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If this is a recession, what's in your wallet? (long & wrong)

I began turning in the late 30's before we had escaped from the great depression, but this is not about trudging thru 3 feet of snow to get to a one room school and all that. Just a few suggestions just in case.

There is so much hardware with 1/2 in. female pipe threads or true 3/4 X

16 tpi that will fit lathes with 3/4 X 16 spindles that it might be worthwhile to make or buy adapters for your particular spindle size. and don't forget a #2 to #1 MT sleeve.

I've found steel 3/4 X 16 faceplates and #1 MT revolving tail centers on sale at HD & HF. Their ten dollar Jacobs chucks work for me and many of us use their little spray guns and six dollar 1/4 in. air die grinders. The trick is to separate the bargains from the junk and be willing to guess wrong about jello steel.

Most steel suppliers will cut 2 to 4 in. diam. bar into 1/4 in. or so slices to be welded to inexpensive 3/4 X 16in. longboy nuts. That size nut won't take up all the space for the screw holes in small faceplates. Easy to make several faceplates (or backplates according to your persuasion) dedicated for various uses in a turning shop.

For centering a faceplate over a dimple in a blank a matching sharpened bolt screwed thru the faceplate works a treat and a long rod held in a tailcenter or chuck will jam steady a deep vessel.

Tip: To make a centered sharp point on round bar or a bolt, hold it in a hand drill against a rotating grinder. How to hold a 3/4 in. bolt in most hand drills I leave for you to figure out. Maybe cut off the head and rotate the bolt on your lathe and rotate an arbored stone in a hand drill against it. I'm a fair 'shade tree' mechanic, but the leaves are beginning to fall. :( With the rush to larger lathe spindles, 3/4 X 16 and # 1 MT accessories such as chucks, revolving centers, spur drives, work arbors, etc. are now good value. BTW, 3/4 X 16 is an adequately robust size for most human sized turning jobs. Just try to bend a hardened bolt that size. Of course if your dinner table will hold a 35 in. platter and 43 pound bowl and you can afford the victuals, that's your call. Black iron and electrogalvanized 1/2 in. pipe fittings make metal tool handles, arm braces, faceplates, cup chucks, small screw chucks, sandpaper punches. etc. Go to a plumbing shop, HD or Lowes and think of the possibilities.

Various sized short nipples cut into 4 equal quadrants have rescued my cheap independent 4 jaw AMT chuck from its job anchoring my skiff.

Tail pipe expanders can be converted to expansion chucks. Lever type rubber bottle caps make small sanding drums. Brass plumbing compression fittings make small collet chucks. Particularly the 3/8 in. for holding bottle stopper dowels. That is if anybody is still using cork like the wineries do for their best wines. I never could remove the metal caps on the wines I drink with a corkscrew. I'm not even sure if being the connoisseur I am, I should discretely murmur "Sommelier, this wine is Corked" or to be even more 'derigueur' to shout, "waiter this wine is Aluminumed, but I'll drink it for half price".

Then there's the yard sales and the twice (or more likely thrice) around thrift shops. They are a great source for skate wheels, cabachons, cheese platter tiles, decorative caps, assorted inserts, lamp shades and electrical fittings, chisels, hair driers etc. ...and you might luck into a real bargain in a quality tool. I've found a few. Not being a slave to fashion, I like their large long sleeved cotton shirts for wearing in the workshop. Who am I kidding? I'm secure enough to wear them out in town and not care if the original owner recognizes his old shirt walking by.

That's a non-problem here in S. Fla. (aka God's waiting room) where most original owners are deceased. Not to put too fine a point on it, but while I wait my turn, I may as well enjoy turning on the cheap. Of course as the last of the big spenders, if we miss the recession, I'll spring for the ice water and day old doughnuts.

Sorry you read this far? Quitcherbellyaching. I warned you at the beginning this was long & wrong. I don't think this post is a mortal sin, but maybe I should go to one of those new automated confessionals. Naw! I'd probably be made to buy something new and first class if M15 doesn't persecute me first. :)

Turn to Safety, Arch Fortiter

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Arch
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=====>Great and long and right, Arch!! In my small way I too have sought and made such things. Unfortunately, "affluenza" is rampant and to keep the economy of China, Canada, Australia humming we have to buy the new stuff!! Where is your support for the global economy!! Archie get your GATT, get your GATT!*G*

Leif

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Leif Thorvaldson

Hey Leif, you rascal. Maybe a little bit of LDD will make the economy go down! :)

Turn to Safety, Arch Fortiter

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Arch

As an addendum to this tip, it is possible to machine metal freehand on a wood lathe. You need either an oland-style tool with a metal cutting toolbit grind, or a tool called a graver, which is a rod of tool steel with a three-sided pyramid profile ground onto the end.

In either of these cases, slow the lathe down as low as it will go, lubricate the cutting tool frequently with cutting oil, and make sure your tool has a long handle for leverage- a catch in wood might hurt you, and it's certainly not a better situation when it happens with metal.

Aluminum and copper can be cut with your regular turning tools as well- though the same cautions apply, and they'll dull very quickly.

At the end of the day, there are three major differences between basic metal and wood lathes- the metal lathe can go slower, the cutting bit is held in a fixture and not in your hands, and the angle of the grind on the cutting tools is different. If you can work around those three things, you can use either one for both materials, though the mess may not be worth it.

Absolutely. Black pipe is my friend.

Dang, Arch- you need to shell out the extra $2 and upgrade that wine... don't you get tired of feeling like you got kicked in the head the next day?

I don't think there's going to be any missing the "recession" that's coming. Of course, there are a lot of guys on here that are older, and in many cases, much older, than myself- but we're on a rocketslide into hell, sooner or later, as far as I can see. Won't be too long before someone notices that we no longer make things, and China gets all the oil because people realize that they need it to make products, instead of just driving around Humvees to deliver pizzas to one another in our new and improved (tm) "service economy."

There might be an argument for a new economic model if we actually were producing a society's worth of top-notch scientists, medical workers and engineers who are able to export knowledge and innovation- but as far as I can tell, all the "new economy" means to the average bloke is that you can now earn as much or more stocking shelves at the WalMart, and with better benefits to boot, as you can in a machine shop or factory. With nothing with which to pay our way, our credit will run out soon enough, those WalMart jobs will go away, and we'll be saddled with a lot of folks who are qualified only to scan UPCs and stack up boxes.

Of course, there's always the chance that China and the other rapidly rising third-world manufacturies will have labor revolts, unionize and make domestic production seem like a bargin again- but it won't be an easy transition when most people don't even know how to read a tape measure.

Not much wrong with it that I can see. I hate to have to admit it, and I don't usually talk about it to anyone (as it makes me sound like a crazy person,) but I really will not be surprised if some day my shops are actually *needed* to make things to keep my neighbors alive and kicking, and not just for my personal enjoyment and a side income. If I'm right about that, it'll be a godsend to have a forge, the cupola melting furnace I've got on my drawing board, and my other fabrication tools for both wood and metal- and if not, well, at least it's a constructive and useful hobby. Better than my old man and his buddies burying guns in the yard, anyway.

Apologies to all for waxing paranoic- I keep hoping one day I'll wake up to find that I was wrong all along, and everything is turning out for the best. Unfortunately....

Well, maybe I'm just a misanthrope. Never was very good at seeing the silver lining on things.

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Prometheus

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