Centre-ing

-


The saga continues - I think there will be a book in this one. I mentioned before that I needed to fabricate a second stud for the [as it turns out incomplete] change-wheel set, so I could set appropriately slow powered feed rates. So I ordered a six-inch billet of 20mm mild steel, which arrived this morning. This highlighted a couple of issues: the jaws of my chuck really need grinding true (it's old, after all) and the chuck wasn't seated exactly true on the [as it turned out, butchered] back plate. After much messing around, I finally got the thing running true, and decided the only way to deal with the billet was to use a centre support (which I didn't have) in order to get an accurately drilled centre on the thing.

So I jury-rigged a support out of a couple of 5/16th" tee-bolts, a piece of wood appropriately worked into a lower saddle and a thin piece of aluminium shaped to make a collar for the top (shown). Having got the billet spinning true, I then moved to get the centre drill into the tailstock ready to drill the centre; then hit the problem that the tailstock centre ain't centre after all...It goes on, but the game remains the same: find a problem, solve a problem - just roll with it - as I said before, this is a spiritual exercise. Plain Zen to me.

Comments

  1. Phil.25 August 2021 at 19:37

    Very, very cool.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. sideways25 August 2021 at 21:54

      Thanks, mate - I really appreciate that! Still working stuff out, I guess!

      Delete
  2. Phil.25 August 2021 at 22:07

    Effort is not measured by what you get for it, but by what you become because of it.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Of Feedback & Wobbles

-
Image
Many years ago I came up with an analogy for poorly damped feedback loops. The feedback loop that prompted this frankly tart analogy was indeed a horror. Anyone who remembers shame-faced their first attempts at clutch control resulting in the good old kangaroo launch across the lights only to stall in the middle of the crossroads will have some idea of the kind of data transfer lag involved in said system. The analogy I made was that of a large blancmange. Untouched, a model of stasis and eminently stable and predictable; but prod the bugger and the resultant chaotic behaviour needs a very complex physical model and some very decent computing horsepower to predict its outputs, if at all. The system in question was a large and complex audio-visual display at what eventually became 'The Electric Mountain' in Llanberis. We were ultimately contracted to maintain the thing having been witness to and peripherally involved in its installation. Certainly not involved in its des
Read more

Sister Ray

-
Image
Ray Keats - aka Ann Key - local artist & family friend, died this morning. She'd been ill for some years, but never let it get in the way of her work or of tending to the massive network of friends, colleagues and fans she had accumulated over the decades. Her house on the High Street of Rachub, just below where we live - a former cockle factory(!) - bought many years ago when she and her late husband Ronald moved here from Manchester to set up home in Yr Achub, is currently still home to her paintings and drawings, and the front window displays her work, including the last drawing she made in hospital, just days before she died. Her good friend Colin has been a diamond in her latter years, looking out for her and just being there when she needed him. She will be much missed by this tiny community of ageing bohemians up here in the hills, but suffice it to say, George, her cat, will be well looked after now she's gone.
Read more

A Time of Connection

-
Image
I was just reflecting on the vacuum of continuity that's left behind when someone dies: that sudden sense of disjoint, of fracture, in one's personal history that takes one completely by surprise at the oddest moments. These pinch-points in memory can often yield some surprising revelations of fact about periods in one's past. One such occurred to me tonight, tending my rather lazy meal of pizza in its journey from shrink-wrap to mouth via the oven. Al's recent demise still catches me out from time to time: the space he left bounded by forty plus years of friendship. But the thing that struck me tonight was just how much change was happening on a personal and social level in the very early years of our acquaintance. Between moving here from Birmingham in September 1980 and our buying our first proper house eighteen months later, all manner of things occurred that would chart the course of our lives to the present day. At around the time of our meeting Alan & Irene [
Read more