johnsmachines

I have sometimes been accused of having too many toys, er …tools.

It is true that when I was just married, 50 something years ago, I asked my wife if she would like me to build a piece of furniture, a corner cupboard to be specific. Being in the first stages of marriage, despite having almost no furniture and little money she agreed. She later confessed to me that she had no faith in my ability to make a corner cupboard, but with her agreement I purchased a trailer load of Honduras mahogany. It cost $200, which as a junior doctor, was about a week’s wages.

I had a few tools. An electric drill with a bolt on circular saw attachment. A 4″ timber buzzer which was donated to me by my father inlaw. And a few hand tools, handed down by my father.

And over the course of several months, I made the corner cupboard. It still sits in our dining room.

SWMBO was amazed, surprised and delighted. During the construction, I told her that I really needed a router to make some of the parts. She said “get one!”

I did not have a lathe, so I lashed one up, using the drill as motor and headstock.

And ever since then, whenever I have said I need this tool or that tool, she has said “just get it”.

I said I needed a milling machine, a decent lathe, and a drop band saw. That was a significant outlay. But she did agree to me borrowing the money from the bank to get them. I paid back the loan over several years.

Over the years, I have purchased many tools, and sold a few. But mainly purchased. And used them as you can see from these posts. But overall the number and variety has ballooned.

I replaced the first new Chinese mill with a second hand better one. A King Rich KR3000. At a bargain price. And it has been a terrific, accurate, workhorse. Weighing 2 tons.

Then a friend persuaded me to leap into CNC machining. I purchased an old 3 ton CNC mill which came out of a university department workshop. I have used it many times over the past decade. I had promised SWMBO that I would sell the King Rich to help pay for the new one, but somehow I could never summon the will to part with it.

So, for more than 10 years the 2 mills have sat side by side, and both have been used, sometimes simultaneously.

My workshop is a reasonable size, but very messy. The two mills are as far apart as possible, but I was always aware that at the extremes of mill table movements, the tables could clash. So I was always very careful to check that there was clearance for the task at hand.

Then, last week, the inevitable clash occurred. A moment’s loss of concentration, (possibly a senior moment), a slowing of the table’s X movement, then, before I could hit the big red panic button, a “BANG”.

The bang was definite, loud, short lived, and obviously something metal had snapped.

Can I fix it?

Hmm. Maybe I can insert a steel pin, say 10mm diameter, to join the pieces. The pieces fit nicely together, and the handle material looks like a cast metal, maybe cast iron. It is heavy enough.

But, in order to fit a pin, the pieces need to be held in exact alignment. How??

Glue? Nah.

Silver solder? Possibly. Can I silver solder cast iron? A question to the AI. ChatGPT. “thorough degreasing. gentle progressive heating. Use high silver content silver solder”. What could go wrong?

“O SHIT. IT IS NOT CAST IRON.”

With some heat, even before it changed colour it started to melt!!

The jumper was trash, and I lost a small piece of skin, but I WAS VERY LUCKY!! (and very stupid)

TO BE CONTINUED…..