The Home Machinist!

what do you guys mean by "soak time?"

well, I'm pretty sure that most of the major brands, including snapon, craftsman and even HF are just different levels of chests all made by waterloo.

I'll look at some of those names and see what I can find.

I guess I should add my standard plug for "high density storage". A few years back, I didn't see what the fuss was all about. I flat refuse to pay the price they get for a Snapon or the like, and Vidmar/Lista/et.al. were likewise "way over priced" in my estimation. I still feel ...

When I was an apprentice toolmaker someone told me that cleanup is never a waste of time. When you get to a point where you cannot find things in the shop is an indication it is time to clean up. I rather enjoy cleaning up for two reasons. First, the shop looks better an is more efficient to work t...

Why is that any better than using the edge of the round object? Just use the edge finder on either side of the object in one axis, and as long as you're pretty close to the centerline (even 15* or so), the 2 edges should be the same distance from the center so just follow the same procedure that you...

Its like a better hammer for the Blacksmith, thats why he collects so many... Better still a great big power hammer... (and perfect for this example, a lot like going from drill press to Bridgeport Mill) Yep Dave, I'm not suggesting that this is the right thing to do, as a matter of fact, I think I...

You know, I'm going to be the one that goes against the grain. That's a lot like saying "Hold my beer, and watch this." Harold Yea, and you know that some of you would be there to do it if you could (fair warning, i think the last couple of times I was in that position it ended up involvi...

You know, I'm going to be the one that goes against the grain. I got by for quite a while with a floor standing delta drill press and a cheap, harbor freight cross slide table. I used all sorts of things to cut with, router bits, rotozip bits, assorted flycutters... I mostly stayed away from actual ...

I'm looking for ideas for something to use to store/organize the bulk of the tooling for my bridgeport. It sits up against the inside of my garage door, and I'd like something to put between bridgport table and the back of the base (my garage floor has a ridge behind the door which the base of the b...

Are you using a boring head with a graduated adjustment or just a bar with a transverse tool bit held with a set screw similar to a fly cutter? Yes :wink: It's a boring head that has set screws to hold the boring bar like a flycutter but the head has a graduated screw adjustment that moves the part...

One thing that I have done before to setup the diameter on a flycutter is to use an edge finder to find the stationary jaw of my vise, 0 the DRO, put the flycutter in the mill and move the table till the Y on the DRO reads whatever I want the flycutter's radius to be, loosen the bit in the flycutter...

Sounds like you're about where I'm at with this. I was hoping that someone had a cleaver trick, even a good way to get the radius setup fairly accurately on a first try. To add some details, yes, the boring head is setup on an R8, so at least I have that going for me, but the bore that I'm machining...