a light-duty chuck. But now I can see that if it hadn’t been hollowed out, it would weigh seventy pounds. It probably weighs fifty as it is. It’s huge. Much bigger than the 3-jaw chuck. Eight inches, as contrasted with six.

The stuff from Enco arrived. Guess where my new aluminum oxide wheel was made. Israel. I love it.

The remote for the AC will be here soon. Once that arrives, I will be totally worthless. One remote for the AC, one for the stereo and TV and DVD player, and a VFD for the lathe. I’ll barely have to move. That is my life’s goal.

Eventually, I want to be like the baron, in Dune. I want to be carried around by an electronic hovercraft rig, with little anti-gravity things holding up my fat so it doesn’t drag on the floor and collect swarf. That’s for indoor locomotion. Outdoors, I’ll rely on my souped-up fat cart.

Tomorrow the new motor arrives and I can officially close and suture up the lathe. I can get rid of the rat’s nest of wires and put the missing panels back on. Then it will be very hard to come up with excuses for not making anything.

But I’ll bet I manage.

Am I spoiling myself like a hopeless degenerate, or is this what the Bible means when it says, “Delight thyself also in the Lord, and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart?”

I know what I prefer to believe!

It gets even worse. I finally decided to spring for health insurance, so I may start riding my motorcycles again. A big part of the reason I let them rot was that I kept putting off getting insurance, and I was afraid I would mangle myself and have to pay all the expenses. Now I can subject myself to all sorts of hideous physical risks with less trepidation.

I saved all sorts of money by being too cheap to insure myself, but at a certain age, you have to hand the dice off and get a policy before you crap out. Some diseases pretty much disqualify you from insurance, so you have to get hooked up before one of them hits you. Insurance companies hate people like me, because they need healthy young worrywarts to pay the cost of treating old insureds on their last legs. They need insureds who never take money out of the system. But if you can afford most medical problems, you don’t really have a lot of motivation to get insurance when you’re young.

I hope I stay ambulatory until the policy issues. That is the key to making my strategy pay off.