Really, I don't usually buy cheap tools. I appreciate high quality,
and if I can remotely justify it to myself ("well, I just might use
this a second time within the next decade... certainly within the next
two..."), I'll spring the extra bucks and get the better version.

However.... part of me is a sucker for an apparent bargain and every
now and then I do get something cheap, although usually with my eyes
open. So it was last summer when House Of Tools (here in Canada, don't
know if they're in the States) had a drill index with 1/16in to 1/2in
drill bits in 64ths for some silly low price – don't even remember
what – 5 bucks? 10? Anyway, they were sharp, I figured how bad can
they be? Maybe the steel is junk and they'll lose their edge
immediately – I'll just reserve 'em for drilling plastic, balsa, stuff
like that, right?

So finally the other day I need to drill some nice soft plastic, got
'em out, chucked up the bit I needed. Hmm. Must have chucked it
off-center. Seems to be wobbling. Rechucked, paying attention this
time. Hmmm? Still wobbling. Took it out. Rolled it on the drill press
table. BENT! Straight (if I may use the word) from the factory! Argh!
Sheesh. Ya can't trust anybody anymore. I expect cheap stuff to wear
out in no time, but I imagine I'd get at least one gentle use out of
it before it died. Maybe some of the rest of the set is usable.

Oh, well. Cheap lesson? At least it wasn't a $4K lathe.

Mickey

"Mickey Feldman" wrote in
message ...
Really, I don't usually buy cheap tools. I appreciate high quality,
and if I can remotely justify it to myself ("well, I just might use
this a second time within the next decade... certainly within the next
two..."), I'll spring the extra bucks and get the better version.

However.... part of me is a sucker for an apparent bargain and every
now and then I do get something cheap, although usually with my eyes
open. So it was last summer when House Of Tools (here in Canada, don't
know if they're in the States) had a drill index with 1/16in to 1/2in
drill bits in 64ths for some silly low price - don't even remember
what - 5 bucks? 10? Anyway, they were sharp, I figured how bad can
they be? Maybe the steel is junk and they'll lose their edge
immediately - I'll just reserve 'em for drilling plastic, balsa, stuff
like that, right?

So finally the other day I need to drill some nice soft plastic, got
'em out, chucked up the bit I needed. Hmm. Must have chucked it
off-center. Seems to be wobbling. Rechucked, paying attention this
time. Hmmm? Still wobbling. Took it out. Rolled it on the drill press
table. BENT! Straight (if I may use the word) from the factory! Argh!
Sheesh. Ya can't trust anybody anymore. I expect cheap stuff to wear
out in no time, but I imagine I'd get at least one gentle use out of
it before it died. Maybe some of the rest of the set is usable.

Oh, well. Cheap lesson? At least it wasn't a $4K lathe.

Mickey



I bought a set like that It was either KMS or BusyBee, could have been
House of Tools, I can't remember. Anyway, 29 reduced-shank brad point bits
in a metal box for next to nothing. I figured, I'm drilling softwood, how
good does the steel have to be?

Turned out the reduced shanks were somehow cut on an angle to the centre
line. The first time I chucked one up, I stood there wondering why the tip
was blurry. So, on my $1200 lathe, I chucked them up and reduced the
shanks a little more, until they were straight: they work just fine now.
Sometimes cheap is okay

David...

"Mickey Feldman" wrote in
message ...


So finally the other day I need to drill some nice soft plastic, got
'em out, chucked up the bit I needed. Hmm. Must have chucked it
off-center. Seems to be wobbling. Rechucked, paying attention this
time. Hmmm? Still wobbling. Took it out. Rolled it on the drill press
table. BENT! Straight (if I may use the word) from the factory! Argh!
Sheesh. Ya can't trust anybody anymore.

I think those are the ones that actually start as nails. When a nail gets
stuck in the cold-header machine and they have to grab it with pliers and
twist it out, they call that nail a "drill bit" and cut the head off of it.
g

Ed Huntress

On Tue, 10 Feb 2004 06:18:41 GMT, "Ed Huntress"
vaguely proposed a theory
.......and in reply I say!:

Not so funny. I once bought a cheapy set that were not just bent, but
bendy. They were far softer than lo-ten fencing wire.

I think those are the ones that actually start as nails. When a nail gets
stuck in the cold-header machine and they have to grab it with pliers and
twist it out, they call that nail a "drill bit" and cut the head off of it.
g

Ed Huntress


************************************************** ** sorry

..........no I'm not!
remove ns from my header address to reply via email

Spike....Spike? Hello?

My first set of cheap drill was many moons ago. I was drilling through a
piece of steel when the bit broke through and jammed. I did the usual
freeing bit and finished drilling the hole OK. Came to put the drill away
and it looked sort of funny. It was still straight but had twisted in the
middle 1/3rd of the flutes. I had a drill whose flutes started right hand,
converted to left hand and then went back to right hand. The edge was still
sharp and it still cut OK. Looked really weird though.

John

I did get some cheep drill bits from American Science and Surplus some years
back. Wondered why they didn't drill holes. Turns out the cutting ends
weren't sharpened -- you machinsts know about leading edges and trailing
edges. Well, I had to spend a couple minutes at the grinder, doing the
angles that the factory oughta done.

--

Christopher A. Young
Jesus: The Reason for the Season
www.lds.org
www.mormons.com


"Mickey Feldman" wrote in
message ...
Really, I don't usually buy cheap tools. I appreciate high quality,
and if I can remotely justify it to myself ("well, I just might use
this a second time within the next decade... certainly within the next
two..."), I'll spring the extra bucks and get the better version.

However.... part of me is a sucker for an apparent bargain and every
now and then I do get something cheap, although usually with my eyes
open. So it was last summer when House Of Tools (here in Canada, don't
know if they're in the States) had a drill index with 1/16in to 1/2in
drill bits in 64ths for some silly low price - don't even remember
what - 5 bucks? 10? Anyway, they were sharp, I figured how bad can
they be? Maybe the steel is junk and they'll lose their edge
immediately - I'll just reserve 'em for drilling plastic, balsa, stuff
like that, right?

So finally the other day I need to drill some nice soft plastic, got
'em out, chucked up the bit I needed. Hmm. Must have chucked it
off-center. Seems to be wobbling. Rechucked, paying attention this
time. Hmmm? Still wobbling. Took it out. Rolled it on the drill press
table. BENT! Straight (if I may use the word) from the factory! Argh!
Sheesh. Ya can't trust anybody anymore. I expect cheap stuff to wear
out in no time, but I imagine I'd get at least one gentle use out of
it before it died. Maybe some of the rest of the set is usable.

Oh, well. Cheap lesson? At least it wasn't a $4K lathe.

Mickey

And the "flare nut" wrench set from Pittsburgh tools, imported by Harbor
Fright. They were so soft, and so oversized that they wouldn't turn nuts --
flare or otherwise -- they went into the trash.

And the crescent wrench from Dollar Store.... won't do that again.

--

Christopher A. Young
Jesus: The Reason for the Season
www.lds.org
www.mormons.com


"Mickey Feldman" wrote in
message ...
Really, I don't usually buy cheap tools. I appreciate high quality,
and if I can remotely justify it to myself ("well, I just might use
this a second time within the next decade... certainly within the next
two..."), I'll spring the extra bucks and get the better version.

However.... part of me is a sucker for an apparent bargain and every
now and then I do get something cheap, although usually with my eyes
open. So it was last summer when House Of Tools (here in Canada, don't
know if they're in the States) had a drill index with 1/16in to 1/2in
drill bits in 64ths for some silly low price - don't even remember
what - 5 bucks? 10? Anyway, they were sharp, I figured how bad can
they be? Maybe the steel is junk and they'll lose their edge
immediately - I'll just reserve 'em for drilling plastic, balsa, stuff
like that, right?

So finally the other day I need to drill some nice soft plastic, got
'em out, chucked up the bit I needed. Hmm. Must have chucked it
off-center. Seems to be wobbling. Rechucked, paying attention this
time. Hmmm? Still wobbling. Took it out. Rolled it on the drill press
table. BENT! Straight (if I may use the word) from the factory! Argh!
Sheesh. Ya can't trust anybody anymore. I expect cheap stuff to wear
out in no time, but I imagine I'd get at least one gentle use out of
it before it died. Maybe some of the rest of the set is usable.

Oh, well. Cheap lesson? At least it wasn't a $4K lathe.

Mickey

On Tue, 10 Feb 2004 05:32:44 GMT, Mickey Feldman
wrote:

===Really, I don't usually buy cheap tools. I appreciate high quality,
===and if I can remotely justify it to myself ("well, I just might use
===this a second time within the next decade... certainly within the next
===two..."), I'll spring the extra bucks and get the better version.
===
===However.... part of me is a sucker for an apparent bargain and every
===now and then I do get something cheap, although usually with my eyes
===open. So it was last summer when House Of Tools (here in Canada, don't
===know if they're in the States) had a drill index with 1/16in to 1/2in
===drill bits in 64ths for some silly low price – don't even remember
===what – 5 bucks? 10? Anyway, they were sharp, I figured how bad can
===they be? Maybe the steel is junk and they'll lose their edge
===immediately – I'll just reserve 'em for drilling plastic, balsa, stuff
===like that, right?
===
===So finally the other day I need to drill some nice soft plastic, got
==='em out, chucked up the bit I needed. Hmm. Must have chucked it
===off-center. Seems to be wobbling. Rechucked, paying attention this
===time. Hmmm? Still wobbling. Took it out. Rolled it on the drill press
===table. BENT! Straight (if I may use the word) from the factory! Argh!
===Sheesh. Ya can't trust anybody anymore. I expect cheap stuff to wear
===out in no time, but I imagine I'd get at least one gentle use out of
===it before it died. Maybe some of the rest of the set is usable.
===
===Oh, well. Cheap lesson? At least it wasn't a $4K lathe.
===
===Mickey
===
I bought a set of letter drills on ebay one time for a total of $4.00
and some change. I accepted right from the start they would probably
be junk..............but I had that urge for a hopefull bargain. I was
totally wrong. They seem to be very good drill bits and I have yet to
have one problem out of any of them. They hold an edge fine and mic
out to ther proper sizes. Now I wished I bought another set or two, as
these were listed in a dutch type auction. Every now and then you
stumble on a great deal, rare but still a possibility.
Visit my website: http://www.frugalmachinist.com
Opinions expressed are those of my wifes,
I had no input whatsoever.
Remove "nospam" from email addy.

Mickey Feldman wrote:
snipped

So finally the other day I need to drill some nice soft plastic, got
'em out, chucked up the bit I needed. Hmm. Must have chucked it
off-center. Seems to be wobbling. Rechucked, paying attention this
time. Hmmm? Still wobbling. Took it out. Rolled it on the drill press
table. BENT! Straight (if I may use the word) from the factory! Argh!



Maybe he can use those drills to fix the cast iron clamps Hylouros
posted about here last month. G

He said:

************************************************** ************************

Hi all,

I recently picked up three large (7") cast iron 3/4" pipe clamps for a
buck each. Second hand, but never used, and I think I know why now:
the two holes on the threaded side of the clamp don't match up very
well. See a pic of the clamp at:

snipped

Anyway, I'm thinking that the only way to salvage these is to bore out
one side of the non-threaded hole until it is parallel with the
threaded hole--removing about 1/4" of material by my estimation. The
hole is 1" dia., 3" deep, cast iron.

************************************************** *************************


Jeff (Celebrating his 68th birthday today!)

--
Jeff Wisnia (W1BSV + Brass Rat '57 EE)

"My luck is so bad that if I bought a cemetery, people would stop dying."

Greetings and Salutations...

On Tue, 10 Feb 2004 13:38:15 -0000, "John Manders"
wrote:

My first set of cheap drill was many moons ago. I was drilling through a
piece of steel when the bit broke through and jammed. I did the usual
freeing bit and finished drilling the hole OK. Came to put the drill away
and it looked sort of funny. It was still straight but had twisted in the
middle 1/3rd of the flutes. I had a drill whose flutes started right hand,
converted to left hand and then went back to right hand. The edge was still
sharp and it still cut OK. Looked really weird though.

John


Yea, I posted a long time ago about one of MY experiences with
dirt cheap drillsets. In this case, I was trying to drill about a
1/8" hole through some oak. It went through, but, was a struggle,
and, when I pulled the drill out, I was surprised to find that a chunk
of the spiral was reversed! Needless to say they all went in the
trash...although now, I kind of regret not keeping the partially
reversed one.
While there are areas where it is great to save money (clamps,
for example) it is a waste of money and time to buy cheap cutting
tools. Good drills, etc, will cut more accurately, longer and
better, with less force, than cheap.
Regards
Dave Mundt

you need to be wary of cheap clamps. I have seen a cheap malleable iron
C clamp that gave up in the middle of the back of the C section. Nice
grain structure evident but not much evidence of any malleable nature.

Dave Mundt wrote:

Greetings and Salutations...

On Tue, 10 Feb 2004 13:38:15 -0000, "John Manders"
wrote:

My first set of cheap drill was many moons ago. I was drilling through a
piece of steel when the bit broke through and jammed. I did the usual
freeing bit and finished drilling the hole OK. Came to put the drill away
and it looked sort of funny. It was still straight but had twisted in the
middle 1/3rd of the flutes. I had a drill whose flutes started right hand,
converted to left hand and then went back to right hand. The edge was still
sharp and it still cut OK. Looked really weird though.

John


Yea, I posted a long time ago about one of MY experiences with
dirt cheap drillsets. In this case, I was trying to drill about a
1/8" hole through some oak. It went through, but, was a struggle,
and, when I pulled the drill out, I was surprised to find that a chunk
of the spiral was reversed! Needless to say they all went in the
trash...although now, I kind of regret not keeping the partially
reversed one.
While there are areas where it is great to save money (clamps,
for example) it is a waste of money and time to buy cheap cutting
tools. Good drills, etc, will cut more accurately, longer and
better, with less force, than cheap.
Regards
Dave Mundt

Working in machine shops for over 15 years I have found many supposed "good"
quality twist drills that were ground off center or had a trailing edge
higher than the cutting edge. Always check your grinds.


--snip,snip--
"Mickey Feldman" wrote in
message ...

Greetings and Salutations...

On Tue, 10 Feb 2004 20:50:15 +0000, David Billington
wrote:

you need to be wary of cheap clamps. I have seen a cheap malleable iron
C clamp that gave up in the middle of the back of the C section. Nice
grain structure evident but not much evidence of any malleable nature.

This is a good point. For "C" clamps, I tend to prefer
decent quality ones. The Pittsburgh "F" clamps from HF are not a bad
deal, and actually, I discovered a bit ago that HF "C" clamps are not
iron...but steel. I hacked a great mod to the deck height adjustment
mechanism on my John Deere lawn tractor by cutting out the threaded
section of one of their 6" clamps and welding it to the support arm.
Probably not the greatest steel in the world, but, it has worked
really well for several years now.
In general I have found that I would rather buy the best,
and only cry once...but "best" can be a flexible concept...
Regards
Dave Mundt

Well..I thought I would be swimming upstream here but Roy's experience
agrees with something I saw: I have avoided buying anything that cut metal
from Harbor Freight(HF) thinking that it would be a waste of time and a
source of frustration. A friend of mine, a good mechanical engineer,
re-built a 35 Jason sailboat right along side my shop. He bought a drill
set from HF and used them drilling numerous holes thru,, of all things, SS.
My super duper made in the USA expensive drill bits couldn't keep up with
the usage that he got out of the cheap drills from HF. I'm still thinking
about that and wondering what and how? At any rate,the price differences
like $9.95 for a die grinder vs. $159 US I can throw the $9.95 unit at the
dog if it evers craps out and it still hasn't thru the building of several
projects and hard usage. I just bought a set of 1/2 - 1" Silver &
Demming drills in increments of 1/16. I paid less for the whole set than
just the 7/8" drill at the local store. Cheap? Maybe..I"ll find out. I
hope they are as long lasting as my friends..
Stu Fields
"Roy" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 10 Feb 2004 05:32:44 GMT, Mickey Feldman
wrote:

===Really, I don't usually buy cheap tools. I appreciate high quality,
===and if I can remotely justify it to myself ("well, I just might use
===this a second time within the next decade... certainly within the
next
===two..."), I'll spring the extra bucks and get the better version.
===
===However.... part of me is a sucker for an apparent bargain and every
===now and then I do get something cheap, although usually with my eyes
===open. So it was last summer when House Of Tools (here in Canada,
don't
===know if they're in the States) had a drill index with 1/16in to
1/2in
===drill bits in 64ths for some silly low price - don't even remember
===what - 5 bucks? 10? Anyway, they were sharp, I figured how bad can
===they be? Maybe the steel is junk and they'll lose their edge
===immediately - I'll just reserve 'em for drilling plastic, balsa,
stuff
===like that, right?
===
===So finally the other day I need to drill some nice soft plastic, got
==='em out, chucked up the bit I needed. Hmm. Must have chucked it
===off-center. Seems to be wobbling. Rechucked, paying attention this
===time. Hmmm? Still wobbling. Took it out. Rolled it on the drill
press
===table. BENT! Straight (if I may use the word) from the factory!
Argh!
===Sheesh. Ya can't trust anybody anymore. I expect cheap stuff to wear
===out in no time, but I imagine I'd get at least one gentle use out of
===it before it died. Maybe some of the rest of the set is usable.
===
===Oh, well. Cheap lesson? At least it wasn't a $4K lathe.
===
===Mickey
===
I bought a set of letter drills on ebay one time for a total of $4.00
and some change. I accepted right from the start they would probably
be junk..............but I had that urge for a hopefull bargain. I was
totally wrong. They seem to be very good drill bits and I have yet to
have one problem out of any of them. They hold an edge fine and mic
out to ther proper sizes. Now I wished I bought another set or two, as
these were listed in a dutch type auction. Every now and then you
stumble on a great deal, rare but still a possibility.
Visit my website: http://www.frugalmachinist.com
Opinions expressed are those of my wifes,
I had no input whatsoever.
Remove "nospam" from email addy.

On Tue, 10 Feb 2004 09:16:39 -0500, "Stormin Mormonn"
wrote:

And the "flare nut" wrench set from Pittsburgh tools, imported by Harbor
Fright. They were so soft, and so oversized that they wouldn't turn nuts --
flare or otherwise -- they went into the trash.

And the crescent wrench from Dollar Store.... won't do that again.
I found a perfect use for an "El Cheap o" stamped sheet metal wrench.
One Saturday morning I bought a document shredder by GBC for $1.00.
When I tried to use it, it would shred for about 1/2' then seem to
spin it's wheels without doing any work. On examination, I determined
that the problem lay in the nylon gear turning on the 7/16 hex shaft.
I took a thin, stamped six point box wrench, cut it to fit, carved
away enough of the hub and ribs to accommodate the added part, and now
I have a positive drive to the shredding mechanism. I suspect that the
nylon gear was designed to slip on overload or jam, but with it
slipping on a single sheet of copy paper, the designers exceeded their
goals considerably.
Sure, fixing yard sale junk is not profitable, but at my age, it gets
to be fun!
Gerry :-)}
London, Canada

Jeff Wisnia wrote:
(Snip)
Jeff (Celebrating his 68th birthday today!)


Happy Birthday, Jeff!

--Winston

On Tue, 10 Feb 2004 18:56:23 -0800, "Stu Fields" wrote:
Well..I thought I would be swimming upstream here but Roy's experience
agrees with something I saw: I have avoided buying anything that cut metal
from Harbor Freight(HF) thinking that it would be a waste of time and a
source of frustration. A friend of mine, a good mechanical engineer,
re-built a 35 Jason sailboat right along side my shop. He bought a drill
set from HF and used them drilling numerous holes thru,, of all things, SS.
My super duper made in the USA expensive drill bits couldn't keep up with
the usage that he got out of the cheap drills from HF. I'm still thinking
about that and wondering what and how? At any rate,the price differences
like $9.95 for a die grinder vs. $159 US I can throw the $9.95 unit at the
dog if it evers craps out and it still hasn't thru the building of several
projects and hard usage. I just bought a set of 1/2 - 1" Silver &
Demming drills in increments of 1/16. I paid less for the whole set than
just the 7/8" drill at the local store. Cheap? Maybe..I"ll find out. I
hope they are as long lasting as my friends..
Stu Fields

I buy a lot from HF, and other purveyors of "quality import" machines
and tooling. The quality may not be high, but the price more than makes
up for that in most cases. The grinders you mention are a case in point,
as is the famous HF bandsaw.

Import cutting tools, though, are a real crap shoot. Some are pretty
good, some are downright awful. The problem is, you can't tell which
it is going to be until one fails on you, usually in a way that does the
maximum amount of damage to your project.

I've gotten drill bits so soft that the flutes literally stripped off of them
when I tried to drill a piece of mild steel. I've also gotten bits so hard
that they shattered when attempting to drill a piece of pine. The grind
angles are often wrong. Bits are crooked. The wrong size. Etc. But
every once in a while, one is very good indeed. So the temptation to
just give them one more try can be strong.

I try to resist that urge, though. It makes more sense to me to buy
good name brand bits, taps, and blades. The cost isn't really that
much more in proportion to the cost of the projects on which they're
used, and the results are much more uniformly satisfactory.

Gary

On Tue, 10 Feb 2004 21:21:27 -0800, Winston
wrote:

Jeff Wisnia wrote:
(Snip)
Jeff (Celebrating his 68th birthday today!)


Happy Birthday, Jeff!

--Winston

Woo Woo! Happy Birthday!

Gunner

The two highest achievements of the human mind are the twin concepts of "loyalty" and "duty."
Whenever these twin concepts fall into disrepute -- get out of there fast! You may possibly
save yourself, but it is too late to save that society. It is doomed. " Lazarus Long

It's a disease. I too am fond of the fix it myself. When my oldest was
little, the once loved stores would put on a $0.25/item sale on Saturdays.
I would buy several of the same toy to make a working one usually saving
over $20.

I too had a broken shredder. It knocks over easily and the switch took a
direct hit. Simple matter to put it back together, but there was 1 spring
missing. None of the usual shops had a 3 position switch with 8 connections
on the bottom, so I hit Apache Reclamation. Boy, they had tons of them. I
bought several of each type (5 or so) hoping one would fit. Couple a bucks
at the most. I was able to tear one apart and use it's springs as a
replacement so I didn't even have to solder!

Lots o fun.

Joel. phx

Sure, fixing yard sale junk is not profitable, but at my age, it gets
to be fun!
Gerry :-)}
London, Canada

On Tue, 10 Feb 2004 21:21:27 -0800, Winston
brought forth from the murky depths:

Jeff Wisnia wrote:
(Snip)
Jeff (Celebrating his 68th birthday today!)

Happy Birthday, Jeff!

Yes, HBD, Jeffwy!


--
Impeach 'em ALL!
----------------------------------------------------
http://diversify.com Website Application Programming

There is a difference between "cheap", and "inexpensive"! My air wrenches,
and a lot of the sockets came from discount importers, and liquidators. They
did 4 years of hard service in a motorcycle shop, and are still in good
condition.

I am always on the lookout for electronic stuff at garage sales, and the
local Salvation Army thrift shop. Currently, I have almost fixed a Motorola
Startac cell phone ($1.98). A Sony diskman, found at a garage sale for a
dollar, was repaired, and has been working well fo 3 years now. My Nokia
cell phone, made from 3 dead/damaged ones cost $5.00. This computer was
built up from discarded parts, some of which I repaired.


Steve R.

In article vxbWb.8318$Le3.5571@okepread04,
..--- s p e a r f o x ---... ten.xoc.mapson@xofraeps wrote:
Working in machine shops for over 15 years I have found many supposed "good"
quality twist drills that were ground off center or had a trailing edge
higher than the cutting edge. Always check your grinds.

Spearfox,

*Please* change your "realname" portion of your "From: " and
"Reply-To: " headers. The presence of the '' in there (in several
places) causes my newsreader (which uses a shell script to save articles
which I ask to save) gets very confused when it sees those, which it
takes as a "redirect input from (whatever follows).

While I suspect that this is no problem on most PC-based
newsreaders, it *is* a problem on common unix-based ones, so you will be
inconveniencing someone at the least. I'm sure that I am not alone in
experiencing this problem.

I'm posting (with a "Cc: " after (hopefully) un-munging your
return address) so others will also know that some things in real-name
fields can be a problem. I know for sure that parentheses there are
similarly a problem -- with a different error message.

Thank you,
DoN.
--
Email: | Voice (all times): (703) 938-4564
(too) near Washington D.C. | http://www.d-and-d.com/dnichols/DoN.html
--- Black Holes are where God is dividing by zero ---

On 12 Feb 2004 00:54:24 -0500, (DoN. Nichols)
wrote:

I'm posting (with a "Cc: " after (hopefully) un-munging your
return address) so others will also know that some things in real-name
fields can be a problem. I know for sure that parentheses there are
similarly a problem -- with a different error message.


Definitely no parenthesis. I did a project a few years back - an
automated daily running process, the final part of which involved
shipping a few thousand files from an NT box over to a unix box after
local processing. Someone had decided that the naming convention made
sense if it involved parenthesis. Until it was discovered that unix
interpreted the file name as some kind of a function call...

Mickey

Oh, come on!

First, we hear that UNIX can't hack spaces in file names. Then we're
told that UNIX can't hack USENET articles posted by people with angle
brackets in their name. Now we hear that UNIX can't hack file names
with parentheses in them.

All of this is completely untrue. It may be that there is some
specific software, running under some UNIX or other, that has problems
like this, but then that software is buggy, and should be fixed. The
only character you can't have in a UNIX file name is the forward slash
('/'), because it's used as a directory separator. The funny name
with the graphical arrow in it was completely legal, as well, and
should pose no problem to any properly working news or email software.

However, if you want to be sure you use file names portable to
anything, stick to file names of maximum eight characters picked from
the letters A-Z and digits 0-9, then a single period ('.'), then a
maximum of three characters picked from the same set. These file
names will be MS-DOS compatible, and will also work on anything else
that's less than about 30 years old. :-)

-tih
--
Tom Ivar Helbekkmo, Senior System Administrator, EUnet Norway
www.eunet.no T: +47-22092958 M: +47-93013940 F: +47-22092901

There are a lot of temptations in the HF catalog. Of course, the
particular item may be a bargain in that it's poor quality, but is still
inexpensive for what it is. Best example: the famous 4 1/2" grinder.
Or the item may be just be a POS that's overpriced at any price. Or
anywhere in between.

I've taken the chance and gotten stuff that's all over this
"dimension". Sometimes I knew from what I'd heard here. Most of the
time I wish that I'd heard about it here. So here is what I have to say
about some of the things that I've gotten at HF.

The Bargains (well worth the money):
- the 4 1/2" angle grinder ($12)
- the compact bench bender ($50)
- 6" digital calipers ($20)
- 440/880# electric hoist ($75)
- 1/2" air impact wrench ($20)
- air sheet metal shears ($40)
- 10" carbide circular saw blade ($15)
- nitrile gloves ($7)
- air impact hammer set ($10)
- 40 pc socket set ($2!! - I know, this should be in the POS category,
but it hangs out in the car for when I need to take something apart at
the dump and then it's worth it)
- free shipping ($30, $40, or $50 order, depending on current promotion)

Satisfied, but nothing to gloat about:
- a couple of Pittsburgh socket sets
- 6 & 11" swivel pad vise-grip knockoff's (11" is really useful)
- 15' ratchet tie-down

The POS's:
- air sheet metal nibbler (the "tooth" broke 1st time I used it)
- laser level (divergent beam)
- air line couplers (leak)
- acid brushes (skimpy on bristles)
- membership in the Inside Track Club (I saved enough on the hoist to
pay for this, otherwise it's not worth it)

Well, now that I'm itemized my HF buys, I guess that I've been more
satisfied that I thought I was. Where's that latest catalog?

Hope this helps,
Bob

I forgot the main qualification to my ratings. It's the standard "I use
this stuff only in a hobby context. It's value in
professional/commercial setting may be entirely different."

Bob

Bob Engelhardt wrote:

There are a lot of temptations in the HF catalog. Of course, the
particular item may be a bargain in that it's poor quality, but is still
inexpensive for what it is. Best example: the famous 4 1/2" grinder.
Or the item may be just be a POS that's overpriced at any price. Or
anywhere in between.

I've taken the chance and gotten stuff that's all over this
"dimension". Sometimes I knew from what I'd heard here. Most of the
time I wish that I'd heard about it here. So here is what I have to say
about some of the things that I've gotten at HF.

The Bargains (well worth the money):
- the 4 1/2" angle grinder ($12)
- the compact bench bender ($50)
- 6" digital calipers ($20)
- 440/880# electric hoist ($75)
- 1/2" air impact wrench ($20)
- air sheet metal shears ($40)
- 10" carbide circular saw blade ($15)
- nitrile gloves ($7)
- air impact hammer set ($10)
- 40 pc socket set ($2!! - I know, this should be in the POS category,
but it hangs out in the car for when I need to take something apart at
the dump and then it's worth it)
- free shipping ($30, $40, or $50 order, depending on current promotion)

Satisfied, but nothing to gloat about:
- a couple of Pittsburgh socket sets
- 6 & 11" swivel pad vise-grip knockoff's (11" is really useful)
- 15' ratchet tie-down

The POS's:
- air sheet metal nibbler (the "tooth" broke 1st time I used it)
- laser level (divergent beam)
- air line couplers (leak)
- acid brushes (skimpy on bristles)
- membership in the Inside Track Club (I saved enough on the hoist to
pay for this, otherwise it's not worth it)

Well, now that I'm itemized my HF buys, I guess that I've been more
satisfied that I thought I was. Where's that latest catalog?

Hope this helps,
Bob
the 4 1/2 in angle grinder.. for $17 for me at the retail store.. i
looked at the 4 in. one and figured i get the 4 1/2 one for $2. more...
i got the plastic welder.. found out that you needed air supply.. i
have two air compressors, but it would not work on the one i was
planning on using so i brought it back... $29.95... kept the two $3.00
packs of plastic welding rods and used their $5.00 soldering iron on it,
worked great... when doing a replace on a 2001 honda civic
bumper/repair.. the inside styrofoam material broke: looked up in the
honda catalog and it listed for $60(wow, kinda high for a 4 in. by 2 in.
by 24 in. piece of foam).. took the broken part and held in place and
passed the $5.00 soldering iron knife blade between the two pieces and
now it was fixed... got the $7.47 rotorary tool kit with 50 pieces of
access. the rotory tool was crap, but the 60 pieces was well work it to
use on my dremel tool... would have cost about $50. or more for these
pieces if i got them from dremel....
and the $19.95 plug in the cig. lighter impact wrench was a bargain as i
hurt my back and needed this thing so i could get the flat tire off the
car......

In article ,
Tom Ivar Helbekkmo wrote:
Oh, come on!

First, we hear that UNIX can't hack spaces in file names. Then we're
told that UNIX can't hack USENET articles posted by people with angle
brackets in their name. Now we hear that UNIX can't hack file names
with parentheses in them.

No -- what I am saying is that these names are problems to the
*shell* -- the command-line interpreter, which makes it awkward to
*type* such filenames. (Some newer shells, such as zsh and tcsh at
least, have a shortcut to deal with that with an already-existing
filename -- a side effect of filename completion.)

1) '(' starts a subshell -- what follows it is run as a command
in a separate subshell, up to the corresponding closing ')'

2) ' ' (spaces) in filenames are a problem to the normal unix
shells because the *shell* takes spaces as delimiters between
arguments in the command line. (tabs and newlines are also
similar delimiters).

3) '' (and for that matter '' are problems because they are used for
I/O redirection. '' means "take input from the file whose
name follows". '' means "write output to the file whose name
follows. "" means append output to the tail of the existing
file whose name follow.

All can be dealt with on the command line by prepending a '\' to
each such offending character -- saying "I know that this
character is special to you, shell, but just for the moment
please treat it as a plain character." Or -- the entire line
can be enclosed in quotes - double quotes '"' or single quotes
"'" -- though the effect of these differs somewhat if (for
example) there are '$' in the line -- as this introduces a shell
variable name unless similarly escaped. This does not happen
inside single quotes, but does inside double quotes.

There are quite a few other characters which, while legal in
filenames, have special meaning to the various shells.
Sometimes, only in particular locations, other times anywhere.
Among those, aside from the ones already mentioned, are '~',
'#', '^', '&', '*' '[', ']', '{', '}', '|' and '?'. I wont'
bother to list the various things these do in the different
shells, as I am bound to miss some. :-) Also, each of the quote
marks: ( ', ", and ` ) have their own functions, and are thus
bad things to put in filenames.

Even '-' at the *beginning* of a filename can create problems,
if you don't know how to work around it. Try this following
sequence from the shell (any shell) -- *not* from a GUI, which
works around the shell special characters by not using the
shell:

cd /tmp
touch -junque
rm -junque

:-)

Yes -- I know of several ways to remove it -- but for a
first-time user, it can be a real problem. The first time I
encountered it (before some shells put in an alternative way to
deal with it) I wound up writing and compiling a tiny program to
delete a specific file name. :-)

Note that to put '\' in a filename, it, also, must be "escaped"
with a '\', so:

jim\beam

would show up as:

jimbeam

But:

jim\\beam

would create a file named:

jim\beam.

Sometimes, in shell scripts, you are subjected to more than one
pass of shell processing, so you would have to double them yet
again, using

jim\\\\beam

to create the file name from within a script which had to be
read into a shell and then executed.

All of this is completely untrue. It may be that there is some
specific software, running under some UNIX or other, that has problems
like this, but then that software is buggy, and should be fixed.

You are trying to tell me that the original Bourne shell
(/bin/sh), and all subsequent ones that I have encountered, are buggy?
The shells *are* the user interface of unix.

The
only character you can't have in a UNIX file name is the forward slash
('/'), because it's used as a directory separator.

There is one other forbidden character -- the NULL character
(ASCII code '0'). This is used to flag end-of-string in many places in
unix -- including in filenames.

And actually, there *is* one way to put '/' in a filename on
unix -- at least on Sun servers running NFS (Networked File System),
offering file systems to the Macintosh. I was a system administrator on
such a network before I retired, and the only way to deal with these
from the unix side was to edit the raw directory to change the
characters, and *then* rename or remove the file. However, NFS somehow
manages to bypass the unix filename syntax checking.

The funny name
with the graphical arrow in it was completely legal, as well, and
should pose no problem to any properly working news or email software.

Note that many unix newsreaders are descendants of rn (trn and
my current strn as prime examples). rn (and descendants) uses shell
scripts to accomplish many things -- including saving articles --
normally by appending them to a file named for the newsgroup. I make a
practice to save articles which I have read in this way.

Unfortunately, when the shell script sees characters like '(',
')', '', '', or similar (in this case in either the "From: " or
"Reply-To: " headers -- even though it is not creating a file name from
them, it *is* checking them -- it attempts to use normal shell syntax
rules on them -- and barfs. I have encountered this many times (and
mentioned it in the newsgroup when I have encountered it). As a
work-around, since I run my own news server, I go into the file in the
news spool, and edit the offending characters to avoid the problem.

Yes -- from within a compiled program (including a
fully-compiled newsreader), you can create almost any filename. But the
various shells, because of their flexibility, have special meanings
assigned to many characters.

However, if you want to be sure you use file names portable to
anything, stick to file names of maximum eight characters picked from
the letters A-Z and digits 0-9, then a single period ('.'), then a
maximum of three characters picked from the same set. These file
names will be MS-DOS compatible, and will also work on anything else
that's less than about 30 years old. :-)

30 years? Let's see -- I have still some SSB DOS-68 manuals
from about 1978 (it is not yet 2008, is it?) which are not 8.3
filenames, but rather 6.3. No, I don't expect to use these for
newsreading, or for much of anything serious, these days. I'm not
really sure whether CP/M was 8.3 or 6.3 in its filenames, as I have
never run it at home.

Enjoy,
DoN.
--
Email: | Voice (all times): (703) 938-4564
(too) near Washington D.C. | http://www.d-and-d.com/dnichols/DoN.html
--- Black Holes are where God is dividing by zero ---

On 12 Feb 2004 22:41:08 -0500, (DoN. Nichols)
wrote:

such a network before I retired, and the only way to deal with these
from the unix side was to edit the raw directory to change the

Yup. I remember not all that long ago in the bad old days of DOS that
the GIS company I was working for received a floppy with some client
data on it. It was for a *COMmunity* project, so they had named it
"COM1", which DOS cheerfully allowed them to do. Of course, allowing
them to delete or rename COM1 was another matter. Had to go in with a
hex disk editor and change it to another name.

really sure whether CP/M was 8.3 or 6.3 in its filenames, as I have
never run it at home.

8.3. My system had 8" drives and I punched extra holes in the
envelopes of the single sided disks to be able to use them as double
sided - 'flippy' disks - common practice among the budget minded
hobbiests in those days. (A mere ~20 years ago)

Mickey

On Thu, 12 Feb 2004 10:40:52 -0500, Bob Engelhardt wrote:
The POS's:
- air sheet metal nibbler (the "tooth" broke 1st time I used it)

OTOH, I've used the hell out of mine, and it hasn't broken.
Replacement cutters are available from HF.

Gary

(DoN. Nichols) writes:

No -- what I am saying is that these names are problems to the
*shell* -- the command-line interpreter, which makes it awkward to
*type* such filenames.

That an application that uses the shell has to be conscious of the
special meanings of various characters, and quote things in a safe
manner, is not a problem. Applications handle that. If they don't,
they're buggy.

[shell 101 snipped]

All of this is completely untrue. It may be that there is some
specific software, running under some UNIX or other, that has problems
like this, but then that software is buggy, and should be fixed.

You are trying to tell me that the original Bourne shell
(/bin/sh), and all subsequent ones that I have encountered, are buggy?
The shells *are* the user interface of unix.

Of course that's not what I'm saying. Neither /bin/sh nor the other
shells have problems with the fact that all characters except the
slash are legal. Neither do well-written applications. Applications
that have problems with this are buggy.

There is one other forbidden character -- the NULL character

Of course -- but I didn't want to start discussing inode internals... ;-)

And actually, there *is* one way to put '/' in a filename on
unix -- at least on Sun servers running NFS (Networked File System),
offering file systems to the Macintosh.

Now *there* is an example of a buggy application.

Note that many unix newsreaders are descendants of rn (trn and
my current strn as prime examples). rn (and descendants) uses shell
scripts to accomplish many things -- including saving articles --
normally by appending them to a file named for the newsgroup. I make a
practice to save articles which I have read in this way.

Do you know of any news groups that have magic characters in their
names? I don't.

Unfortunately, when the shell script sees characters like '(',
')', '', '', or similar (in this case in either the "From: " or
"Reply-To: " headers -- even though it is not creating a file name from
them, it *is* checking them -- it attempts to use normal shell syntax
rules on them -- and barfs.

If rn actually shoves this stuff to the shell without proper quoting,
then rn is buggy. I'm almost tempted to put a ";halt" into my "From:"
field just for kicks... ;-)

....which reminds me of a funny one-line .signature I saw once:

SCRIPT Language="Javascript"window.close()/SCRIPT

-tih
--
Tom Ivar Helbekkmo, Senior System Administrator, EUnet Norway
www.eunet.no T: +47-22092958 M: +47-93013940 F: +47-22092901

The easy answer...get Windows :^)

Tim

--
"I have misplaced my pants." - Homer Simpson | Electronics,
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -+ Metalcasting
and Games: http://webpages.charter.net/dawill/tmoranwms

"DoN. Nichols" wrote in message
...
All can be dealt with on the command line by prepending a '\' to
each such offending character -- saying "I know that this
character is special to you, shell, but just for the moment
please treat it as a plain character." . . .

In article ,
Tom Ivar Helbekkmo wrote:
(DoN. Nichols) writes:

No -- what I am saying is that these names are problems to the
*shell* -- the command-line interpreter, which makes it awkward to
*type* such filenames.

That an application that uses the shell has to be conscious of the
special meanings of various characters, and quote things in a safe
manner, is not a problem. Applications handle that. If they don't,
they're buggy.

It was written back when people only put *real* addresses and
*real* usernames into "From: " and "Reply-To: " headers. Things have
changed. There was no need to quote the strings then. (I'm not really
sure *why* it even scans those headers prior to saving an article, but
it does.

[shell 101 snipped]

[ ... ]

You are trying to tell me that the original Bourne shell
(/bin/sh), and all subsequent ones that I have encountered, are buggy?
The shells *are* the user interface of unix.

Of course that's not what I'm saying. Neither /bin/sh nor the other
shells have problems with the fact that all characters except the
slash are legal. Neither do well-written applications. Applications
that have problems with this are buggy.

Note that this application was written *before* the days of munged
addresses. Note also, that the "From: " and "Reply-To: " headers often
have double quotes already around the "Real-Name" field, and that ''
and '' are *already* present in the address field, which the script is
trying to parse. At the time the program was written, there was no
reason to believe that people would start putting those characters into
the "Real-name" fields of those headers. (It is an application which I
have been running for quite a few years, and which had no problems until
the days of munged addresses -- thanks to spammers.

There is one other forbidden character -- the NULL character

Of course -- but I didn't want to start discussing inode internals... ;-)

And actually, there *is* one way to put '/' in a filename on
unix -- at least on Sun servers running NFS (Networked File System),
offering file systems to the Macintosh.

Now *there* is an example of a buggy application.

I agree absolutely -- but which is the buggy one, the Mac,
which was using a character which was perfectly reasonable in its own
filesystems, or the Sun (SunOs 4.1.3 at that time) NFS, which didn't
syntax check a file name which it was in no position to correct in any
case?. But what is the NFS to translate that character to so
it can be safely saved -- a sequence perhaps? And what sequence can
safely be assumed to *never* be used in the file names, so it can be
translated back to the '/' when the file is served to a Mac -- and
*only* to a Mac?

Note that the Mac could easily access and rename the files, and
the problems only came when scanning through the directory with shell
scripts, looking for various problems -- or when trying to clean out the
directory, because the user had left the lab, or was being moved to a
different server. (Obviously, re-newfs'ing the disk would have gotten
rid of it -- but even clri had problems left when fsck choked on the
filename in trying to clean up afer the clri.

My *own* preference would have been to deny that character to Mac
users saving on NFS-mounted drives -- but I did not have (and do not
have) the source that the servers were using. They must have been
hooking rather deeply into the kernel to do that, I think.

Note that many unix newsreaders are descendants of rn (trn and
my current strn as prime examples). rn (and descendants) uses shell
scripts to accomplish many things -- including saving articles --
normally by appending them to a file named for the newsgroup. I make a
practice to save articles which I have read in this way.

Do you know of any news groups that have magic characters in their
names? I don't.

Nor do I. The problem is not the newsgroup names, but the
presented *user*-names -- which are under the control of the users on
many different OS's. I've just checked the shell script in question.
It is the one used to save the article in "mbox" format. It is short,
mostly comments. The arguments which it receives a


================================================== ====================
# Arguments:
# 1 Full name of article (%A)
# 2 Public news spool directory (%P)
# 3 Directory of current newsgroup (%c)
# 4 Article number (%a)
# 5 Where in article to start (%B)
# 6 Newsgroup name (%C)
# 7 Save destination (%b)
# 8 First line of message, normally From...
================================================== ====================

and after a sanity check to make sure that it running under /bin/sh, it
does this:

( echo "$8"
if test "$5" = 0 -a ! "$4" = 0 ; then
echo "Article: $4 of $6"
fi
tail +$5c $1 | sed "s/^[Ff]rom /& /"
echo ""
echo "" ) $7

to convert the syntax to that appropriate for a mbox (unix mailbox)
file. I don't think that any of the arguments are the problem -- it is
the file itself (the standard unix news spool format) which is the
problem -- and it is no longer standards compliant if it has '' ( or
'(' ) in the real-name field.

I guess that I could re-write it in C and do my own sanity
checking, but it seems a shame to replace such a tiny shell script with
something much larger.

Unfortunately, when the shell script sees characters like '(',
')', '', '', or similar (in this case in either the "From: " or
"Reply-To: " headers -- even though it is not creating a file name from
them, it *is* checking them -- it attempts to use normal shell syntax
rules on them -- and barfs.

If rn actually shoves this stuff to the shell without proper quoting,
then rn is buggy. I'm almost tempted to put a ";halt" into my "From:"
field just for kicks... ;-)

How many systems will you break with that?

...which reminds me of a funny one-line .signature I saw once:

SCRIPT Language="Javascript"window.close()/SCRIPT

A nice way to make sure that the article is only read by those
with text-only newsreaders -- or at least those others which have had
javascript turned off. :-)

Note that rn was originally written (IIRC) by Larry Wall -- the
author/originator of perl, among other useful things.

Enjoy,
DoN.

P.S. I suspect that everybody else is bored to death with this, so
perhaps we should drop it.
--
Email: | Voice (all times): (703) 938-4564
(too) near Washington D.C. | http://www.d-and-d.com/dnichols/DoN.html
--- Black Holes are where God is dividing by zero ---

In article ,
Tim Williams wrote:
The easy answer...get Windows :^)

No thank you. I know how to make unix do what I want -- and it
doesn't keep changing under me every couple of years. Windows, I do not
trust with *anything* which comes from the outside, like e-mail, or web
pages.

The latest CERT (Computer Emergency Response Team) advisory
(about two or three days ago) about Windows was for a hole in the very
software library which checks for security authentication. *Not* a good
recommendation. :-)

DoN.
--
Email: | Voice (all times): (703) 938-4564
(too) near Washington D.C. | http://www.d-and-d.com/dnichols/DoN.html
--- Black Holes are where God is dividing by zero ---

(DoN. Nichols) writes:

There was no need to quote the strings then.

Rather, there was less focus on such things: the Internet was about
cooperation and common good, and nobody did anything wrong on purpose.

If rn actually shoves this stuff to the shell without proper quoting,
then rn is buggy. I'm almost tempted to put a ";halt" into my "From:"
field just for kicks... ;-)

How many systems will you break with that?

Hardly any. Yours, if you run rn with privileges, and attempt to save
an article of mine. Maybe ";rm -rf ~;" would be a better string? ;-)

SCRIPT Language="Javascript"window.close()/SCRIPT

A nice way to make sure that the article is only read by those
with text-only newsreaders -- or at least those others which have had
javascript turned off. :-)

It ensures the article won't be read with broken readers. This trick
depends on the reading program interpreting HTML in a body of text
that isn't specified to be an HTML document. Thus, it won't do
anything at all to software that works properly.

P.S. I suspect that everybody else is bored to death with this, so
perhaps we should drop it.

Agreed.

-tih
--
Tom Ivar Helbekkmo, Senior System Administrator, EUnet Norway
www.eunet.no T: +47-22092958 M: +47-93013940 F: +47-22092901

"DoN. Nichols" wrote in message
...
No thank you. I know how to make unix do what I want -- and it
doesn't keep changing under me every couple of years.

I've been using Win98SE for the last bunch of years with zero (0) troubles.
Nothing has "changed under me".

The latest CERT (Computer Emergency Response Team) advisory
(about two or three days ago) about Windows was for a hole in the very
software library which checks for security authentication. *Not* a good
recommendation. :-)

I've heard of some pretty common holes in Linux too, the only difference
here is that 1. it's nowhere near as popular, and 2. there are many versions
of *nix. So there's just no point it targetting it!

Tim

--
"I have misplaced my pants." - Homer Simpson | Electronics,
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -+ Metalcasting
and Games: http://webpages.charter.net/dawill/tmoranwms