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I walked though the machine shop at work yesterday and was a little displeased to see this. The power was on and the lathe was in gear. Just made me want to reach out and touch someone. Apparently a maintenance man had used the lathe to drill a hole. He also removed the QCTP from the cross...

These days I'm the manager of a CNC secondary machining department. I also do the purchasing for plant maintenance. The maintenance guys come to me with an obsolete low pressure gauge. 0 to 15 ounces per square inch with a front flange mount. I cant find those gauges anywhere on the internet...

I'm in my 6th week of recovery from back surgery and I'm getting bored. When I get bored, I usually end up getting into trouble. No exception this time! :rolleyes: I saw these little brass, relaodable firecracker like things on the internet. Didn't take long to figure out the actual...

I love poking holes in paper targets and knocking down threatening empty soup cans. I recently purchased this import clone of a Commander size 1911 45ACP pistol. (The grips and trigger are not original to the pistol. It may as well LOOK good.) Out of the box accuracy wasn't terrible. Rapid...

When I was working in an industrial job shop, the most dreaded job was cutting the rope groove in a a wire rope sheave. It took a good eye and steady control to manually form a perfect groove that fit the gage. An imperfect groove could scrap the part. I HATED THEM!!!!! That was something I...

A couple weeks ago the maintenance guys at work brought me a worn out traveling key and a length of 1/2" square 360 brass. They asked me to make a replacement key from that material. A week later they brought the worn out brass key back to me and asked for 4 more of them. OK, let's take a...

7 years ago I ordered this Epiphone Les Paul Classic guitar with a translucent blue finish over quilted maple. I waited a long time for it because the Trans Blue was out of stock at the time. Last month I opened the case and was SICKENED to see this: Long cracks that run from the nut down...

For all of our members in the North East USA, Be Prepared! This thing is looking dangerous. Take care of your families and BE SAFE! Rick

Here's an pretty insignificant little injury. I needed to polish the journal on a large shoulder bolt to hand fit it to a fixture yesterday. Chucking on the head of the bolt with the 3 jaw left the back side of the jaws protruding about an inch out of the chuck. AND, I got too close to one...

This past Wednesday I decided we should have a pick up truck again. The wife's minivan was getting tired and making new noises all of the time. My last truck was a Dodge Dakota and I loved it, so I started looking for another one in my price range. I found this 2002 with only 57000 miles on it...

We fell into a great deal and bought enough laminate flooring to do the entire first floor of our house. Wait, I need the proper tools. Like these: Then I see this little 7-1/4" Sliding Compound Miter Saw at Lowe's: It's the perfect size for working with the laminate. After that's done...

I broke one of the plastic knobs on a cheap magnetic base. The hub of the knob split and the M6 threaded insert fell out of it. So - I took a piece of 3/4" stock, drilled and bored it to .001" larger than the hub OD, (.556" to be exact). Then, turned the OD down to 5/8" and parted off the thin...

Not many of my repairs at work require threading, but I needed a threading tool for those rare occurrences. All of my tool holders are set on center for 5/8" shank tools, so I went to Shars website to see if they had a lay-down threading tool with a 5/8" shank. Of course they did. Shars...

I have my own 0 to 6" outside mics at work. They cover almost everything I work with there, but occasionally I need something to measure between 6 and 12" A 2" to 12" Pi Tape would be the perfect answer but a new one costs about $100 An eBay search turned up a used 2" to 12" Pi Tape with a...

I purchase almost all of the tools and machine repair parts at work. The fabricator asked me to order him a cheap set of parallels for the maintenance room Bridgeport. I'm good at finding cheap tool! LOL I also found a MAJOR price difference between vendors. THIS SET from Enco is identical to...

My cousin had an old beer keg in his garage and decided to turn it into a BBQ grill. That's kind of cool, but I'm thinking a beer keg has been defaced to the point where it can no longer dispense beer! There is something WRONG with THAT! :D Rick

Congratulations to Ramon for his Super Tigre G32 being selected as our August 2012 Project of the Month! Beautiful craftsman ship Ramon. Thanks for sharing the build with us! Rick

This is not my modification. It was made by our fabricator at work. Our surface grinder was missing the grinding wheel guard. The fabricator's design to replace it will made me think it could fit other application. Here's the finished guard. 1/8" steel plate bent and welded together to form...

A buddy stopped in the other evening with a gift for me. It's a 1/2" diamond impregnated drill bit that wouldn't pass inspection where he works. The diamond is uneven in one spot. I asked him what I could do with it and he suggested I try taking across the face of a grinding wheel. I took a...

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