The Home Machinist!

I agree heartily. When it comes to the old maxim "rough ugly" it is very hard to do on a more flexible machine without mayhem. But a good wavy,corn cob type rougher can make even small mills seem like beasts. Here are a couple of six flutes I use in steel and iron. The little guy is a 1.25...

I didn't see it mentioned in here but might have missed it in all the posts. When I first started knurling things I read the sections in a number of machining texts on getting the knurls correct. I was to be honest a little intimidated. I tried a first set on some scrap and they were perfect. I figu...

I had a Chinese two piece vise inflicted upon me as my first vise. It never could hold a piece flat no matter how much messing with it I did. It moved when you tried to clamp something hard. This is with it bolted down hard enough to leave marks in the Chinese made machine I was using as my "le...

I found this informative.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bga7y4infIo

I wouldn't put them as top ten as far as need goes. But as far as cool and opening up a whole range of new things to do I have a few more off the normal path ones to nominate. First is a Radii Cutter. If you can get an actual Holdridge one the versatility and ease of use for the huge range of things...

You see a new thing every day. That is one cool old machine. Love that odd but apparently very functional old stuff. Being a big mill kind of guy I will now keep my eyes out for a 3hp 6H..

I must admit it does sound like something is loose allowing an out of alignment issue that is creating extra friction and therefore heat. Whether this is the motor plate, or belts or whatever I am not sure as I am not that good at visualizing the setup. But I would lean toward a purely mechanical so...

Ah the ever useful and frightening ironworker. You always take that small pause before feeding something in because you know when you hit it everything is going to change... quickly. For better or worse. I always found it alarming how easily a large properly set up ironworker could eat chunks out of...

Anyway, whereabouts is your " local used machinery dealer " ? Mine is here in Santa Cruz, CA which will obviously do you no good, but usually the type of dealer I am talking about are the smaller guys. The only used machinery dealer of I know of in NJ is Machinery Values and I assume they...

I have a local used machinery dealer who has a huge stack of all kinds of leftovers from shops he buys. For my needs I can almost always find what I need for very cheap. There are issues with figuring out just what type of metal you are buying if it's steel. Aluminum is pretty easy. Black end markin...

I think for serious accurate layout work marble is much too unstable. Also there are many different types and grades. They all act a bit different. Probably the biggest factor long run is durability. My cheap Chinese granite surface plates are almost pitch black. I use them just to sand parts flat o...

I like it. It is almost like a training device. I mean after a few months of using the lathe like that I bet you couldn't even reach for the run lever without putting the key back in it's holder. I must admit, I have a number of chucks and a bunch of keys, the springs drive me crazy so that idea wou...