The Home Machinist!

Thanks for the support. I suppose being a mechanical design, research and development, and manufacturing engineer for 48 years contributed some. In spite of my griping, I enjoy fixing and improving faulty designs especially when they are relatively simple as this was. It was just time consuming, but...

My ancient horizontal does not have a variable speed and either one has to take the time to get out the wrenches, loosen up the idler pulley, change the belt position, retighten the idler, or, use the last speed which may be entirely wrong for the current application. When I was last employed we had...

One more time and I will let this go. It has taken up entirely too much of my time required for other projects. 1) Turned a bigger pulley for the driven roller. The biggest you can get in without jamming the motor capacitor against the belt guard is 2.25" diameter. This decreases the speed by 3...

In my cheapo Craftsman box I used cheapo perforated spongy shelf liner I found at the Giant Eagle Grocery store. No rust yet, and it went through the coldest sweatiest winter in a long time. But we don't have Florida humidity in the summer.

--earlgo

Well the HF belt sander has reared its ugly head again. I suppose that the worse situation would have been to have the belt eat a slot in the cover instead of the clip. But the upshot is that I will once again have to repair the HF belt sander. Serves me right for not checking belt alignment more of...

I used an ancient Dumore hand grinder that I affixed to the tool post on the lathe, making it adjustable for a slight vertical skew. This was what made the elliptical thread form in conjunction with a 2" cutoff wheel. --- Home Depot sells a 96%tin, 4% silver hard solder that melts at about 430°...

Conrad: Sorry to have changed the course of the thread. Pete: Here is the revised DTI holder. http://i1105.photobucket.com/albums/h358/earlgo/Mill%20DTI.jpg It is straighter and easier to adjust. It can be seen that the mounting bracket reaches further than the rod guide on the DTI frame. I use a 1-...

jpfalt: Interesting things that I didn't know. Thanks. The butt plate screw I was trying to emulate was in an 1885 Winch that was built in the '20's. The screw was for an 1889 Marlin so I guessed that the screws would have been similar with the elliptical thread form. One is always advised to predri...

Been there, done that. I fixed about 4 DTI's that I over stressed a couple of years ago. It is a relatively simple, but exacting task to open up the case, 'drive' out the broken stub, replace it and reassemble. One has to be certain the shaft has not been bent, but that can be 'adjusted' too. Be car...

You can actually turn a woodscrew if you guide the taper by manipulating the crossfeed by hand. It is not a true taper but a bit of a curve. These threads were actually ground with a Dumore with a cutoff wheel in place of the turning tool because there was no outboard support possible and the profil...

Steve: 1) You can make a serviceable scraper out of a mill file if you grind the end properly. A very slight curve and about an 85° rake angle and you are good to go. 2) As for sharpening your plane blade, I have found that this inexpensive helper is very easy to use and gives excellent results afte...

Just my experience: I hope your control box is sealed against dust really well. You are going to have sanding/grinding schmutz all over the area where the sander is--- not to mention sparks in the sawdust. Hope you have a good shop vac. In regard to cleaning up the table, after you get most of the r...