New tools you've bought recently?

[bilbo]

I've sorta been looking for a lathe. My requirements were pretty specific - no Chinese junk, single phase power, small enough that I can move it but big enough to be useful... I found this yesterday for $1200:
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I haven't looked up the manufacture date yet but I'm guessing late 1950's maybe, early 50's and prior had no belt guard. It is a South Bend Model A with (I believe) a 3' bed. Pretty cool little machine, it has a quick change gear box for threading plus power feed and crossfeed. It came with 3 and 4 jaw chucks, brand new live center & drill chuck, 5 brand new tool holders and a couple carbide tools. I have some HSS tooling for it already. I got it from a guy who is moving across the country and didn't want to take it - he said he got it from a friend in Minnesota who got a bunch of these from a school and rebuilt the good ones from parts from the broken ones and I guess this was one of the good ones.

I ran it a bit yesterday and it seems to work pretty well. It has definitely seen some use and needed some cleaning & oiling but for my purposes it'll be fine. I'm not a huge fan of how the motor is mounted off the back as that makes it hard to find a spot in my shop for it so it ended up at an angle. I'll live with it - I think it's happy there.
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Congrats! My Dad has a Craftsman lathe that belonged to his Dad. I think he said it was built by South Bend. We extracted it from the basement of their house (which was built before safety standards for stairs) by building a sled under it and winching it up the near-vertical staircase. The strap broke halfway up and it went for a sleigh ride back down. The only damage done was breaking off a peg on a handwheel, and unbelievably he was able to buy it as well as some other accessories from a company that still supports them. Wild.

 

[sgtsandman]

I also just bought the "How to Run a Lathe" book that was written by the guys who designed my machine. Looking forward to reading that, it's supposed to be one of the best resources out there.

Fun fact - I watched a couple videos where a guy was running a lathe like mine at super low speeds for threading purposes. I was bummed because his had 4 steps on the main pulley shaft and mine only has three. Well, as it turns out, mine has two steps on the motor and idler that are hidden by the belt guard. I just happened to see that last night so I tried it and it does run way slower - nice to know! I think I have also figured out most of the controls now too.

Wear loose, long sleeved clothing and a neck tie with no tie tack or tie clip. Make sure you have all your jewelry on, including the Mr. T starter set.

 

[Rick W]

Wear loose, long sleeved clothing and a neck tie with no tie tack or tie clip. Make sure you have all your jewelry on, including the Mr. T starter set.

Let me know when you try that, and I’ll bring the casket. Or will we be good with just a few 5 gallon pails?

 

[Curious Hound]

Ever since my divorce, around 5 years ago, I have been using a laptop computer that was barely suiting my needs the day I bought it. Recently, Adobe Photoshop has been telling me that my resources are totally inadequate. So, I fixed it. New computer with awesome fast processor, 32mb ram, video card built for gaming, came with 512gb ssd hard drive. I added a 2tb ssd hard drive, dual monitors. Now, maybe it won't lock up while I'm processing videos and photos. This should last me a few years.

Thank you, Mr. FedEx driver

Wow. That's a 2tb hard drive?

Oh, yeah. I'm cooking with gas, now.

 

[Roert42]

Modern ssds are tiny.

 

[Bgunner]

The other day I picked up a small set of hex head screw drivers for my R/C box and found a new use for a pair of welding clamps that I got from harbor freight a couple weeks ago. You can use them for clamping bead lock rims together for R/C tires so you can actually start the screws. Only took about hour of frustration before I gave up and went searching for a better way to tackle the situation. If I had 3 hands it would have been no problem but alas, I was born with 2.

I later found a specialty tool online for clamping them... I don't need no stinking specialty tool, I'll just use Dis:

 

[sgtsandman]

I finally bought a proper set of crimping pliers for heat shrink coated connectors.

They are going to be real handy when I go to install this power block for the radios in order to eliminate noise generated by the 2011 and to neaten up the wires.

 

[SenorNoob]

...32mb ram...

That's your upgrade? What were you using before? A Commodore 64? LOL

Seriously tho, go to Harbor Freight and grab a couple of the $15 tv mounts. You can thank me later.

 

[Curious Hound]

That's your upgrade? What were you using before? A Commodore 64? LOL

Seriously tho, go to Harbor Freight and grab a couple of the $15 tv mounts. You can thank me later.

The 13th gen i7-13700 processor and the NVIDIA RTX A2000 graphics processor are the real upgrades. Along with ssd drives, this makes my old laptop seem like something earlier than a Commodore 64. And 32gb of ram is twice as much as my laptop and a much newer and faster design.

 

[Roert42]

The 13th gen i7-13700 processor and the NVIDIA RTX A2000 graphics processor are the real upgrades. Along with ssd drives, this makes my old laptop seem like something earlier than a Commodore 64. And32mb of ram is twice as much as my laptop and a much newer and faster design.

32Mb or 32Gb?


I think the smallest stick of ram I’ve ever seen was 250Mb, but that was out of a computer that was built 20 years ago.

 

[Curious Hound]

32Mb or 32Gb?


I think the smallest stick of ram I’ve ever seen was 250Mb, but that was out of a computer that was built 20 years ago.

Gb. I corrected it. Thank you. I think my first pc had either 4 or 8mb of ram or maybe a lot less. May have been 512kb. That was a while back. But, then again, the hard drive was only 130mb. And. Yes, I mean mb this time.

 

[sgtsandman]

32Mb or 32Gb?


I think the smallest stick of ram I’ve ever seen was 250Mb, but that was out of a computer that was built 20 years ago.

I remember 256 KB or maybe it was 128 KB. My first computer with an actual hard drive was a 16 MB drive on an expansion card. The first computer I ever used was an Atari. Basc when MS DOS and Basic were pretty much the only option out there.

 

[Curious Hound]

I remember 256 KB or maybe it was 128 KB. My first computer with an actual hard drive was a 16 MB drive on an expansion card. The first computer I ever used was an Atari. Basc when MS DOS and Basic were pretty much the only option out there.

It has been so long and those numbers sound so tiny. But that's how it was and we bragged about numbers like that.

 

[mikkelstuff]

I finally bought a proper set of crimping pliers for heat shrink coated connectors.

They are going to be real handy when I go to install this power block for the radios in order to eliminate noise generated by the 2011 and to neaten up the wires.

I use a crimper as well but still solder in the terminals and cover the ends with heat shrink tubing. I've just had too many wires pull out even when crimped.

 

[lil_Blue_Ford]

I feel like I need to do a video about proper crimping and stuff. I think too often people use an incorrect crimp, or not enough pressure or wrong size wire or something.