The Home Machinist!

At work - we used to have those parts painted without removal of the "slag" - never had any problems other than it did look a little goofy at times (thicker plates). Really looked bad when the parts were gold zinc plated - I never understood why we accepted them. I suppose under certain ci...

4130 would be a better choice over 4140 strickly from a welding standpoint. I've had good success using the hardened sleeves when we couldn't or didn't want to harden the shaft enough to run the needle bearings directly on it. Another consideration might be to use a composite bearing. LOTS of compos...

Can't help any for the "real" (production) embossing - all's I've done is one off stuff in aluminum - pretty much like Terry said - except mostly with the Ewheel. I tinkered a wee bit with my 55 ton press - takes a bunch of pressure to do the harder materials. The thing is that when emboss...

4 jaw chuck would be one way.

Poohbear, Here's some Autocad advice that was given to me that has served me extrememly well over the years: Do NOT rely on the pulldowns or icons - especially when first learning. Instead learn the COMMANDS. The reason for this is two fold - first it forces you to learn the vernacular (which helps ...

Harold, NEAT story. Jake is obvioulsy a Class Act. This world needs more Jakes and Harolds.
Thanks for sharing that story - makes me smile.

Jacin in Ohio

Why SURE you can use Capacitors to get get a 3 phase motor going (big or small). I start my 10hp phase converter using start caps only - piece of cake. Of course when you get into these bigger motors there can be a fairly big arc across the contacts when you drop out the start caps (heck even the ma...

Hi Mike, Thanks for the advice. Yeah the ATF comment was made sorta half heartedly tongue in cheek - you know what it's like to have a NEW TOY and NOT be able to try it!!!!! I was ready to try anything. The old blade was abused but no chipped teeth - just heavily worn - so much so that the teeth (co...

Ries, those were some excellent points - that I hadn't considered - good thing I asked!!!! So now that I'm convinced water soluable is the way to go I have to ask - what brand is recommended??? Is there a BIG difference between them I notice that the prices vary greatly - how different are they?? Th...

Hi David, By "Low Speed" I mean for cutting FERROUS metal with a spindle speed of around 50/100 rpm - versus the "NON FERROUS" models that run spindle speeds around 1725RPM and higher. I guess my curiousity pondered the question of what would happen if one were to cut steel on a ...

I recently grabbed a Brobo "super 300" cold saw. The unit appears to be in really nice shape and I just couldn't pass it up (deal) the only problem is that I don't know squat about them. It's got a 2 speed motor - but other than observing the speeds are SLOW and SLOWER I have yet to determ...

I am in the middle of the same dilema. I have an old Van Norman blast cabinet with an integral dust collection system that I was not entirely fond of - I didn't feel that the canvas bag was really protecting my lungs from all the fines so I ran 4" PVC to exhaust the dust outdoors. That was fine...