The Home Machinist!

When I'm using a three-jaw I just don't take the part out of the chuck until I'm done. I sometimes take the chuck off with the part still in it, do something else, and the put the chuck back on, though.

Only "drying" (i.e., polymerizing) oils such as linseed and tung oil spontaneously combust. You have to pile the rags up to get them to do it.

Telling them this won't help, though. They will quote an "expert" as asserting that all oily rags are dangerous.

Runout in a three-jaw is a much less serious problem than is bellmouthing. When I need something accurately centered I use a four-jaw.

A power hacksaw can have a thick, wide, HSS blade. If the machine is properly made and correctly adjusted this allows it to make very straight cuts.

Yes.

I haven't tried anodizing yet but from what I've read you can't simply trade off time for current because the finish depends on the current density. That one looks suitable to me. I recently scored a couple of big honk'in programmable supplies (one 0-20 V 0-20 A, the other 0-60 V 0-60 A) so I may gi...

Are the cast iron parts that come from Allen, Little Engines, Mercer, Etc made from grey iron or ductile iron? I have read in several places when recommendations are made to make things from ductile iron but ideal -vs- economical or expedient or even availability are different things so I would lik...

I have a set of "coated" drill bits purchased at a yard sale that are like that. My guess is that they are high carbon steel that never got heat-treated due to a manufacturing screwup.

Fortunately the index they were in was worth the $2.

If you simply cast ceramic around your electrode differential thermal expansion will almost certainly cause a failure unless you match the coefficients of expansion. There is also a risk of a smooth electrode being blown out when the cylinder fires (the insulator can also blow out of the shell: I ac...

It was the Centroid Acorn system that I was looking for. Reading more, I see it requires Windows 10. Somehow I thought it was a fully contained controller and would just need a monitor and HID. I also see it wont support my pendant - which I never got set up anyway. I guess I'll have to read about ...

The link belts do have a direction, and they don't give a "this is what will happen if you run it in reverse" comment, so I don't know what the effect would be. I have run my atlas in reverse with a link belt, but since I have a threaded chuck, it was only very slow to remove a tap or die from a pa...

I read 280 but it looks to me like it's been restamped and then scraped. I think I see the remnants of a "1" to the left of the "2".

Star connected 480 is 277 phase to neutral. That makes no sense to me on a motor nameplate, though.