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.

Bad Report

From Mish Weiss’s blog, posted by Leah:

I spoke with the doctors a few minutes ago and they informed me that Mish is slipping away. I am having a hard time accepting this. Even though, I’m sorry I can’t post right now.
Please pray for her.

“Slipping away” means “still alive” to me. I don’t presume to know when another person is going to leave this world. When David’s son passed away, David got up and put himself together and went on with life. But until that moment, he prayed. So I will continue, and I hope you will, too.

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!

Let’s Have Your Opinions

I’m thinking of upgrading my math software, even though I almost never use it. A very long time ago, I bought Mathcad and Maple. I also got the academic version of Mathematica. Now Mathcad is offering a very cheap upgrade, and if I get it, it will preserve my eligibility for future upgrades.

I am considering getting this software because my old version of Mathcad was fairly intuitive and easy to use, and on the rare occasions when I feel like doing a calculation, it’s a nice thing to have.

I know I have some readers who are scientifically inclined. Do any of you know whether the current version of Mathcad is any good?

I Cede my Place in the Heavenly Chorus Line

Church was interesting last night. No matter what happens there, I always seem to get what I need.

I have a policy of showing up ten minutes late, because I hate rap, and the rappiest parts of the music tend to occur early. I think. After all, my policy makes it hard for me to know exactly what happens early in the service. Last night I showed up at about 6:10, and there was a loud rock band playing. And I had never seen them before, so instantly, I was afraid they were going to be up there longer than the usual musicians. You don’t invited musical guests and then make them sit down after three songs.

Sure enough, they kept going. And going. And going. And they pulled one of my favorite church stunts. They demanded that we all dance, including jumping up and down like kangaroos (they were from Australia).

I think I could build a useful ministry, going around preaching that we have to quit ordering Christians to make fools of themselves in church. I am middle-aged, and I no longer have to dance. Like most men, I have only danced because it was forced on me by society, and I ain’t doing it any more. I am willing to risk going to hell over this. Frankly, I don’t think I’m in much peril.

There are some experiences an adult should never have to have. Being punched by a bully. Being verbally abused by a teacher. Being told you can’t go where you want to go. Being forced to eat things you don’t like. And being forced to dance. I’m all growed up, and I don’t feel like dancing, and I never did, except when it was actual dancing and not the monkey-like, aimless, forced, insincere, self-conscious spasming we have all been doing since about 1960. I have hung up my dancing shoes. Please do not come to my church and tell me to put them back on. If you want to attract gays to church so you can fix them, dancing is a great idea, but I am a fat old heterosexual male, firmly rooted to the earth, and I when I dance, I feel about as natural as Michael Jackson on a visit to Hooters.

I know David danced. He also played the harp. Do I have to play the harp, too? I wouldn’t even know where to buy one. Let’s lay off the transparently self-serving David references. They prove absolutely nothing, except that people who like to dance will torture scripture in order to force other people to do things they don’t want to do. Here’s a little news for ministers and musicians all over the US: there is no rule that says every Christian has to do everything every Bible figure did. If I have to dance, you have to build an ark, eat locusts, and part the Red Sea. And by the way, David’s dancing annoyed people. Nice God-fearing Jews, I mean. Not dirty old ignorant Philistines. And I notice it didn’t catch on. I guess everyone but David went to hell.

Show me where Jesus danced, or SHUT UP. Some dancing Christians think that deep down inside, everyone feels exactly the way they do about everything, and that if people aren’t dancing, they must be uptight or bound by demons or something. But people are different, and they don’t all have the same drives. Listen, I know someone who doesn’t like chocolate. If you can lack the desire for chocolate, which is nearly universal, you can definitely hate dancing. The love of which is only universal among women and homosexuals.

So anyway, I was not all that happy about the way things were turning out. It was like drinking castor oil for thirty straight minutes. But I resolved to be a good sport and try to get what I could out of it. Without dancing. You can’t expect a church to put on the kind of program you yourself would design, every week. If they did that for me, we would all be lying in recliners during the sermons, eating pizza with both hands. Regrettably, other people and their needs and desires matter. I felt like I was crouching in a hole, waiting for a tornado to blow over, but I’m sure many, many people there were having a great time. And the band served its purpose; maybe God is more in tune with their music than I am. When the pastor got going, the presence of God was heavy in the place, and the drive was well worth the result.

The sermon was about the presence of God, oddly enough. The very thing that has kept me going to this church.

The pastor said a funny thing while he was up there. He said the style of the music might not suit some of us, but that it wasn’t about style. Tell me God doesn’t cause preachers to say things individuals in churches need to hear.

It worked out great. But I am starting to realize I will never like “hip” Christian music. I hate rap regardless of what you do to pretty it up and take the violence and tawdry sex out of it, and I don’t like harsh Christian rock. Those types of music are about pride and rebellion; that’s what made them popular. It’s hard to remove that odor, no matter how many times you remind the audience that you’re “rep-uh-sentin’ the King, yo” or “high on the Lord.” And I worry about my ears; I’m thinking of taking plugs next time I go to church. They need a sound meter in there. Churches don’t need loud music. God isn’t deaf. But the rest of us could end up that way.

It’s funny that we still think of rock and rap as music for young people. Rock has been with us since at least the 1940s, and Rap is over thirty years old. It’s old-people music. Our popular music stopped developing in about 1975. It hasn’t changed at all since then. We have silly genres called “alternative,” “house,” and “techno” and so on, but it’s all rock. We give it new names so we can pretend we’re hearing something we haven’t heard before. Isn’t it strange that young people still look up to rockers who are approaching seventy? The present is the past. No wonder Tupac Shakur still releases albums.

Our culture doesn’t change any more. Not fundamentally. We get trashier, but that’s about it. We are frozen, like Austin Powers. I’ll bet we never change again, in any meaningful way. Society resists many types of change now. I’ll bet I’ll be able to wear my suits and ties until I die, because they’ll never go out of fashion. A few years back, the electronics industry tried to force us to buy new equipment by changing the favored color to silver, and we wouldn’t have it, and now new stereos are black again. New cars look just like cars made ten years ago. We aborted the fashion industry’s Satanic crusade to bring back bell bottoms.

Get on Google and look at photos of cars made in 1960, and then look at cars made in 1965, and then look at cars made in 1970. They’re completely different. That doesn’t happen any more. In fact, we now make new muscle cars intended to look like models we made during the Vietnam War. Weird.

I think feedback is probably the explanation. Our existing cultural ideas are constantly reinforced by TV and the Internet. Most of the TV shows we see now are reruns, thanks to cable and syndication. Watch Cheers some time. The clothes look just like the things people wear today. And a baby born when Cheers started running would be pushing 30. Sam and Diane could have grandchildren by now.

Maybe rap and rock are associated with youth because maturity and wisdom lead you to prefer other types of music. You have to be a little stunted to be 50 years old and have the musical taste of a teenager. It’s kind of sad, if you think about it. Imagine being Mick Jagger. He’s past retirement age, but if he wants to stay viable as a performer, he has to sing stuff high school kids like. I wonder how that sits with him. There is such a thing as being held captive by your audience. How would you like to be a member of the Sunshine Band, singing “That’s the Way I Like It” for the 9 millionth time, in order to make your car payment?

I mentioned disco. Now my day is ruined. But I will survive.

“I will survive”? OH NO. EARWORM! GET GLORIA GAYNOR OUT OF MY HEAD!

I’m going back to bed.

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.

Synonym for Anti-Hero: Idiot

I am turning into a House junkie, which is fitting, considering the nature of the show’s protagonist.

Last night I was exhausted from cleaning up the garage and installing wiring, and I plopped on the couch and watched two episodes. They were connected, although not consecutive. DVRs can’t work miracles; the episodes linking them were not in the box.

It works like this. House has to put in time at the free clinic, and he hates it. A big guy (David Morse) comes in and demands a VD test, commenting on House’s unpleasant, bullying nature in the process. House gets even by inserting a rectal thermometer unnecessarily. Morse figures it out, and he demands an apology. House refuses. Morse turns out to be a cop. He pulls House over for speeding, and he finds a bottle of painkillers in House’s jacket. House is arrested, and prosecution begins. He faces ten years in jail for drug crimes. Morse gives him chances to apologize and make it right, but House refuses until Morse runs out of patience. Too late, House goes into rehab, just to impress Morse and the judge. Morse doesn’t buy it, because he knows what addicts are like, and the prosecution proceeds.

That’s the bare bones of the plot.

I’ve decided House is a rotten human being. I used to think that sooner or later, something good would be found beneath the layers of slime and rot, but that’s not in the cards. He’s just bad. Last night, he whined and whined about how awful Morse and the judge and his friends were. But he never admitted responsibility or remorse, and he made no effort to change. He drove a friend to perjure herself–a felony–to get him off the hook. This, after stealing prescriptions, abusing his misguided friends, and raping a man. Sticking something in a person’s rear end after obtaining consent by fraud is rape; that’s how the law sees it. House never even brought the issue up. He didn’t just deserve to be jailed for his drug escapades. He deserved a fat lip and a prosecution for sexual battery. I was rooting for him to lose his medical license and go to the penitentiary.

House is a very good representation of a drug addict or alcoholic. They are unbearable whiners who blame the world for their problems. I don’t know why whining is connected to drug dependency. Maybe it’s because addicts can’t stand discomfort of any kind, and they are used to getting it fixed by crying and mewling. By using their misery to manipulate others. Other people accept pain and wait for it to pass. An addict deflects it onto other people, making it their problem and motivating them to get rid of it. Now that I think about it, I suppose an addict is helpless without other people around. They are so used to making other people do their bidding and support their habits, they don’t know how to do things for themselves. Is this where the concept of co-dependency comes from? I guess it is. When Walter Hudson got up over a thousand pounds, it was clear he wasn’t the only one with a problem. Somebody was bringing him the buckets of doughnuts, and that person was also sick.

Have you ever known an alcoholic who didn’t revel in self-pity? I haven’t. They don’t always do it openly, but if you spend time with a problem drinker, it will come out eventually. For me, one of the most disgusting, ugliest parts of dealing with addicts is listening to their infantile whimpering. It’s worse than driving one to rehab or changing locks or searching inside couch cushions and bric a brac for hidden pills. Those things are relatively pleasant compared to being subjected to moaning and excuses. I’m sorry to say it, but this was the dark side of reading Acidman’s blog. He wasn’t always the ruthless self-examiner he held himself out to be.

Virtually every addict is one hundred percent responsible for his addiction, but almost all of them blame other people or circumstances they can’t control. What a load. No addict who sees himself as a victim can hope to recover. If you’re hooked on something, you’re not a victim. You’re just foolish, and you need to grow up. There are only two persons who have the power to end an addiction. The addict, and God. Everyone else should be left out of it. At least, they should not be held to account for it.

I have never made another person an addict. Nothing I have ever done, no matter how bad it may have been, has caused another person to take a pill or a drink. I am completely blameless. Addicts are self-made, and they have no right to drag the rest of us into their self-inflicted misery.

Sometimes when we watch TV and movies we see heroes who are abrasive and demanding, yet who turn out to be justified, because they mean well, and they’re harder on themselves than on other people. John Wayne played this type better than any other actor. I kept telling myself House would turn out to fit the model. But he doesn’t. He’s a complete coward. He doesn’t have the guts to ask a woman out; he rents hookers instead. He never criticizes himself. When he apologizes, the show stops dead, because it’s such a rare event. He abuses people verbally, for no constructive purpose. He steals, purely to satisfy his base urges. He browbeats patients for no reason. He sabotages relationships that he finds threatening. He even refused to go to his father’s funeral, knowing it would punish his innocent mother and not the dead father who was beyond his pathetic vengeance.

He’s funny and smart and creative. But those are gifts, not virtues. In the big scheme of things, they have no lasting or deep value.

Thinking about his inability to criticize himself, I started to consider the modern cult of self-esteem. It’s a very sad religion, to which I was once a deluded adherent. Today I realized that when we tell people their salvation lies in self-esteem, we are telling them to take on the fundamental and fatal flaw of the addict. We are telling them to stop acknowledging their flaws. You can’t grow unless you can admit fault and apologize and work sincerely to change.

A personality is like a garden. And what do you do in a garden when you want the good plants to grow? You go in every day with a hoe, and you kill the bad plants. Imagine what raising tomatoes would be like, if we applied the principles of the self-esteem religion. We wouldn’t see weeds. We would see “botanical diversity.” We would see “nature manifesting its power and determination.” It would seem a thing of beauty. We would withhold the hoe. And we would get very damn few tomatoes.

Self-esteem feels good, and it gives you energy and helps you do the things you want to do. But when it goes beyond a healthy level, it causes you to ignore your own faults and overestimate your abilities. You start to think every good thing that happens to you is deserved, and that you caused it through your own strength. People who have that belief tend to wander away from God. They forget they need him. They may start to think morality is silly. They may commit crimes and mistreat other people. They sever the connection to God’s power. Then when the illusion of self-sufficiency is shattered, they don’t have the habits of faith and prayer and contrition and obedience, so they have a tough time recovering.

Self-esteem is not the answer to your problems. Psychologists tell us that self-esteem is highest in segments of society where achievement is lowest and immorality is rampant. Prison inmates, for example, tend to think very highly of themselves. You need to be confident that you can achieve. But if that confidence is to be healthy and productive, it can’t be purely self-directed. You have to have confidence that you can do what you need to do, with God’s help. That’s how man was designed to work. The self-esteem cult is idolatry, and it leads to stunted development and a dead end. A spiritual stillbirth.

Moses was extremely humble. He was too shy to talk to Pharaoh without Aaron beside him. But he parted the Red Sea and led hundreds of thousands of people across, dry-shod. He esteemed God, not himself. Moses exalted God, and God exalted Moses. That’s the healthy way to live.

I don’t know if I’ll keep watching House. It’s hard to enjoy a show when you keep hoping the “hero” gets punched in the mouth and convicted of a pile of felonies. And I’m also tired of hearing about MS and sarcoidosis. I don’t know if the medical consultants who help write the show are out of ideas or what, but it seems like every patient, sooner or later, is suspected of having MS, sarcoidosis, or both. I don’t even know what sarcoidosis is, but I know how to treat it, thanks to House.

I have enjoyed movies and shows in which moral ambiguity played a part, but we have gotten to the point where we are expected to support characters who are not merely confused, but vile. All year I’ve been watching Breaking Bad, a show in which a chemistry teacher with cancer starts making meth in order to be able to leave his family money. In the beginning, you could feel sorry for him, because of his desperation, and because he wasn’t doing the very worst things drug dealers do. Lately he’s been a real idiot, though. It was bad when he was selling poison. Now he’s urging his sidekick to commit murder, and he’s threatening rival dealers. I used to wish him well. Now I want to see him in an orange jumpsuit. Or I’d like to see him take a good, bloody pounding from a parent whose kid used his product.

Guess it’s a good thing that I watch so little TV these days.

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.