vapremac

I say I'd have to agree with the fine recommendations that have been previously posted strongly advising you against it. From studying the pics, I believe that .125" is on the light side of even beginning to clean up the face. No disrespect........but have a machine shop quote it...........that might put some thoughts in perspective.

Nice work.....very unique!

Nuge, I agree, foot pedal controls are a great addition to drill presses......excellent for production work.

Hello kayakersteve, Just wondering.......do you market any of your items?

Allthough not a KMG style, I use a belt grinder quite frequently in my day to day operations around the shop.

Welcome Ancientsword ! There is a vast amount of knowledge among the members here and the talent is absolutely amazing. They will be glad to guide you along the way and answer any questions you may have.

Personally....my suggestion would to investigate things a little more in depth before attacking it with a handheld grinder. There are alot of unknown variables as to why your having the problems..........

Nice work ! May I suggest a slight chamfer in the hole to where the rope is........to me it would give the piece a more "softer" appearance. Keep up the good work!

The internet and social media are HUGE , take a look at retail sales online,keep growing larger each year. A fine example of this is Amazon, look at the rate of growth they have had all due to online sales. Once the other large retailers realized this is the wave of the future they all jumped on board, boosting their bottom lines. Having a web presence and social networking is vital for anyone nowadays looking to grow a business and sell products. Of course there are established platforms that are allready popular to the vast majority of online consumers, those being Ebay and Etsy. You can sell on these and/or you can set up your own website, there are a number of platforms and templates for creating your own. All of this does take a little time to learn if someone is not allready familiar with creating an online presence and social media. There is a fair amount of time involved in maintaining the website and social networking,but all of this is crucial to success in todays fast paced world. We use Shopify for our website platform which my wife maintains, I couldn't do it without her. PM me if you have any further questions and we will be glad to help out.

Good job....nothing like the satisfaction of making your own tools.

Here you go DSW, check this pic out from yesteryear.........

I don't know any other way to put this......but......count your lucky stars that is all that happened ! I'm glad to know that you're still here with us !!! It's sad to say but we all know to be careful around these heartless machines but we tend to get in a comfort zone, rushing to meet deadlines or "I've done it this way a hundred times " and it takes an accident whether it be to a friend/coworker or ourselves to give us a reality check. Never thought about it until DSW's reply,I have 2 walker-turner drill presses and both machines (mid 50's) have the power switches located at the rear of the machine near the motor,all of the newer ones are located at eye level in front of the spindle, times have changed. WISH YOU A SPEEDY RECOVERY !!!!!

Welcome aboard and beautiful work I might add as well!! There is an amazing wealth of knowledge here from equally amazingly talented members.

Thanks for posting more pics of your builds and also the extensive details related to the classes. Sounds like they were really good and that you enjoyed being a part of them. Like others have said, yes its nice to have the fancy state of the art tools to work with..........but.....the old school methods that have been tried and trued many times over are sometimes more rewarding in completion of a job. Also thanks for answering my questions......I was just wondering who all was interested in metal working these days,and from the ones that were in class with you,it seems like everyone is....thats a good thing. Keep up the good work and keep us posted

Rich......very well said and very much agree with you. One point that you mentioned I would like to stress the importance of, that being the rigidity of the grinder itself and the rigidity of the stand/table as to which it is mounted. The more mass any given piece of equipment has the less prone it is to the evidence of vibration waves affecting the surface finish on the work piece. This also holds true In the use of sloppy inexpensive bearings, which can add to unnecessary vibration related surface finish problems. So when planning to build a grinder or purchasing one.........weight of the machine and the mounting system play important roles in its overall performance.

I agree with DSW........details! Very nice work, I would be interested in the build of the fish, how you went about it. A few other questions about your class.........number of people? Average age? Gender?

Keep us updated on your build. Three phase electric motors are not as "scary" as everyone makes them out to be, its just the unknown particulars is why everyone shys away from them. Actually they are far more efficient to operate in terms of the cost of electricity, using less amps than a single phase motor of comparable horsepower. They have a much longer life span because of the fact that less heat is built up inside of the housing due to less amperage draw. Three phase motors can be run from single phase 203/208/220/240 in two different ways, one being a static type converter, which is the cheapest way, but cuts the HP rating of the motor in half, hence a 5hp becomes a 2.5hp, reason being the microfarads are not up spec on the third leg. The second method is the use of a rotary phase converter, which by far is the best method. Standard single phase input and a capacitor bank to bring up the voltage on the third leg and no drop in HP rating as long as the dependent motor HP is not larger than the parent rotary phase. I build rotary phase converters and have quite a few customers who power two or three machine tools with three phase motors all simultaneously from one 5 or 10 hp RPC. For one three phase motor used intermittently a static convertor might be the more cost effective approach though.

Good job, looks like it served its intended purpose. Keep plenty of oil on the guides where the shaft is rotating, doesn't take long for the heat to build up. I do quite a bit of work requiring a steady rest and have modified all of mine to have roller bearings on the guides.

Jim, Thats a nice setup you have there for forming multiple rings at one time. I'm sure it would definitely speed up the production process.

Nice job, I wouldn't have passed that up either if I ran across it ! The farmers around here keep me supplied with things like that so I'll have stock on hand when they call me to repair something at 11 p.m. on Saturday night. It happens way more than one would expect, I allways remind them that "weekend and after hours rates apply". The "artsy" pic looks good as well!

That my friend is truly an amazing piece of work !!!!

I have found that filing a slight chamfer on the leading edge of the workpiece helps to minimize pinning substantially.

After replying last night and now after reading what others have posted I decided to dig out some of my old machinist text books from years ago to reference exactly what is recommended. Everyone has their own way that works well for there situation..............anyway here's what it reads.

I'm sure that was an interesting discussion and am looking forward to the responses here. I have and use files in my machine shop on a daily basis that were my fathers from his days as a machinist. They have allways been stored dry in a toolbox drawer and not just thrown on top of one another. If they seem to lose their "edge" a good scrubbing in the parts tank with a file card then off to the blast cabinet. After a good sand blast it will cut as good as any new file. Then back to the drawer dry.

Johnnie, What I do when repairing belting for lineshaft equipment , - Place a soft piece of wood in a press - Place belt with staples and loops on top of wood (exit side for staples down) - Place a piece of flat bar on top of the staples and slowly come down with press - After compressing remove the belt from the press, remove piece of wood which will be stuck in place and fold over staples. Allways has worked for me, but none of the staples I have dealt with were copper but hopefully this might help.