"Maxprop" wrote: (clip) The ride, with the live rear axle, was a bit rough, according to the owner. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ There was a story years ago, about a reporter who was interviewing (Peter?)* Morgan, the son of the founder. The reporter said, "It has been said of the Plus 4 that in order to drive it comfortably, you should have an inflated inner tube clenched between your teeth. The reply: "Father would have liked that." __________________
*Forgive me if I got the name wrong--It's been a long time.
BTW, this is wood related. The Morgan was built on a wooden frame.
Never even touched one, but would have enjoyed doing so.
My Final MG thrill. Took it to the local Department of Environmental Quality to see if I could get it to pass the pollution requirements. They laughed as I drove in and were still laughing as I drove out sans certificate. Took it to the local MG Guru and asked if he could get it to pass DEQ. He Laughed.
very cute kit car, now it's become quite expensive - it's actually smaller than my morgan, and a little faster too. And from a comfy (so to speak) position in either the lotus or morgan, you can put your hand flat on the ground - of course it's best to do this when the car is stopped.
"a little rough" - yeah, that's about right. It is a nice handling car - note that I said "nice" not "fast". it will easily go into and out of a very controlled 4 wheel drift, it has adequate power (TR-3 motor in mine) to take it to just under 120 mph flat out. However.... I went from the morgan to a Porsche 356A - the porsche had about 1/2 the horsepower, but much better agility in turns - one particular turn that I used to slide through at 45 in the morgan in a beautiful drift, didn't even make the porsche chirp the tires at 65 (and I couldn't go any faster and stop at the stop sign at the end of the turn). And, after driving for a few hours in the porsche I still had my hearing and all my fillings, unlike the morgan. On the other hand the morgan is the only car I've ever been able to drive home with the crankshaft broken in half (and it's the only car that I've ever needed to drive home with the .....)
oh, mandatory wood content - the body on the morgan is framed in wood, the floorboards are plywood, and the seats are plywood with foam and vinyl stapled over it. The later ones got all cushy and added things like a radio, working windshield wipers, and so on.
My friend's Plus 4 had some wood issues. A tornado collapsed his garage around the Morgan without damaging the car, except for torrential rains pouring into the open car for a few hours afterward. While he attempted to dry the car out thoroughly, the floorboards experienced some dry rot over the next year and one-half, leading him to replace them. Later he found a few other body members that had also experienced some rot.
Had a 54 Chevy in Ohio that had that problem. Rust from road salt. Patched with the shiny Metal duct tape and reminded passengers not to put any weight on the shiny bits.
"Lobby Dosser" wrote: (clip) Patched with the shiny Metal duct tape (clip) ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ If yoyur car is going to be in the rain, you want to use *duck* tape.
the cars had exactly the same brand and size of tires. The porsche is about
400 pounds heavier (1600 versus 1200). The morgan has a 2.4 liter engine, the porsche 1.6, so the morgan could accelerate much faster, but the porsche handles much better (until the rear end breaks loose - it really doesn't do a nice 4 wheel drift like the morgan). And, morgan had front wheel disks, porsche had huge aluminum finned brake drums that would self-unadjust making for a rather special driving experience from time to time. But the porche gets 45 mpg.... (mandatory wood content - the porsche has wooden floor boards separating your feet from the firewall - plywood to be exact, the morgan has more wood)
It's a little late to be jumping in on this, but I've been busy the last couple of weeks.
First off, it would seem you're drawing some pretty broad conclusions about guys that I've read hundreds of posts from, and they're not very accurate ones.
Beyond that, some folks (by that I mean myself- who knows if anyone shares my motivations) have a genuine interest in keeping woodworking accessible to everyone. While it's great if you have the discretionary income to buy only the best and to hell with the price tag, I remember some really bad moments that came from reading endless threads about hugely expensive tools when I first started following this group and the wreck. Probably my own shortcoming, but all the talk about how XYZ was the thing to have, and everything that I had in my shop five or six years ago was useless junk made me want to give up the hobby as impossible for anyone with an income under $100k a year.
Like I said, it's probably a personal shortcoming, but I had a hard time imagining that there are not others who lurk on these groups and have the same reaction to the general tone (less so here than on rec.woodworking.) If I can help one other guy who is busting his ass to make things with rickety tools by pointing out that you don't have to have a Oneway to turn a weed pot, and it helps him get through his learning stage, I consider that ample reason to risk irritating a guy who has a Oneway, a Stubby, and a Vicmark in his garage, and declares that anything less is unacceptable.
The reality is that most guys already own the best they can afford. Some guys have a ton of money to throw into a hobby ... others are scrapping out a living with less prestigious tools. Some guys can't make ANY tool work for them, others could turn out good work with a piece of broken glass for a tool and a sewer drain for inspiration. The possession of a tool is not synonymous with the possession of the skills to use it. The two simply do not HAVE a relationship.
Me? I've mostly got cheap tools. My only top-end tool (a Milwaukee router) is among my least used tools. I figure that when I learn to turn out good work on the cheaper tools, I'll be ready to move up AND have the money to do it with. In the meantime, I'm learning how to hold work, sharpen edges, judge grain and apply finishes. While laying awake around
4 am today I had an idea of how to hold a shallow dish last night that I am going to try tomorrow. It's a way to work around the lack of a vacuum chuck. Probably not new (vacuum chucks are new, workholding on lathes is ancient), but it might solve my problem of how to hold shallow work that is near my full swing in diameter without leaving a mark on the bottom or requiring a pedestal to cover up the mark.
I worked a lot of overtime as a machinist and die maker for years before I got decent at those trades. I figure I've got about 5 more years to get to the same point with wood.
I can make a Oneway from a pile of steel, a file, a hammer and a torch. But I can't make the cover of AAW magazine. Yet.
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