Chicken Orgy Commences Soon
February 7th, 2009This is Why I Was Put on Earth
Today I’m doing the unthinkable. Making strawberry cheesecake and Champagne chicken for the second time in a month. A friend of the family lost his wife a while back, and my dad and my sister and I wanted to get him out of his house for a while. Naturally, the cooking fell to me.
I made the cheesecake last night, except for the topping. That’s in the works right now, and I’m brining the chicken.
I wish I could find Lucerne brand cream cheese here. A reader says it’s better than Philly, and that the cheesecake doesn’t crack as much. but I guess I’ll be okay. I also wish I had a Tupperware container big enough to hold the remains of a 10″ cheesecake.
I keep Googling lathes. I’m learning all sorts of stuff.
First, you can rehabilitate a lathe by scraping the bed ways. This costs over a thousand dollars if you have someone else do it. All you have to do is buy some obscure hand tools–not power tools, believe it or not–and get a book and practice for a long time. Weird. I have no interest in doing this, but it’s an interesting topic. I would have thought there was some kind of giant milling machine jig for this purpose. And I can’t understand how you can do this accurately with a blade on the end of a stick.
Second, Atlas lathes aren’t all that great. People who own them complain a lot about flexing and cheap parts that break. Right now, I can get a Craftsman lathe built by Atlas, within two-hour drive, for $850. But it’s only worth maybe $350, and it will never be a good lathe. Atlas did not apply its usual standards when making stuff for Sears, so this thing is a step down from Atlas, which is a step down from South Bend and so on.
Third, Rockwell and Sheldon made really fantastic lathes, but parts can be hard to find and/or expensive. I can’t understand why Delta wouldn’t continue making parts for Rockwell lathes, but that’s the way it is. These machines are supposed to be stiffer than other lathes, and the ways on the Rockwell models are very hard and resist wear. But if you can’t keep them running, what’s the point?
Some retired toolmaker not far from here is selling a huge toolbox full of machining stuff. Maybe I should check it out. I assume it’s things like tooling and calipers. But I really don’t want a freezer-sized toolbox in my garage.
This dinner is going to be TOO good. I really don’t know how food can get any better than this. I just put the goop on the strawberry topping, and I wish I could climb into the refrigerator and swim in the cheesecake.
February 7th, 2009 at 4:44 PM
My dad’s first lathe for his home workshop was a Craftsman by Atlas made in the late ’30’s. I learned a lot about metal working on that lathe. It had the quick change gear box so we didn’t have to screw around with belts and all that nonsense. We built a 7in gauge 4-4-0 American steam locomotive using that lathe, so it served us well. I built my first homemade steam engine from raw stock using it as well. Found a plan in a ’40s vintage shop project book. He now has a heavy duty English lathe to go with the Bridgeport mill. Sure is handy when I need to do some metal work for my guns. Like the missing nose piece for my 1939 Mossberg M46B inner magazine tube. Or fitting a new Kart bushing for my 1911A1.
February 7th, 2009 at 4:46 PM
Oh, back in the mid-sixties he paid 350 dollars for the lathe from the previous owner’s widow. Complete with about 2000 dollars worth of tooling.( At least that’s what the insurance company paid to replace most of them when the cabinet, which sat next to the incinerator, caught fire one day.)
February 7th, 2009 at 7:09 PM
Steve,
If you don’t have machinists’ tools, you should definitely look at that toolbox. Chances are, it’s a smallish benchtop-type of thing, not a giant roller cabinet. When you finally get a lathe and mill, you’ll need this stuff, so it doesn’t hurt to have it in advance. There will probably be tools that you don’t even recognize, but that’s OK, you’ll need them eventually. When I bought that 1933 Atlas lathe, it had 1, 2, and 3″ mikes, along with a couple of items that were totally strange to me. Not surprising, as I knew almost nothing about the subject at the time. It was literally years before I figured out that I had a Surface Guage and a Universal Transfer Punch.
You might well want to buy a couple of these toolboxes over time, keeping the best and non-duplicates, and selling the rest.
Figure about half of current retail as the “right” price.
February 7th, 2009 at 7:28 PM
I promised my wife a chocolate cheesecake for St. Valentine’s Day. Lucky me.
February 8th, 2009 at 12:21 AM
I can scrape. I even have a power scraper. And the largest surface I’ve ever done was the bed on a 48″ planer.
Scraping is responsible for the majority of my hair loss. That and being a parent.
it isn’t an impossible skill to master, and yes, it only requires simple hand tools to DO, but it requires a LOT of stuff to CHECK. Get something that doesn’t need scraping, if you possibly can.
February 8th, 2009 at 12:25 AM
All these new tools! You do know you’re *this* close to being able to make your own firearms, right?
February 8th, 2009 at 7:40 AM
Hard to got wrong with South Bend, or Logan.
Our Logan 8″ screw-cutting lathe has been a true workhorse. One tip- get both a 4-jaw and 3-jaw chuck if possible. the 3-jaw is great for quick jobs on round stock, while the 4-jaw is for odd-shaped stiff you want to make round.
I second Jdunmyer-buy as much machinist’s stuff as you can afford when it comes up at a decent price. Keep what you want and sell the rest. I ended up with a knurling tool and a bunch of oddball boring bars and such, that I never expected to use. Well, I’ve used just about all of it.
My $0.02, YMMV.
BTW Steve, you REALLY need an EDM Machine.
February 8th, 2009 at 12:20 PM
I second og. Do not try to scrape unless you want to make it a career. I tried it a couple of times and it was a disaster. We had all of the “stuff” to do it and if I remember that was expensive. The scrapper is not expensive but the surface plate is the killer and you may not need it for anything else.
February 8th, 2009 at 7:21 PM
“I wish I could find Lucerne brand cream cheese here.”
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Reading the “Nutrition Facts” labels, it looks like the Lucerne Cream Cheese has more fat and carbs (yeah!) than Philly:
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http://www.thedailyplate.com/nutrition-calories/food/lucerne/cream-cheese
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http://www.thedailyplate.com/nutrition-calories/food/philadelphia/cream-cheese
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Maybe the extra fat helps it “hang together” better?
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You might be able to find a brand that is similar by looking at the labels…
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I also tried Shurfine Cream Cheese (Woodman’s Supermarket Store Brand) and it was similar to Philly (including cracks). It’s “Fat Rating” is close to the Philly Cheese:
http://www.thedailyplate.com/nutrition-calories/food/shurfine/cream-cheese
February 9th, 2009 at 12:26 PM
You kill me with this cooking! I wish I could get my husband to cook for me!
February 10th, 2009 at 5:52 PM
Just found your blog and I am enjoying it!
A few words on the insidious cracked cheesecake. Mixing the cream cheese with eggs effectively creates a custard and if you overcook a custard it will crack. What I do is cut down the cooking time by half and then give the pan in the oven a little shove. If the custard, umm…cheescake, jiggles a little I take it out of the oven and let the carryover heat finish the cooking process.
Not my thoughts, but what I learned watching Good Eats! I just made a blueberry lemon cheesecake with a citrus shortbread crust and viola!….no cracking!
Good luck on the lathe 🙂