The Home Machinist!

I like the burning idea. It would take a very long time to pull 800 nearly worthless bullets. My third cousin got in trouble for doing something similar. He went to a one-room school that had a potbelly stove. At the end of every day, the students threw their trash in it. He decided to include some...

The locally-owned scrap yard here was good people, they would let you poke around the yard, had bins w/brass, Al, etc., & would sell it by the pound...but they sold out to a big California co. a couple years ago, so that deal is no more...they won't let anybody out in the yard, & no more sma...

Yes, very interesting.

Aluminum washers are used to seal drain plugs &other plugs on a lot of JD equipment. The aluminum will seize to the cast iron case & the steel plug to the point of needing a cheater pipe to break it loose. ..then when it does pop loose it's so sudden it will hurt you. ..I discovered a long t...

When I was at the JD shop, the old steam cleaner got the coils scaled up to the point it would barely work, so one of the owners decided to "fix" it...so he got a jug of muriatic acid & poured the coils full of it. After bringing them into the shop of course...he left it open all weeke...

Not to rub salt in the wounds, but here in Western Washington, we had sunshine and 60° weather today. Ma nature is really unhappy with someone. It may not be the folks in the East, who will at least have water next summer. Snow pack, here, was reported as low as 4% of normal. We're getting moisture...

Some big truck alternators are ungrounded, i.e. they have a positive post & a negative. Either post can be grounded. Some are 24V also...

Up until at least the 80's, Mack trucks that were specified as water trucks-i.e. had a tank of some sort mounted on them, were 12V POSITIVE ground. Supposed to reduce corrosion...don't know if it worked or not, but Mack knew a lot about building trucks. I ran into this when hooking up a 2-way (not C...

Downwindtracker2 wrote: Snap-on for car mechanics.

By whom? I've used them on farm & heavy equipment for 40 years, never broken one...ever...
Now an S-K socket? I have a scar on the bridge of my nose...

Impact sockets are built thicker & heavier to withstand the strain. They're not chromed because it would just flake off. Regular sockets can be used on an impact wrench, but they won't last long. And even Snap-on will not warranty a regular socket if it has obviously been used on an impact... I ...

SteveHGraham wrote:I have parrots. As far as I can tell, they are utterly useless.

I share your opinion...my sister has (had) 2...one has since croaked.

It's just a general question. If a part is galled, is it like trying to push out something welded or brazed? That would be a bad idea. I've had to press apart transmission gears that were seized to the shaft. On a shaft about 1.5" dia., a band of galled metal 1/8" wide will take over 10, ...