The Home Machinist!

I hope this is at good place for this since it pertains to machining and is not intended to detract from this site and is not commercial in any way. But I believe this may be of interest to some members: Southwest Michigan Home-shop Machinists The Southwest Michigan Home-shop Machinists group is ope...

Thanks for that tip. I have gotten their catalog but didn't notice those (not in the market at the time). Trainman4602 also has videos I came across demonstrating Repro casting resin from Freeman supply. I wonder if West System epoxy would work. I have a west marine in town and in fact still have so...

I seem to remember something about making copies of a pattern by casting a "negative" and then pouring a resin into that mold to make new patterns so I can cast multiple wheel (or whatever) in one pour without making extra wood patterns. I can't seem to find names and/or sources for those ...

I've got an old Last Word I've used for years. Dates from before 1980 but not sure how much before; I got it used. It works. Maybe being a home shop machinist of dubious talents precision hasn't been so critical as for some of you. I did notice recently that I might be getting some hang up with it. ...

After Bill mentioned surfaces I thought I should throw in that Vectorworks, while it does have some stock "solids" tools like cube, sphere, etc., it also works with surfaces (they use the term NURBS but I don't know if that is a trade wide term or their own). It is mostly that surface mode...

I use a CAD at work from Nemetschek called Vectorworks. I haven't extensively explored the 3D capabilities but I have messed with it some. It seems like it should do a good job and I think they are upgrading and positioning themselves to be competitive with things like Solid Works. I mostly use 2D b...

Woops. I think some of you took it that I felt flamed in some way. Not at all. I wasn't even intending to be "defensive" of my viewpoint. I was just sharing my direction or purpose for working on a locomotive and I may have gotten a bit long winded. As Harold says, none of us is right or w...

.... As much as I hate to say it....but if the cost of basic materials involved in building the loco is slowing you down - then perhaps maybe you should think about something else. ... And people like me are probably why you hated to say it. :o I would argue that if one is trying to get on the trac...

I can't answer the question of how long it will hold up in terms of the rust issues mentioned. I can say that it works. I am building my Kozo A3 out scrounged materials. I used the copper and brass for the tender tank as designed because I didn't want to mess with coatings inside the tank to prevent...

I once needed a square key for the beat adjustment on an old pendulum clock. I used a mild steel shank for the key with a knurled knob on one end. I made a square bit, just slightly bigger than the clock shaft out of some O1 and heat treated it. After drilling the end of the key unit to roughly the ...

Snipped for brevity. ... I find at this age level they enjoy the hands on experience more than all of the math and thinking that has to be done. .... Robert I recently read Shop Class as Soulcraft by Matthew Crawford which discusses among other things the separation of thinking from doing and how t...

I had the same problem. I tried acrylic not knowing how hot things got down there. It didn't work. Being cheap, er, I mean frugal, I wondered about metal. Since the bottom of the MW oven is metal and this part is halfway through the hole in the bottom I thought I would try it. I used a hunk o' alumi...