They Complete Me

Today I machined something. It was nothing great. Let’s be honest; I faced the end of a piece of aluminum and put two steps on the end. Whoo hoo. But I felt great anyway. I haven’t done this in over two years.

I’ll post a photo of my amazing achievment.

My mill and lathe arrived here on Tuesday. I’ve been so busy with a house closing and getting my workshop together, I have had very little time to do anything resembling using tools. I still have maybe 300 pounds of junk in my truck.

Yesterday I got the machines sort of ready to work. The lathe needed to have its connections to the phase converter restored, and I had to mount the DRO. That was about all I got done. The mill has a rotating head, like all Bridgeport-style mills, and in order to make moving the machine easier, I had rotated the head down onto the table, so I had to crank it back up.

I located my milling vise and 3-jaw lathe chuck so I could install them. They have been here less than two weeks. Of course, they had already started to rust. I don’t know what it is about this area. Everything rusts like crazy.

I cleaned them off and oiled the daylights out of them, and I did the same things to both machines. I would rather have oil everywhere than rust anywhere.

By the time I got done with all this, it was too late to do anything more.

Today I went back out, and I mounted the chuck on the lathe. I also mounted the wooden shelf unit I made to go on the headstock. This thing is very handy. It holds a chuck plus a load of toolholders and other doodads.

I also had to put the jaws back on the chuck. When I left Miami, the chuck had soft jaws on it, so today I reinstalled the hard factory jaws.

When the lathe was more or less together, the first thing I did was to turn it on, just to hear it spin. Wonderful.

I grabbed a piece of aluminum and turned steps into it with a carbide insert. It’s a little rough. I think the insert needs to be rotated.

The only thing I have to do now, lathe-wise, is to install the cast pucks it sits on and then level (straighten) the lathe. I have a Chinese precision level for this purpose. I don’t know how well it works, but I am reasonably confident.

The mill is going to be more annoying. I have to tram the head to the table, which is tedious. Then I have to mount the vise and tram it to the head. Equally tedious. I may put my rotary table on the mill table next to the vise. This is a smart idea if you mainly cut small parts. Moving a rotary table on and off your mill is a pain, so it’s nice to leave it in place. If you need to mill something big in the vise, you can just move the rotary table.

Once all the tramming is done, I have to connect the mill to power. I have two options. I can run a new wire to the phase converter, or I can reinstall the VFD I used in the past. The problem with the VFD is that it has no place to live. I used to keep it on the wall by the mill, but now the mill is far from the wall, so the wall won’t work. I could make some kind of stand, I guess. That would be strange.

If I wire it to the phase converter, life will be somewhat simpler, but I’ll have to run the huge phase converter every time I use the mill.

It’s probably the best way to go.

When I’m done, I’ll have a spare VFD. I already have a beautiful 2-HP motor gathering dust. You can guess what I’m thinking. I know you can. New belt grinder! Sure, I already have a belt grinder, but if I had two, I could keep two belts mounted at once, saving me precious, precious seconds when I want to change grit.

I would like to make myself a belt grinder simply because I feel bad about buying a prefab grinder the first time around. I fell prey to doubt. People talk about grinders as though they’re hard to build, but the truth is that they’re very crude, very simple machines. As I have often said, you could build a fine one from two-by-fours and plywood, plus aluminum pulleys.

My grinder is very nice, and it was cheap. I bought an Oregon Blade Maker (now Original Blade Maker), which is basically a steel box with two pulleys and an arm. It works just as well, and will last just as long, as an expensive industrial grinder. But you can’t turn it sideways to orient the belt horizontally. This is a bummer. Sometimes turning a grinder 90° can make life much simpler.

People like grinders with welded bodies. The truth is that you don’t need a welded body at all. A grinder held together with fasteners is just as good, and you can break it down when you need to move it or modify it. I would like to weld a grinder body together, but I’m not sure it’s the smart move. It may be more elegant, but a bolt-together grinder gives you more options.

I would like to do more stuff tomorrow, but it appears that my aunt, my cousin, and the cousin’s son are going to be here over Christmas, so I have to get the house ready. The garage is a total disaster right now because I’ve been pulling things off the truck and throwing them on the floor so I can get to other things I need. Luckily, my relatives aren’t picky.

I’m hoping to help them get closer to God. They are rejected, oppressed people.

Maybe I can squeeze out time to get the mill running. That would be beautiful.