Occasional Happiness

[Swede]

I can see the meth-heads loading a tumbler with thousands of those sudafed pills in an attempt to mechanically remove the red goo. But I agree, the realistic answer was "it looked like science, therefore, it must be evil."

[Bonny]

I went hunting and got my deer on Monday! Shot a doe, not a very big one, but it was almost dark and I don't know if I'll get out again. She should be nice and tasty.i'm keeping the backstraps as steaks, but probably going to have the rest of it made into garlic sausage,pepperoni and a few stew packs.

[Richtee]

I went hunting and got my deer on Monday! Shot a doe, not a very big one, but it was almost dark and I don't know if I'll get out again. She should be nice and tasty.i'm keeping the backstraps as steaks, but probably going to have the rest of it made into garlic sausage,pepperoni and a few stew packs.

If you'd like some simple jerky instructions, PM me, or post in the "recipes" thread :{)

[mormanman]

I had some of my wood shop teachers the other day and he made it from the ground deer part (I don't know what its called and you can laugh at me for it its ok its still very tasty) and man it was good. Richtee, I'll buy some from you.

[Richtee]

I had some of my wood shop teachers the other day and he made it from the ground deer part (I don't know what its called and you can laugh at me for it its ok its still very tasty) and man it was good. Richtee, I'll buy some from you.

 

I'm not selling anything. Just offering instruction on how to make your own. I'll post a couple links in the "recipes" thread. And it IS good meat!

[oskarchem]

I just got my 22" HD screen. It really changes compared to a 18" CRT one

[50AE]

I just got my 22" HD screen. It really changes compared to a 18" CRT one

 

Give me the CRT if you don't want it

 

Yesterday I received my power ball 250Hz. Yeeh, such an amazing toy. I was exercising my hand for 3 hours and now my wrist hurts a bit, so I stopped. I played with it today too, it's very nice. I can exercise my hands everywhere. Of course, some people give me weird looks.

[oskarchem]

Heh, well I can tell you that Crysis really changes when you play it on high settings with a HD screen .

[Miech]

I'm quite happy because some kind of shell I'm not going to specify yet because of a running competition on another forum went very well. After the 5th of December I'll post it here as well (if I than still remember I said this).

 

I'm also happy because this thread has more than twice the amount of pages the 'Occasional depression thread' has, so aparently most folks here are fine.

[yellowcard]

Speaking from experience i can tell you most people who feel like shit don't speak a word.

[Mumbles]

Either that or we're all blissfully insane.

 

But yes, significantly depressing things rarely show up in there.

[hst45]

Deer hunting update; killed a 7-pointer today. One-shot-one-kill with the .300 Wby mag. Not a wall mount, but a nice sized mountain deer with a 16" spread. He was on the run through some cut-over hardwoods and I cracked him as he sprinted from my left to my right and I caught him as he crossed and old logging road. I killed him half a mile from the nearest load-out point, but as luck would have it it was a down-hill drag. Speaking of dragging, let me get another beer. I'm too old for this shit......

[Richtee]

Speaking of dragging, let me get another beer. I'm too old for this shit......

Heh... I bet ya wern't too old when ya seen him fall ;{) Just has a 6 point whitetail dropped off here for butchering. The guy wants it ALL in jerky and sausage... well...except for one of the backstraps I'm keeping ;{)

 

Did 4 hinds and shoulders earlier today for another friend. Jerky, 2 "hams", burger and sausage. Been up to my neck in venison this year, and have not hit the woods yet hah!

[Boomer]

Why is everybody speaking about food all the time?

 

After 2 years of very limited experiments, with all 'suspicious' precursors far out-of-house, and all finished comps disposed off, I may have to cut down further on this hobby- this time for lack of free evenings. Hopefully ....

 

And yes I know this is Occasional Happiness. It's just that I can't get a Jim Steinman song out of my head for a good week now:

 

And I never really sleep any more

And I always get those dangerous dreams

And I never get a minute of peace

And I gotta wonder what it means.

 

Maybe it's nothing and I'm under the weather

Maybe it's just one of those bugs going round

Maybe I'm under a spell and it's magic

Maybe there's a witch doctor with an office in town

 

Is it a blessing or is it a curse

Does it get any better can it get any worse

Will it go on forever is it over tonight

Does it come with the darkness does it bring out the light

Is it richer than diamonds or just a little cheaper than spit

I don't know what it is but it just won't quit

 

(...)

 

Maybe I'm crazy and I'm loosing my senses

Maybe I'm possessed by a spirit or such

Maybe I'm desperate and I've got no defenses

Can you get me a prescription for that one perfect touch

 

Oh is it a blessing or is it a curse

Does it get any better can it get any worse

Will it go on forever is it over tonight

Does it come with the darkness does it bring out the light

It's a stairway to heaven or a subway going down to the pits?

I don't know what it is but it just won't quit

 

 

Having been more or less unable to eat and sleep for the first half of the week (for obvious reasons ), then just unable to sleep while munching chocolate (3 days no call + her cell phone always off ), I decided that

 

1) Given the choice between being unable to eat and sleep, or just being unable to sleep - fuck eating.

 

Turned out its was no case of "piss off" but rather a case of a broken battery charger. Now after last night, coming to work at 10:30 in yesterday's underwear, I say

 

2) Fuck sleeping too!

[Richtee]

Why is everybody speaking about food all the time?

 

When you get to some of our ages and have been married 20+ years, you will understand. Enjoy the ride tho ;{)

[Swede]

Food - as young AF types, we would deploy for flying and alcoholic debauchery to some far-flung station, and the mantra was "eating is for pigs. push it up." Translation: Don't worry about dinner. Get your ass in gear, push it (the throttles) up, and let's get busy drinking like fish. It works better on an empty stomach, and you'll soon feel no pain."

[tentacles]

I'm happy tonight.. I finally got around to machining an adaptor to put my 4 jaw chuck on my lathe spindle nose, I think I did pretty good on it.. Used brass, should be plenty strong/hard enough since it's essentially just an adaptor between 1 1/8 - 12 and 1 1/2 - 8 thread. I machined the inside to fit my spindle nose, and then installed it on the spindle to machine the register and thread for the chuck.. Since I don't own a micrometer set, I just snuck up on the register diameters.. It worked pretty well, the spindle register is perhaps a bit sloppier than I like, but that kind of runout doesn't matter on a 4 jaw chuck.

 

On another chuck related note, I just about stole this Pratt-Burnerd 6" 3-Jaw SET TRU chuck on ebay.. http://cgi.ebay.ca/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewIt...I:IT&ih=001

 

The set tru chucks have a really neat feature that allows you to correct any runout by adjusting three grub screws on the chuck body.. So you can have the convenience of a scroll chuck, and the accuracy of a 4 jaw. They are usually about $860 for a new Pratt-Burnerd "SETRITE" (the new version of set-tru). This is one HELL of a lot of chuck for $130! Also, with the set-tru, you can worry a lot less about getting a chuck with a worn scroll, since you can correct the runout if you need to. And they have forged steel bodies. The list of benefits just goes on for days, seems like..

 

All that said, I really like this lathe I've got.

Edited December 8, 2008 by tentacles

[WarezWally]

I wish I had the room for a proper lathe and mill, at the moment I don't have the power or space. MY mini lathe consumes nearly my whole bench

[Swede]

Dude, way to go! That is an awesome value, and you identified another of the beauties of a set-true design.... it compensates for any wear or misalignment in the scrolls themselves. As promised, some pics:

 

http://www.5bears.com/perc/chuck01.jpg

 

As mounted, using face bolts. Some chucks use 3, others, like this one, six. The holes in the chuck body that carry the bolts are sloppy large, and allow lateral drift of the body. There is one standard scroll socket, and four radial pinion sockets. the pinion sockets are just big set screws, probably 3/8"; they have a machined pad on the end where they bear on the inner ring. The chuck wrench (hopefully you'll get one) has a hex form on one of the T-handle stems, so you can use the wrench to loosen and tighten the pinions.

 

http://www.5bears.com/perc/chuck02.jpg

 

With the chuck removed, you can see the ring. The ring's OD is about 0.060" smaller than the hollow cavity in the chuck body to leave room for drift. This is a big chunk of metal to be carved out, but the good news is you can ADD the ring to a normal, flat backplate. I turned a section of DOM carbon steel tube, and bolted it to a normal backplate (very firmly) to create a set-true backplate.

 

http://www.5bears.com/perc/chuck03.jpg

 

And the body of the chuck itself. The front mounting bolts do 85% of the holding of the body, the pinions the remaining 15%. To use the chuck, each mounting bolt is loosened, then retightened just enough to keep the chuck body flat against the backplate. There should be some friction when you drift the chuck, but it should not take a lot of force, and once drifted, it should NOT move even without the supporting pinions. Indicating the work to 0.00000" TIR, you then tighten the face bolts sequentially, as if it is a spare tire, go in a star pattern. Then, snug up any pinions not in contact with the ring, but gently, you don't want to move the body anymore.

 

The whole process takes 2 minutes with practice, and is MUCH faster than a four jaw.

 

Enjoy it, you'll like the chuck.

[Boomer]

"When you get to some of our ages and have been married 20+ years, you will understand. Enjoy the ride tho ;{)"

 

(Un)fortunately we are from the same decade (60's). It's just that I haven't fallen in love head over heels for 15 years, just an old-friends-try-it-and-turn-back-to-friends-again relationship in 2000-2004.

 

The ride is roller coaster style though, why can't women stick to their priorities, not like on Friday it's commitment on to of the list, and on Sunday it's freedom?

 

I'm too old for this game.....

[tentacles]

The chuck wrench (hopefully you'll get one) has a hex form on one of the T-handle stems, so you can use the wrench to loosen and tighten the pinions.

 

Enjoy it, you'll like the chuck.

 

Thanks for the killer writeup! This type of backplate will be much less fussy to build than that adaptor for the 4 jaw I did last night. Only one critical dimension, essentially - the spindle nose interface. I'm a bit concerned about doing that part, actually, since I have doubts about my faceplate's ability to be true upon removing/reattaching to the spindle. I'll muddle through somehow. Maybe I'll have to learn to scrape, although that sounds like a huge PITA.

 

I did buy a chunk of Fortal from that guy, glad I went for a piece 1.125" thick! That should be plenty of beef to just machine the ring in... since I also have doubts about my ability to mount such a ring with any accuracy. The Fortal should be plenty strong, and it's more rigid than steel.. probably more like good cast iron in that respect. I might need some details on that "dusting" tool you posted pics of a while back, but I'll have to grind one to dust an ID.

[Swede]

Tentacles, the ring does NOT need to be centered, at all. You could eyeball it and it'd be OK. Remember, it is not a registering surface, it is simply a firm structure for the pinions to push against.

 

I took an old 6" rotary table (Chinese) and bolted a ring to the center of it. After drilling and tapping for the chuck face bolts, I turned the RT into an adjustable spacer to use this style of chuck. On the mill table, the RT is rotated with an indicator on the work in the chuck, and the chuck is drifted to center. Works well, lasts a long time.

 

Can you take a picture of your spindle nose? The threads are not the critical part. The important part is the shoulder. When the smoke clears, ALL THAT MATTERS is that the plane defined by the face of the backplate be perpendicular to the lathe axis. That's it. I'd add center-popped witness marks so that you tighten the backplate to the same location each time. I'd also make the backplate extra-thick, which will allow you to skim cut (true) that surface every so often, as the threads wear or perhaps the chuck itself loosens a bit.

 

I guess what I'm trying to say, badly, is that the set-true feature takes care of much of the issues in making a good backplate. Concentricity is not critical at all, only the perpendicularity of the backplate face with the lathe axis.

 

I've used a diamond stone on occasion to clean up nicks generated on the hardened nose of my lathe.

[Swede]

A good, cheap supply of Red Gum would make me very happy, indeed. Red Gum prices are too high!

 

I need RG, lots of it. Is it possible to process the really raw stuff (with bark and dirt in it) into clean RG via dissolving in a solvent like acetone or alcohol, filtering, then either evaporating the solvent, or crashing into cold water? RG is one of my more favored binders. You'd think with modern chemistry, we'd have a cheap synthetic replacement for it, but not so.

 

Anyway, I'm looking for Low, low prices on RG, no matter how crude.

[Richtee]

A good, cheap supply of Red Gum would make me very happy, indeed. Red Gum prices are too high!

 

I need RG, lots of it. Is it possible to process the really raw stuff (with bark and dirt in it) into clean RG via dissolving in a solvent like acetone or alcohol, filtering, then either evaporating the solvent, or crashing into cold water? RG is one of my more favored binders. You'd think with modern chemistry, we'd have a cheap synthetic replacement for it, but not so.

 

Anyway, I'm looking for Low, low prices on RG, no matter how crude.

What about rosin- pine sap? I did a little work with it a while back. I was not impressed in general, but I may have been using it wrong? <probably> Had a real nice product by dropping chunks into acetone in a jar and letting things set a couple days withthe ocassional shake. Poured off the top after the crap settled, and burnt the acetone off in a half a pop can. Got a nice solid plug of the stuff.

 

Or ya could buy it.

 

And what about your poly glue??

[tentacles]

Swede: There was a group buy on RG a while back, but it all went very very quickly.. It's possible to process the raw product in the manner you describe - the fact is, most of it isn't processed this way at all. The stuff you buy from firefox is just milled with all that garbage in there.. Try dissolving some in alcohol and see all the shit that settles out.. FrankRizzo has some from a woodworking place that used to carry it (til it got passfire'd) that's like 12-20 mesh and you can see the bits of crap, and they total about the same amount as what you find in the milled powders.

 

Pine rosin would not be a bad sub for red gum, it's actually a traditional japanese binder/fuel. The trick is finding it in a reasonable quantity - like a 50lb bag - at a reasonable price.. like $4/lb.