The Home Machinist!

Wow those are really nice castings - great work! I'm in the process of getting my own (much smaller) foundry built and running.

I think everything's been covered pretty well here, but I'll add that I have an older set of the self-centering Starretts and I absolutely love them. Having said that, I have also heard that the newer Starrett stuff isn't what it used to be. If it was me, having to choose sight-unseen, I'd probably ...

My Myford Super 7 recently became the lathe I always wanted when I found someone who made a 30.5mm through capacity headstock for it. The motor is 1hp 3 phase powered by a Siemens Micromaster Vector Drive, the DRO is a SINO The nose is ER40 and with the 4 range extender ER40 collets takes me up to ...

Well as soon as I sat down at the microscope and took a look it became obvious I don't have nearly enough magnification to be of much help for this. Sorry chaps.

Wow, that is really cool to see the photographs of the various stages. Thanks for taking the time to do that!

The shelves are covered with stick-on linoleum. One sheet does not seem to want to stick to the bare wood under it. Any suggestions? Neat idea for the shelf, Steve! Before going out and buying anything in particular to try and stick the tiles down, I would try putting a film of wood glue over the w...

I had always heard that you can safely quench HSS as long as it has not approached red hot, but if it has started to get red hot anywhere on the edge you should let it air cool. I usually hold the tools in hand when grinding, so I tend to quench fairly often, and the edges never get past a blue col...

I wouldn't recommend setting over the tailstock unless you're turning between centers (and even then, you'd probably want a live center in the tailstock, I think a dead center would get a bit galled up). I don't have a taper attachment either, but I'm lucky enough to have 8" of travel on my com...

He says this will result in microscopic cracks that will make a difference. He says if you grind the toolbit properly overheating won't be a problem. And he's correct in his claim. Quenching HSS in water when it has been overheated is the source of micro-fractures that tend to limit the useful life...

Use white vinegar, it's a LOT cheaper. I've re-sharpened about a half dozen of my files by soaking in white vinegar for 8 hours or so. It takes off rust if there is any, and made most of mine feel as sharp as new. Only a couple that were extremely worn still felt a tad dull afterward, but they were ...

How did you cut the relieve, assuming you did? It's shown in one of the pics there (although I didn't specifically mention it, if you look close you can probably see it), the cutting of the flutes also included milling back a relief angle behind the cutting edges. The second milling pic, if you loo...

I'm most of the way through making a ball turning attachment for my lathe. It has a small dovetailed slide, and the space available for the leadscrew meant it would be limited to about 1/4" in diameter. 1/4-20 threads seemed too coarse, and 1/4-28 doesn't go evenly into 1000... so I decided to ...