So Wes and I were hanging out at a mutual friend's business, Mona
Lisa Pasta in Charlottesville, Virginia where one of the brighter
employees had decided to clean the rollers of the ravioli machine with
an awl whilst the machine was running...
This did two things:
a) As the machine grabbed the awl between two rollers, it nicely
embossed the outline of the awl on them.
b) The cast iron bearings holding the rollers disintegrated.
Our mutual friend, Jim-Bob, was not happy. Turns out that there
are all kinds of expensive pasta machines imported from Italy to the
states, but hardly anyone stocks parts for any of them if you can even
find out who really made your machine. Turns out this is true of a
bunch of commercial Italian restaurant stuff, espresso machines
included.
I decided to give the project a try. I'd recently purchased a set
of Plastool carbide insert tooling for the Maximat and wondered whether
it would work o.k. on bronze, which seemed to be a decent bearing
material. Wes pulled the machine apart one night and gave me the
measurements: the shafts were .786 " while the bearings themselves had
to fit in a 1.110 " slot. It took about an evening. There were also
flats on the outside of these things for the slot, and another small
flat for an adjustment screw on each. The carbide inserts cut just fine
as did one of those super cheap brazed carbide boring bars.
Jim-Bob watched as Wes slid the bearings on....
"Damn, Charles, that's sexual...."
Payment for the work took the form of unlimited gourmet pizza for
my family of four this weekend which in my case is just as good as
money.
Machine seems to work fine, and I guess Jim-Bob doesn't mind that
the left hand row of ravioli biscuits always has a small dough awl
lying across them. What the heck.
Anyway, my point is, if you're hobby, homeshop machinist small
time and looking for work, check out the restaurant business or leave a
card with the local pasta/bread works/bakery/latte dispensing folks. It
might help to pay for something, or at least get you well and truly fed.

Charles M

I found my niche at my dentist's office.

One day, there was a box of broken or uninstalled dental equipment in
the hall, and I noticed a broken item. I asked if he would like it
fixed, spent two months working on a "dental casting condyle joint
emulator" in my spare time, in aluminum, to replace the broken
Bakelite, and earned a tidy hundred dollars or so, and several good
tools, required to make the item.

Now I am working on a custom tool for the man. Very hush hush.

Doug

I do repairs like that all the time. Commercial machine shops don't
want to fool with them, so price themselves out of the market and I
have fun making innovative repairs for people who would otherwise have
to scrap a valuable machine.
I'm sure most everyone on this forum has done the same thing.
Bugs

In article .com,
Bugs wrote:

I do repairs like that all the time. Commercial machine shops don't
want to fool with them, so price themselves out of the market and I
have fun making innovative repairs for people who would otherwise have
to scrap a valuable machine.
I'm sure most everyone on this forum has done the same thing.
Bugs

I seem to have missed the first part of this thread, so I might be out
of line in what I am about to say. The machine shops might
intentionally price themselves out of the market because of liability.

Once you start being "innovative" you assume the liability for the
changes and by extension the whole machine. We all know what that means
in the first part of the 21st century in the USA. Sorry to rain on
anyone's parade.

Chuck P.

PS:When I closed my business, on the advise of my attorney, I scraped
several special machines we had built. We were covered by workers comp
as long as our employees used them, but not if we sold them.

Bugs wrote:

I'm sure most everyone on this forum has done the same thing.

"Will weld for beer" worked for me many times. :-))

Nick

--
Motormodelle / Engine Models
http://www.motor-manufaktur.de
todays SPAMfeed: 

snip
Anyway, my point is, if you're hobby, homeshop machinist small
time and looking for work, check out the restaurant business or leave a
card with the local pasta/bread works/bakery/latte dispensing folks. It
might help to pay for something, or at least get you well and truly fed.

Charles M

Was in a shoe repair shop once getting a leather pouch sewn - guy had
a *lot* of *old* machines. Of course I had to get my nose in there to
see how they were made. He was complaining about having to spend
something like $30. for a little special bolt for one of the machines.
Dropped off a card and offered to try repairs on any stuff that broke
- so far haven't heard from him. Those machines are made pretty well
and seem to run forever.
Ken.

You seem to be suffering a case of lawyeritis. G Have you ever heard
a lawyer say anything positive?
My 'innovative' repairs mostly improve a machine by making it stronger
or easier to use. Safety is always uppermost in my mind. The negativism
of the legal community casts a pall over everything anybody does.
Bugs

"Bugs" wrote in message
oups.com...
Safety is always uppermost in my mind. The negativism of the
legal community casts a pall over everything anybody does.

The problem is not the "negativism of the legal community". The problem is
the litigious society created by a self-serving legal community.

On 20 Jun 2005 06:38:32 -0700, the opaque "Bugs"
spake:

You seem to be suffering a case of lawyeritis. G Have you ever heard
a lawyer say anything positive?

I have! My Work Comp lawyer (which I was forced to get after the Ins
Co let me lay around for over a year) said TWO things which I felt
were positive. The first was "We got more by settling out of court
than the judge would have allowed if we had gone into his court room."
($15k + $6k for my Coleman College retraining.) The second was even
nicer: "My cut is only 11%"


My 'innovative' repairs mostly improve a machine by making it stronger
or easier to use. Safety is always uppermost in my mind. The negativism
of the legal community casts a pall over everything anybody does.

Sucks, doesn't it? That's why wood and metal shops are dying all over
the country. Once we're gone, there will be far fewer people to build
things and repair the remaining machinery. Way sad.


--------------------------------------------
-- I'm in touch with my Inner Curmudgeon. --
http://diversify.com Comprehensive Website Development
================================================== ==========

DeepDiver wrote:

"Bugs" wrote in message
roups.com...


Safety is always uppermost in my mind. The negativism of the
legal community casts a pall over everything anybody does.



The problem is not the "negativism of the legal community". The problem is
the litigious society created by a self-serving legal community.




And...a court system that doesn't hold a person fully responsible for
their own stupidity. You bear some responsibility because you didn't
think and protect yourself from ALL the ways someone could do something
stupid. "Reasonably prudent" is out the window.



Koz

I do stuff like that too. Mostly for things of my own, but also for
the art department of the local high school. They have various tools
that break and can be fixed, but the maintenance dept of the high
school is geared to repair the building.

One repair very similar to yours, was resurfacing the rolls of a small
metal roller used by the jewelry students to make metal thinner. One
of the high school students had tried to flatten a clothes hanger wire.
A carbide cutter put a smooth finish on it.

I don't get much reward for this work. But I do it a a volunteer.

Dan

"Koz" wrote in message
news

DeepDiver wrote:

"Bugs" wrote in message
groups.com...

Safety is always uppermost in my mind. The negativism of the
legal community casts a pall over everything anybody does.


The problem is not the "negativism of the legal community". The problem is
the litigious society created by a self-serving legal community.

And...a court system that doesn't hold a person fully responsible for
their own stupidity. You bear some responsibility because you didn't
think and protect yourself from ALL the ways someone could do something
stupid. "Reasonably prudent" is out the window.


Yup. I include the court system in the superset of "self-serving legal
community." After all, where do all the judges (who interpret the laws and
set precedents) come from? I also include politicians (who write the laws),
as most of them come from that same self-serving legal community (and even
those who don't are influenced by the huge campaign donations from the
lawyer's special interests groups).

All in all, it's a perverted system where those in the legal profession are
able to create the laws, interpret and rule upon the laws, and profit from
the laws.

All in all, it's a perverted system where those in the legal profession are
able to create the laws, interpret and rule upon the laws, and profit from
the laws.
Isn't that a tautology? If you "create the laws, interpret and rule
upon the laws", then you pretty much *have* to be in the legal
profession, don't you?

All sorts of people profit (and loose money) from all sorts of laws.
Today I just found out I have to pay $300 just to *file* for a
divorce...

Just to get into rant-mode, breifly, but I think almost any "community"
becomes self-serving, given enough time. And there are "bad apples" in
any community... from police to preists. Lawyers are just easier to
villify.

Instead of villifying the (never) popular legal profession, it's important to
consider that these ridiculous cases (and awards) are decided by a jury of folks
off the street - not lawyers. If the lawyers confuse the jury with their legal
angles, that is an indication that the jurors are not too bright. Most of the
cases that are settled out-of-court are done so out of fear of these same
"everyman" decisions. I suspect that people who award damages in these cases are
just waiting for the day when they can become beneficiaries of similar handouts.

The above argument notwithstanding, my personal opinion about lawyers is summed
up by this:

Q: When a lawyer dies, his grave is dug 12 feet deep, instead of the usual 6
feet. Why is this?
A: Because, deep down, lawyers are really good people.

Joe

DeepDiver wrote:



Yup. I include the court system in the superset of "self-serving legal
community." After all, where do all the judges (who interpret the laws and
set precedents) come from? I also include politicians (who write the laws),
as most of them come from that same self-serving legal community (and even
those who don't are influenced by the huge campaign donations from the
lawyer's special interests groups).

All in all, it's a perverted system where those in the legal profession are
able to create the laws, interpret and rule upon the laws, and profit from
the laws.