The Home Machinist!

Why is it that wherever you position the work light to light up the area you need to work on, you still end up working in the shadows cast by your hands, tools, or parts?

Why is it that if you drop a 1/4" nut it lands right where you can see it but if you drop a #2 nut or a small stainless ball, it disappears into an alternate dimension?

When you finally get contorted into the right position to get the nut started on that inaccessible screw, the tools you need to tighten them up are JUST out of reach?

Why is it that you can reliably take a 0.001" cut on the mill or the lathe when you are 0.005" away from the final dimension but, if you are 0.001" away, the cut will be 0.005" deep?

Why is it that if you need 3" more of that particular brass stock, you only have 2.75" left?

Murphy's Law of the workshop!

What are yours?

DianeB writes:
> Why is it that wherever you position the work light to light up the area you need to work on,
> you still end up working in the shadows cast by your hands, tools, or parts?

Because you don't have a $10,000 surgical light mounted over your bench. I have a flickering fluorescent that needs to be replaced.

> Why is it that if you drop a 1/4" nut it lands right where you can see it but if you drop a #2
> nut or a small stainless ball, it disappears into an alternate dimension?

Because you didn't have a spare handy. In my case that leads to half an hour rooting through junk before concluding that the part really was the only one I had. I'll find it two weeks later while looking for something else.

> When you finally get contorted into the right position to get the nut started on that inaccessible screw,
> the tools you need to tighten them up are JUST out of reach?

Because you don't have an assistant there to hand things to you. I still think our decision not to have children was correct. I'd hate to have to sell the mill to raise money to bail the brat out of jail.

> Why is it that you can reliably take a 0.001" cut on the mill or the lathe when you are 0.005" away from the final
> dimension but, if you are 0.001" away, the cut will be 0.005" deep?

You should be using the three-pass method or own an EE10. I own a Logan about as old as I am and I keep expecting it to be consistent when turning the bubblegum steel I get off old ag junk.

> Why is it that if you need 3" more of that particular brass stock, you only have 2.75" left?

Because you don't have a McMaster-Carr warehouse attached to your shop. My "favorite" version of that is quickly finding three matching pieces of some slightly odd piece of hardware that is exactly what I need and therefor concluding that there must be at least one more of those here somewhere.

Why is it your creeper can find the only rock on the floor and will not let you roll where you want until you get off it and move it?

A while back I took a screw out of a chainsaw, and it fell INTO the chainsaw. I took the chainsaw apart to get it out, and it fell farther into the chainsaw. I am getting a new screw.

Some day that screw is going to come back out at 300 feet per second.

ROFLMAO!!!

Good ones guys! Keep it up.

Curtis: The stone is always under the wheel of my roll-around cart and sends it 90 degrees to where I INTENDED to go!

Why is it that everything that falls off the front of my work bench has to go under the work bench and far enough back so I have to move the bench!

Jim B

Here is one of my best fail stories. I took out my Dremel to cut something, using one of those thin cutoff wheels that break easily. I was about to reach for my safety glasses, but then I thought about the odds. I was only going to use the Dremel for a few seconds, and I realized that if I considered an imaginary sphere with a radius extending from the cutting wheel to my eyes, my eyes probably took up less than 1/10000 of the surface area, making a hit about as likely as winning a trifecta at the horse track. On top of that, the odds against the wheel shattering were very high. It seemed like I couldn't lose.

I fired up the tool, and instantly, the disk shattered, and a piece flew into my eye.

Figuring out the odds is just asking for trouble!

Long ago, I slipped under a car that was on a jack.
"Where are the jack stands?" my boss demanded.
"I was only under for a second." I told him.
"How long do you think it takes?" he retorted.
That stuck in my head, and replays every time I think of cutting safety to save time.

Why do lathes stand free of the wall?
To trap things behind of course.
Like that tiny little 3.5mm insert screw that shall never be seen again.
Naturally, I have spare 3mm and I have spare 4mm.

rrnut-2 wrote: ↑Wed Nov 07, 2018 4:29 pm Why is it that everything that falls off the front of my work bench has to go under the work bench and far enough back so I have to move the bench!

Jim B

Because you have no cracks in the floor for it to vanish into.

Why is it that you keep stumbling onto a part you've been saving for something that you KNOW you're going to find a use for, but when you DO find a use, you can't find the part?

Hey, that's me!