The Home Machinist!

A simple direct answer? No, it's not reasonable. There are way too many variables beyond your control to expect anything less than a thou consistently, and you'd be doing well if you could get the thou. To be quite frank, any 3 jaw chuck that runs within a couple thou is a keeper. Many don't, and ev...

Thanks for posting the pic, Unk. Very nice model. I had a particular interest in seeing it. I had considered building and running one at one point in time. During my years of refining, I had an old gentleman drop off (4) 5 gallons buckets of a gold ore that needed processing. High grade stuff------h...

Very nice, Tel. I gather it's a larger model than Unk's?

Harold

I'm even younger (started in the shop in 1983)....Kap's got 15 years on me; so I wasn't even a glimmer in dad's eye when Harold started out. But, Kap's right, Harold's FIRST RATE! I've learned a few things from him. Ok, you guys! You're running my tab up to a point I may not be able to afford to pa...

my five stamp ore mill

Pictures?

How cool!

Harold

Yea! Ok I know you cnc guys could do it in a minute and a half! kap [img]/ubb/images/graemlins/smile.gif"%20alt="[/img] I could see doing it in about four minutes with my Graziano. Soft jaws, two roughing passes, and maybe three finish passes, depending on the tolerance of the finished tu...

Curious about the drill, George. Aircraft type, or long flutes? Maybe a picture!

Harold

Maybe the difference is in the operator and not in the tools. I heard that a long time ago. My personal experience dictates that a good machinist can coax reasonably good work out of a junk machine, but often a poor machinist can't get acceptable results with a great one. A good example might be ow...

LOL. No. I'm from around Chicago. Interesting! I began my machining career back in '57 and don't recall encountering the things, nor the title. It's what we always called em. Sure makes me wonder if it was a regional thing, perhaps used by a particular age group. They are real handy for indicating ...

I reset with the $25 chinese one, shaved it a full cut, then blued and fit. Now is the time for purists to stop reading........ Amazing what a little frustration can do for your decision making! The only difference had it been me, under like circumstances, is I'd have used only abrasive cloth, no f...

It often seems like the Chinese are testing the waters to see just how cheap and crappy they can make something before sales start dropping off. I can't help but think that, in many ways, we're responsible. We're so used to being a throw away society that we don't really expect quality from things ...

Amen Harold! About the only US heavy industry to weather the storm was the auto industry... and they nearly went under due to the same reason. Sadly, it appears that not only did we, as a people, demand more for our efforts, in many cases quality suffered right along with the unreasonable wages. Se...