On Tue, 27 Nov 2007 14:44:45 -0500, (Arch) wrote:

Tip: To make a centered sharp point on round bar or a bolt, hold it in a
hand drill against a rotating grinder. How to hold a 3/4 in. bolt in
most hand drills I leave for you to figure out. Maybe cut off the head
and rotate the bolt on your lathe and rotate an arbored stone in a hand
drill against it. I'm a fair 'shade tree' mechanic, but the leaves are
beginning to fall.

As an addendum to this tip, it is possible to machine metal freehand
on a wood lathe. You need either an oland-style tool with a metal
cutting toolbit grind, or a tool called a graver, which is a rod of
tool steel with a three-sided pyramid profile ground onto the end.

In either of these cases, slow the lathe down as low as it will go,
lubricate the cutting tool frequently with cutting oil, and make sure
your tool has a long handle for leverage- a catch in wood might hurt
you, and it's certainly not a better situation when it happens with
metal.

Aluminum and copper can be cut with your regular turning tools as
well- though the same cautions apply, and they'll dull very quickly.

At the end of the day, there are three major differences between basic
metal and wood lathes- the metal lathe can go slower, the cutting bit
is held in a fixture and not in your hands, and the angle of the grind
on the cutting tools is different. If you can work around those three
things, you can use either one for both materials, though the mess may
not be worth it.

Black iron and electrogalvanized 1/2 in. pipe fittings make metal tool
handles, arm braces, faceplates, cup chucks, small screw chucks,
sandpaper punches. etc. Go to a plumbing shop, HD or Lowes and think of
the possibilities.

Absolutely. Black pipe is my friend.

Tail pipe expanders can be converted to expansion chucks. Lever type
rubber bottle caps make small sanding drums. Brass plumbing compression
fittings make small collet chucks. Particularly the 3/8 in. for holding
bottle stopper dowels. That is if anybody is still using cork like the
wineries do for their best wines. I never could remove the metal caps
on the wines I drink with a corkscrew. I'm not even sure if being the
connoisseur I am, I should discretely murmur "Sommelier, this wine is
Corked" or to be even more 'derigueur' to shout, "waiter this wine is
Aluminumed, but I'll drink it for half price".

Dang, Arch- you need to shell out the extra $2 and upgrade that
wine... don't you get tired of feeling like you got kicked in the head
the next day?

That's a non-problem here in S. Fla. (aka God's waiting room) where most
original owners are deceased. Not to put too fine a point on it, but
while I wait my turn, I may as well enjoy turning on the cheap. Of
course as the last of the big spenders, if we miss the recession, I'll
spring for the ice water and day old doughnuts.

I don't think there's going to be any missing the "recession" that's
coming. Of course, there are a lot of guys on here that are older,
and in many cases, much older, than myself- but we're on a rocketslide
into hell, sooner or later, as far as I can see. Won't be too long
before someone notices that we no longer make things, and China gets
all the oil because people realize that they need it to make products,
instead of just driving around Humvees to deliver pizzas to one
another in our new and improved (tm) "service economy."

There might be an argument for a new economic model if we actually
were producing a society's worth of top-notch scientists, medical
workers and engineers who are able to export knowledge and innovation-
but as far as I can tell, all the "new economy" means to the average
bloke is that you can now earn as much or more stocking shelves at the
WalMart, and with better benefits to boot, as you can in a machine
shop or factory. With nothing with which to pay our way, our credit
will run out soon enough, those WalMart jobs will go away, and we'll
be saddled with a lot of folks who are qualified only to scan UPCs and
stack up boxes.

Of course, there's always the chance that China and the other rapidly
rising third-world manufacturies will have labor revolts, unionize and
make domestic production seem like a bargin again- but it won't be an
easy transition when most people don't even know how to read a tape
measure.

Sorry you read this far? Quitcherbellyaching. I warned you at the
beginning this was long & wrong. I don't think this post is a mortal
sin, but maybe I should go to one of those new automated confessionals.
Naw! I'd probably be made to buy something new and first class if M15
doesn't persecute me first.

Not much wrong with it that I can see. I hate to have to admit it,
and I don't usually talk about it to anyone (as it makes me sound like
a crazy person,) but I really will not be surprised if some day my
shops are actually *needed* to make things to keep my neighbors alive
and kicking, and not just for my personal enjoyment and a side income.
If I'm right about that, it'll be a godsend to have a forge, the
cupola melting furnace I've got on my drawing board, and my other
fabrication tools for both wood and metal- and if not, well, at least
it's a constructive and useful hobby. Better than my old man and his
buddies burying guns in the yard, anyway.

Apologies to all for waxing paranoic- I keep hoping one day I'll wake
up to find that I was wrong all along, and everything is turning out
for the best. Unfortunately....

Well, maybe I'm just a misanthrope. Never was very good at seeing the
silver lining on things.