I should have taken the advise in my subject line but I decided to
pass on my old bench drill to my son and get a new one.

I actually bought two of them in the next few weeks, one because it
was very cheap.
Silly me!

I have to hand it to the chinese. they are absolute artizans when it
comes to making thin cast iron castings. trouble is though that it is
a totally useless skill to boast of.

The good one of the pair is a 5 speed Ryobi Bench drill.

When I set it up on the bench and started using it I noticed a fair
amount of flex in the table. amazingly the table flexed when drilling
a 2mm drill into aluminium.

I just happened to have an old dismantled bench drill that a friend
gave me after he robbed the motor off it to power something else.

The castings in the ryobi are pretty well half the thickness of the
old drill my friend gave me. I wanted the base to make a george thomas
tapping tool. since this sees almost no load I decided to rescue the
situation by cleaning up and painting the thicker parts and marrying
them to the new head.

all done in machinery grey I have a nice little bench drill which is
acceptably rigid for light work.
trouble is that it is really no better than my old drill that I passed
on to my son. I wish now that I'd just given it a birthday and painted
it machinery grey.

whatever you do dont throw out those old bench drills!
the new ones are not a patch on the rigidity of the older bench
drills.

I'm not worried that I bought two. I just wanted the little motor of
the other one for a little reciprocating bench saw a la "Duplex".

Stealth Pilot

I have to hand it to the chinese. they are absolute artizans when it
comes to making thin cast iron castings. trouble is though that it is
a totally useless skill to boast of.


I'm using a Delta bandsaw that was probably made in the 20s. It's a good
machine and not worn out yet. I am going to re-power it with a gear
reduction unit for metal use only

Stupendous Man wrote:
I have to hand it to the chinese. they are absolute artizans when it
comes to making thin cast iron castings. trouble is though that it is
a totally useless skill to boast of.



I'm using a Delta bandsaw that was probably made in the 20s. It's a good
machine and not worn out yet. I am going to re-power it with a gear
reduction unit for metal use only

I haven't seen a two-speed gearbox retrofit for bandsaws anywhere.
That would be a natural HSM project.

--Winston

On Dec 1, 11:29 am, Winston wrote:
Stupendous Man wrote:
I have to hand it to the chinese. they are absolute artizans when it
comes to making thin cast iron castings. trouble is though that it is
a totally useless skill to boast of.

I'm using a Delta bandsaw that was probably made in the 20s. It's a good
machine and not worn out yet. I am going to re-power it with a gear
reduction unit for metal use only

I haven't seen a two-speed gearbox retrofit for bandsaws anywhere.
That would be a natural HSM project.

--Winston

Actually that is a great idea...

TMT

On Sat, 01 Dec 2007 20:06:40 +0900, Stealth Pilot
wrote:
snip
I have to hand it to the chinese. they are absolute artizans when it
comes to making thin cast iron castings. trouble is though that it is
a totally useless skill to boast of.
snip
Don't confuse a very useful manufacturing technology [thin wall
casting] with poor product design and/or optimization for lowest
possible price. Detroit did this for years with widely known
results.

Some interesting insights on the Chinese labor shortages!!!!!!!
and ==problems with their educational system.==

It appears they caught up with the US in less than 10 years......

(Pandemic obesity is also a new problem in China)

http://www.mckinseyquarterly.com/Pub..._1685_abstract
snip
# While university graduates are plentiful there, new MGI
research shows that only a small proportion of them have the
skills required for jobs further up the value chain—and
competition for these graduates is becoming fierce.

# China must undertake a long-term effort to raise the quality of
its graduates by changing the way it finances its universities,
revamping curriculums to meet the needs of industry, and
improving the quality of English-language instruction.
snip

http://www.china.org.cn/english/MATERIAL/172145.htm

http://marketplace.publicradio.org/d...tage_in_china/

Stealth Pilot wrote:

The castings in the ryobi are pretty well half the thickness of the
old drill

I read somewhere that iron should never be cast less than a quarter inch
thick. Seems like a good rule of thumb.

They say a good engineer can design a bridge that only just doesn't fall
down.
Trouble is, all contingencies have to be anticipated, but that's
impossible, isn't it?

I haven't seen a two-speed gearbox retrofit for bandsaws anywhere.
That would be a natural HSM project.

I do have a 50s BSA motorcycle transmission that could make a neat 4 speed,
but it's probably worth as much as a new saw.

Stupendous Man wrote:
I haven't seen a two-speed gearbox retrofit for bandsaws anywhere.
That would be a natural HSM project.


I do have a 50s BSA motorcycle transmission that could make a neat 4 speed,
but it's probably worth as much as a new saw.

Hmm. Wonder if I could adapt my 1/2" VSR drill to my bandsaw ...
--Winston

On Sat, 01 Dec 2007 15:20:46 -0600, F. George McDuffee
wrote:

On Sat, 01 Dec 2007 20:06:40 +0900, Stealth Pilot
wrote:
snip
I have to hand it to the chinese. they are absolute artizans when it
comes to making thin cast iron castings. trouble is though that it is
a totally useless skill to boast of.
snip
Don't confuse a very useful manufacturing technology [thin wall
casting] with poor product design and/or optimization for lowest
possible price. Detroit did this for years with widely known
results.

Some interesting insights on the Chinese labor shortages!!!!!!!
and ==problems with their educational system.==

It appears they caught up with the US in less than 10 years......

(Pandemic obesity is also a new problem in China)

http://www.mckinseyquarterly.com/Pub..._1685_abstract
snip
# While university graduates are plentiful there, new MGI
research shows that only a small proportion of them have the
skills required for jobs further up the value chain—and
competition for these graduates is becoming fierce.

# China must undertake a long-term effort to raise the quality of
its graduates by changing the way it finances its universities,
revamping curriculums to meet the needs of industry, and
improving the quality of English-language instruction.
snip

http://www.china.org.cn/english/MATERIAL/172145.htm

http://marketplace.publicradio.org/d...tage_in_china/



I have worked with chinese undergraduates on university exercises.
the language seems to be key to their problems (and I'm not being
racist here)
the effort to be fluent in chinese requires the memorisation of about
6,000 different squiggles. you can see that the mind gets arranged
into a huge array.

I've watched students memorise incredibly prodigious amounts of
information into the memory array and spew it back at the teachers in
assignments. it seems to key into a weakness in our western teaching
where the teachers equate the recall of lots of information as
knowledge learnt. in the case of the chinese students it is just a
prodigious recall ability in operation. give them an actual problem
with no rote answer possible and they fall in a heap. I've seen this
time and again.

in the west our language structures our brains differently. we may
have just a percentage of the chinese ability to rote learn but we can
think! we can get all the subtle bits of a vague problem juggled in
the head in such a way that we can pop out a viable solution to the
problem. time and time again we westerners can find solutions to
problems that totally evade the concerted efforts of the chinese.

they will waste considerable effort in attempting to solve the two
hash bullet points you make above. which is good it will keep them
from waging war. in my considered opinion, one garnered from watching
chinese minds in action, china will never find a solution to the two
problems until they drop the chinese language and replace it with
something constructed in the manner of english.

while the chinese speak and write chinese we in the western world will
remain supreme as the world's problem solvers.

Stealth Pilot

On Sun, 02 Dec 2007 09:56:44 +1100, Jordan
wrote:

Stealth Pilot wrote:

The castings in the ryobi are pretty well half the thickness of the
old drill

I read somewhere that iron should never be cast less than a quarter inch
thick. Seems like a good rule of thumb.

They say a good engineer can design a bridge that only just doesn't fall
down.
Trouble is, all contingencies have to be anticipated, but that's
impossible, isn't it?

a structure that has marginal strength above necessity is one that
flexes under load.
in a machine tool you want the thing to be massive in comparison to
the loads to prevent distortion.

On Sun, 02 Dec 2007 21:34:15 +0900, Stealth Pilot
wrote:

On Sat, 01 Dec 2007 15:20:46 -0600, F. George McDuffee
wrote:

On Sat, 01 Dec 2007 20:06:40 +0900, Stealth Pilot
wrote:
snip
I have to hand it to the chinese. they are absolute artizans when it
comes to making thin cast iron castings. trouble is though that it is
a totally useless skill to boast of.
snip
Don't confuse a very useful manufacturing technology [thin wall
casting] with poor product design and/or optimization for lowest
possible price. Detroit did this for years with widely known
results.

Some interesting insights on the Chinese labor shortages!!!!!!!
and ==problems with their educational system.==

It appears they caught up with the US in less than 10 years......

(Pandemic obesity is also a new problem in China)

http://www.mckinseyquarterly.com/Pub..._1685_abstract
snip
# While university graduates are plentiful there, new MGI
research shows that only a small proportion of them have the
skills required for jobs further up the value chain—and
competition for these graduates is becoming fierce.

# China must undertake a long-term effort to raise the quality of
its graduates by changing the way it finances its universities,
revamping curriculums to meet the needs of industry, and
improving the quality of English-language instruction.
snip

http://www.china.org.cn/english/MATERIAL/172145.htm

http://marketplace.publicradio.org/d...tage_in_china/



I have worked with chinese undergraduates on university exercises.
the language seems to be key to their problems (and I'm not being
racist here)
the effort to be fluent in chinese requires the memorisation of about
6,000 different squiggles. you can see that the mind gets arranged
into a huge array.

I've watched students memorise incredibly prodigious amounts of
information into the memory array and spew it back at the teachers in
assignments. it seems to key into a weakness in our western teaching
where the teachers equate the recall of lots of information as
knowledge learnt. in the case of the chinese students it is just a
prodigious recall ability in operation. give them an actual problem
with no rote answer possible and they fall in a heap. I've seen this
time and again.

in the west our language structures our brains differently. we may
have just a percentage of the chinese ability to rote learn but we can
think! we can get all the subtle bits of a vague problem juggled in
the head in such a way that we can pop out a viable solution to the
problem. time and time again we westerners can find solutions to
problems that totally evade the concerted efforts of the chinese.

they will waste considerable effort in attempting to solve the two
hash bullet points you make above. which is good it will keep them
from waging war. in my considered opinion, one garnered from watching
chinese minds in action, china will never find a solution to the two
problems until they drop the chinese language and replace it with
something constructed in the manner of english.

while the chinese speak and write chinese we in the western world will
remain supreme as the world's problem solvers.

Stealth Pilot
============
This is called the Whorfian hypothesis.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sapir-Whorf_hypothesis

While plausible, the problem is that both Japan and Korea use
similar and in some cases substantially identical "alphabets"
[more exactly ideograms or logogram] such that most Japanese can
read "Chinese" even if they cannot speak Chinese.
click on
http://www.geocities.com/athens/acad...94/seasia.html
http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=002...3E2.0.CO%3B2-5
http://www.asahi.ch/english/japanese_writing_system.php

The Japanese have exhibited great skill in manufacturing and
application, if not innovation, not only concrete items, but also
manufacturing/management methodologies such as KanBan, CEDAC,
and many others such as "lean manufacturing" all of which were
denigrated by US management when introduced, and which were later
pounded up American managements' "nose," by the extraordinary
productivity and quality gains that resulted from their
implementation.

KanBan
http://www.duralabel.com/ppc/free-ka...FQ2nGgodqRd_tQ
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanban
http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/1848/japan21.html

CEDAC
http://syque.com/improvement/CEDAC.htm
http://www.performancetechnology.com.../CEDAC-PTG.pdf
http://www.kkbooks.com/cedac.html

S. Korea is another Asian tiger, with strengths in machine tools,
computer chips and automobiles. Albeit at great cost to its
people, North Korea managed to develop nuclear
technology/weapons.

So it does not appear that the writing systems and/or languages
are the reason. Indeed, it has been suggested that the Japanese
have an advantage in computer programming because of the language
structure [e.g. OOP/Prolog]

From the news, it appears that many of their reported problems
stem from individual greed, ostentatious consumption, financial
speculation, and failure to make continuous investment in and/or
maintenance of their manufacturing/industrial infrastructure,
including human capital, which generated their increased wealth.
Unfortunately, their leadership is not alone in "eating the seed
corn," and the diversion of their "best and brightest" people and
large amounts of capital from productive activities into
profiteering such as speculation, manipulation, and the promotion
of conspicuous consumption/ostentation has proven to be as
damaging there as it has been in the US.
click on
current book
http://www.amazon.com/Day-Reckoning-.../dp/0312376960
from the 1980s
http://www.amazon.com/Day-Reckoning-.../dp/0394565533
(although a generation back it is still a good read, and a clear
warning of what is now occurring.)

Why do I keep hearing "Evita" playing in the background....

"Stupendous Man" wrote in message
...

I'm using a Delta bandsaw that was probably made in the 20s. It's a good
machine and not worn out yet. I am going to re-power it with a gear
reduction unit for metal use only
Go ahead and do it. You'll enjoy it.

Part of my end from the machinist's estate I cleared out last summer was an
old 14" delta bandsaw. It is on an even older Grob bandsaw base. The base
uses a series of giant pulleys to belt down the motor and get the blade to
run at about 120fps. It is a little slow for some things and a little fast
for others, but it's a pleasure to use.

The biggest headache is keeping the tires from getting loaded up with chips.

Paul K. Dickman

Winston wrote:
Stupendous Man wrote:
I have to hand it to the chinese. they are absolute artizans when it
comes to making thin cast iron castings. trouble is though that it is
a totally useless skill to boast of.


Yeah, almost as good as the americans who made all the cast iron toys
and household mechanical devices like apple peelers, butter churns at
the turn of the century (100 yrs ago)Jerry


I'm using a Delta bandsaw that was probably made in the 20s. It's a
good machine and not worn out yet. I am going to re-power it with a
gear reduction unit for metal use only

I haven't seen a two-speed gearbox retrofit for bandsaws anywhere.
That would be a natural HSM project.

--Winston

On Sun, 02 Dec 2007 13:26:53 -0600, F. George McDuffee
wrote:


while the chinese speak and write chinese we in the western world will
remain supreme as the world's problem solvers.

Stealth Pilot
============
This is called the Whorfian hypothesis.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sapir-Whorf_hypothesis



actually it is not anyone's hypothesis. it is an observation made by
me while interacting with a reasonable number of chinese minds and
backed up by some other experiences.
some years of observation that lead me to a conclusion.

wikipedia??? good grief that doesnt count as a reference.

Stealth Pilot

On Tue, 04 Dec 2007 20:55:12 +0900, with neither quill nor qualm,
Stealth Pilot quickly quoth:

On Sun, 02 Dec 2007 13:26:53 -0600, F. George McDuffee
wrote:


while the chinese speak and write chinese we in the western world will
remain supreme as the world's problem solvers.

Stealth Pilot
============
This is called the Whorfian hypothesis.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sapir-Whorf_hypothesis



actually it is not anyone's hypothesis. it is an observation made by
me while interacting with a reasonable number of chinese minds and
backed up by some other experiences.
some years of observation that lead me to a conclusion.

wikipedia??? good grief that doesnt count as a reference.

Of course it is. It features a usually-correct overview with
supporting reference source list. The latter is the jewel.

--
Guns don't kill people. Rappers do!
-----------------------------------
www.diversify.com Rap-free Website Development

On Dec 1, 10:56 pm, Jordan wrote:


They say a good engineer can design a bridge that only just doesn't fall
down.
Trouble is, all contingencies have to be anticipated, but that's
impossible, isn't it?

To keep the weight down it is not uncommon for some aircraft parts,
especially in landing gear on carrier jets, to he designed with a
factor
(not margin) of safety less than one for fatigue loading. The parts
must be frequently replaced as part of routine maintenance.

--

FF

On Dec 2, 7:26 pm, F. George McDuffee gmcduf...@mcduffee-
associates.us wrote:
....

============
This is called the Whorfian hypothesis.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sapir-Whorf_hypothesis

While plausible, the problem is that both Japan and Korea use
similar and in some cases substantially identical "alphabets"
[more exactly ideograms or logogram] such that most Japanese can
read "Chinese" even if they cannot speak Chinese.
click onhttp://www.geocities.com/athens/academy/9594/seasia.htmlhttp://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0027-0741(199024)45%3A4%3C391%3ATVIT...http://www.asahi.ch/english/japanese_writing_system.php



Interesting. I didn't know that. But it makes a fair bit of sense
when you realize that 'Chinese' is a written language only. The
Chinese speak a variety of dialects such that folks from one
region often cannot understand the language spoken in another,
but both can read Chinese, with the exception of idiomatic
expressions unique to a dialect

Mandarin, the most common dialect has been adopted as the
'official' language.for radio and television so most Chinese,
especially the younger ones, can communicate orally in it.

--

FF