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I've been absent for several months for many reasons, but have been working in the background. I hit a frustration threshold on the diesel and shifted focus to other stuff, but came back around to this cheap diy dyno set up with data logging that really works. Here are a few pictures of the...

Well, ok, maybe it is a bit of a mental deficiency. About a week ago I am going into my shop in the morning and there is this tangled pile of swarf just outside the door. The door is open to the house at night. Scratching my head, I remember seeing my cat sniffing around the pile of swarf that...

We were visiting friends in Ireland and went to a wildlife park.

I've had this Grizzly 10" x 22" benchtop lathe for about 13 years and it has served me well. I have babied it and never driven it too hard. But it has been really noisey from the beginning and it is time to try and fix it. I know what a $$$$ Hardinge tool room lathe sounds like, and therefore I...

Exhaust valve malfunction. You have to watch it to the end for an extra chuckle.

Every morning my kitty is waiting to lead me to my shop because I have surely forgotten how to get there. Then she hops up into my computer chair because I obviously have a need to pet a kitty in my shop. And this continues throughout the day except for when she is sleeping, which is actually...

Copper is so grabby with drills and tools. I have a bunch of .020" and .030" thick copper sheet but have not come up with a method to make make little (for example, .300 O.D. x .220 I.D.) ring gaskets. Sure would be nice if I could! I know somebody has a secret that doesn't involve making a...

A friend had a gallon of "Odorless Mineral Spirits," that wasn't needed and they gave it to me. Mineral spirits, or paint thinner, cleans metal parts nicely, but is normally fairly stinky. But odorless? Sounds like an outlandish claim to me. I gave it a try, and sure enough it was almost...

I've got a thread going on a 56cc 2 stroke diesel that I am building. The design process is odd in that I have what I consider the most difficult parts, the roots blower and the unit injector mostly finished and will now be designing the rest of the engine around those successes. Question is the...

22 feet x 22 feet of nice heated and air conditioned space with good lighting and epoxy painted floor, machines, decent attic storage, cabinets, roll-arounds, and a big sink. Seems pretty decent, right? So why do I continue to disrespect it by keeping it in such a mess. A friend once politely...

I respect the fact that selecting the correct grinding wheel is a lot more complex than grabbing one off the shelf at harbor freight. I need something for roughing steel and stainless, something for shaping HSS tool blanks, sharpening HSS tools and drills, and maybe something for touching up...

I am noticing more and more things in my shop getting magnetized: tweezers, cut-off blades, HSS tools, chuck jaws, etc, etc. Nothing serious, but pretty annoying. Do I need a demagnetizer? I have a couple of powerful 3" horse shoe magnets if they are of any help. (And no, they are not setting...

On the helpful advice of forum members, I recently got a no-name AXA QCTP for my Grizzly 10x22 bench top lathe. Gotta say, I love, but I need to get a bunch more tool holders. Luckily, they can be found cheap. When making tiny parts on the lathe, I often had thought how handy a tool post...

I was in the CNC forum looking for some recommendations for a fraction horsepower variable speed motor. I got a recommendation from SteveM for something much better than what I had in mind. It is a 110VAC sewing machine servo motor with controller and several handy user-settable parameters. Max...

SCARY PICTURES Years ago I had my 1 HP lathe plugged into a nice safe 20 amp circuit in my shop. Some things were piled in front of the outlet so I couldn't see the plug. I was doing some long periods of heavy work on the lathe for several nights. Never gave it a second thought. Then, maybe a...

First, let me say that I am posting here because this seems like the most appropriate place for the question, and two, let me be honest, I'd like to keep this cheap, like from ebay or a surplus house. I want to get a variable speed motor and control, fractional HP (150 watt??), maybe 1500 rpm...

I recently had the good fortune to travel to the UK, and being from the US, everything there seems older than dirt (in a good way). Two of the technological highlights of the trip were a visit to the Bluebell Steam railway in Sussex, and the SS Great Britain in Bristol. We went with our...

As is often the case on a project that has a lot of mis-starts and re-starts, contemplating the NEXT project is always much more exciting. Something new and shiny! I've seen several threads about diy dynos, some successful, and others, not so much. I like to think the theory through, just...

My Grizzly G0602 10x22 bench-top lathe is almost 10 years old, and for some reason, I have never bought a quick change tool post. I can't justify the cost of a new name brand, and there is definitely nothing available locally, and I am leery of a used part that serves such a critical function...

We have had a vegetable garden forever, and even though I really don't enjoy it much anymore, my wife does, so I just smile and do the grunt work. Then, add on the bugs and varmints and drought and weeds, and it feels like a loosing battle. My wife often shows me various cute "memes" from...