Getting Older.

[Downwindtracker2]

The thing with a back injury, it's permanent . All you can really do, is improve the muscles around it to compensate. Once ruptured, a disc never heals. Then there are the joints , they simply wear out. This getting old is for masochists .

[johnfreese]

My RF45 has a big crank on the side for raising the head. I am considering replacing it with a 10" handwheel. Then I will make an adapter for my 1/2" drill to engage the spokes of the handwheel. I already have the adapter to use the drill to work the knee on my Bridgeport.

[johnfreese]

If I knew what a pain it is to get older, I would have lived more dangerously.

[spro]

Yeh I heard that "die young, stay pretty stuff" I don't recommend that for many reasons. The other thing is the larger wheel and that doesn't give you any mechanical advantage over a crank. The way or one way, was presented here recently, using a chain/ sprocket reduction.

[Downwindtracker2]

On a RF-45 it's left handed and heavy ,too. I think a motor is the best way to go. Just think, push a button up it goes, push the other button down it goes.

[BadDog]

Regarding joints, tell me about it.

I had to get both knees replaced in 2016 (left for the second time). And I've got a variety of pins, screws, and plates scattered around elsewhere. When I was young I thought I was near indestructible, "what's a little pain, it passes..." But as I get older I realize what a fool I was. It's not the pain when you are young and get yourself busted up. That's just an inconvenience waiting for whatever you did to heal. No, the real payment comes WITH INTEREST as you get past 50. Getting old sucks, but I guess it beats the alternative...

So living more dangerously? No idea what condition you are in, but if you think it's bad now, it's far worse if you "live more dangerously". I did, and by all rights should have died a few times, but if you don't, then it's really hell to pay.

[Downwindtracker2]

At the first sawmill I worked at, the machinist limped pretty bad. I asked about him, " He got shot with a shotgun climbing out the window." You know machinists do live dangerously.

[mcostello]

Whose window?

[SteveHGraham]

I do not lift heavy things except in moments of poor self-control. I still exercise a little, because being a fragile wimp is not fun. An old creampuff who would be stronger than most young men if he worked out for 90 minutes a week is a sad spectacle. I once saw a guy at a gym, working out with ten pounds on a barbell (barbell!), and he was probably under 60. Nobody should let themselves go to that degree. What if you have to pick up a phone book when your wife isn't home to help you?

You can avoid injuring yourself by lifting heavy things around the shop and STILL work out. A person who is really concerned about injury will do both instead of pretending safety is somehow a good excuse for letting yourself turn into pudding. Weak muscles are much, much easier to injure.

[spro]

I guess you are right because all the other pain sets in. Neuropathy -sp- happens in the feet. First the toes and ball of the foot. It becomes where you can't even feel your feet. They are there but remote from from the body. A person can still amble around with no sensation of what those toes and sole should be telling. It becomes miserable as dear old dad told me, during that time. He was flexing his ankles and toes for circulation.
The pills at that time lowered the blood pressure. The statins came later. I'm done with the sartins.

[Rex]

If it's over 40 lbs I'm not lifting it.
In my shop I have a central 1-Ton chain hoist.
Off to the side, over the workbench area is a 1/2-Ton chain hoist.
On my big heavy "dirty work" steel table is a Skyhook rated at 500-lbs. I can move the table or relocate the skyhook to several places where I have attached mounts.
And I have a fold-up engine hoist. I hate using that but sometimes it's all that works.
Everything is the shop is on casters, so I can move things close together before I attempt to move them.

I have lost enough fingernails in my life.

[johnfreese]

On the RF45 I realize I will lose mechanical advantage if I go with the handwheel. I want to be able to drive the handwheel with my 1/2" Dewalt drill. I think that would be a lot safer than adapting the drill to the existing crank, besides, I alredy have a handwheel.