The Home Machinist!

It happened.

This motor is rated at 4.6 amps. It surely has thermal protection. Terrible Chinese motors have it, and this is a nice Baldor. The starter box is rated at 6 amps. You can look the buffer up. It's a 332B. The starter was balky from the day I got the buffer. It's nice not having to try two or three ti...

I believe it's there because the buffer was expensive, and because it belonged to a school, where kids were likely to do stupid things with it.

This is a simple 3/4-HP motor, just like the ones that are sold by the thousands every day by Home Depot and Harbor Freight, without external protection. It will be fine whether I replace the starter or not. If it were necessary to put a new protection device on it, then I would also have to put the...

Opened it up. It's a Klockner-Moellner PKZ01-06NA. Not user-friendly to work on. It is now bypassed. I have buffage again.

I didn't have this thing until recently, but now I can't live without it.

Thanks. That's a start.

The letter "M" is on the front. Trying to figure out what brand that is.

The starter on my 3/4 HP buffer refuses to work. It clicks when I plug it in, but that's it. No hum from the motor. Spinning the shaft doesn't help.

Any clues?

I guess I should just get rid of the starter.

Someone near me is selling a Powermatic shaper cabinet with no motor or spindle. Cost: $100. This is a big machine like a table saw. Has a 30" by 40" cast iron top with slots. Naturally, I am thinking of turning it into a welding table. It's flat, it has at least one T-slot, it may have ca...

I have had two GFCI outlets die and cause problems during the last two years. They are not reliable.

You can buy an outlet with an alarm on it, to tell you the food in your garage freezer is starting to thaw. Just pray you're not on vacation when it goes off.

I have been reading up on Vactra and Vacuoline. I read that Vactra was made less sticky in the Nineties, and that the reason was that it used to cause problems when used with synthetic coolants. Apparently Vactra is what you want if you use these coolants. Read up and form your own opinion. Also rea...

I found a spot of rust on a vertical surface on my mill, so maybe it's time to look into Vacuoline. I have also read that adding STP to Vactra will make it stick better.