The Home Machinist!

I tend to agree with the try your luck with it the way it is . If you just have to know , refractory brick drill easy the k type pyrometer is probably the cheapest way to moniter temps with a reasonable degree of accuracy. You just want to try to get a probe that gets you somewhat centered between t...

i observe human nature , ive noticed a personality flaw that most machinists have when it comes to personal projects , hobby or professional . its an inability to accept good results that might be less then perfect . for example , you make a part for someone else , you do the very best job you can a...

I don't always have the best ideas and i tend to aproach things from a different angle then most so I'll ask for some leeway at the start . So this is for a floor jack the bearing races just need to work and not necessarily be precise down to .0005 . I'm just gonna throw this out there and wait for ...

ill make a suggestion , unless for whatever reason you feel you need a rotating base , get a cnc style vise . they are quite a bit more versatile then a flange mount vise as you can mount them on their sides or nose to give you more options . and on another note , using keys to align your vise for a...

Blended with coal I don't think I'd have any issues with coke in a boiler , provided the person using it is intelligent enough to realise shoveling a fire box full of straight coke and switching on the blower is probably not a good idea .

I wouldn't advocate a person using coke in a boiler , but someone who wanted a few extra btu's to warm up with would learn that like charcoal coke isn't all that complicated to make as long as they arent expecting to make steel mill quality coke . Another company i worked for in western pa used to g...

Kennametal buys scrap carbide and will even send you a box .
Value depends on the market of course but expect between $5-$8 a pound

Many years ago I worked for a company called Murray energy and surface mined a fair amount of the #3 and #5 Pocahontas seams . There was some union issues and I split town when things got ugly . But anyhoo when you buy coal from a specific seam it won't matter what company you buy it from , it's the...

Ditto on machinery's handbook . Way back when I first got my lathe I made a collet chuck for it . not having an accurate way to measure the inside threads or the spindle register I made three things that have come in handy once or twice . First was a ring gauge for the spindle register. Next was a t...

Lee 6 cavity bullet molds use 12-24 screws for the handle pins .
I know I've encountered them elsewhere that is reloading related but exactly where eludes my memory

Many years ago I had a tiny jewlers drill about the size of a small Sharpi that worked like that . Someone decided they like it more then i did and it disapeared .

Thanks :) If I didn't know from the start it didn't have much chance of working I might be disappointed . It filled out perfectly once the mold got up to temperature , to perfectly it turns out . I am very happy , forgetting the bad engineering the mold itself meets all my expectations. As a hobby m...