Zing

Are you saying the citizens of Berkeley are Communists, reminiscent of those on the dark side of the Iron Curtain?
There are probably more Communists in Berkeley than any other town in America, but I think of them more as lovers of Birkenstocks than Marx.

--- John Yoo on the constant protests by the vapid at Berkeley. Actually is a pretty funny guy: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/03/magazine/03fob-q4-t.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

#1 ranked chess player is 19

I've not followed chess in a long time, other than Fischer's japes and Kasparov's opera, so totally missed this the fact that the #1 ranked player is 19. Interesting (albeit old) interview here when he was 13: http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=1614

Some (colt) porn

Recently had to sell a couple of colts, which is a good way to finally get some photos taken. Seems like filtered overcast light highlights blueing well.

photobucket must die

I cannot believe these slimy scumbags.

Their brilliant moneymaking scheme: if you upload more than some threshold of byte then --- rather than block further uploads for some amount of time --- they turn off *all* your photos unless you pay extortion money ("go pro!") to get them to release them.

Further, while paying, each time you click some option they will silently tick a "please set up recurrent billing!" box to try to parasite away more funds.

I cannot wait until this collection of inbred suits gets wiped off the planet.

Yet more evidence that JFK knew how to party

Gives new meaning to "never get off the boat" (from TMZ):

The french and boundary issues

Innocently reading an economics blog  ("marginal revolution"  http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2009/12/assorted-links-23.html) one clicks on the second link down and gets:  http://www.hotdollfordog.com/

If you have a tough constitution and vile humor, watch the video.  They use "audacious" and "stability" in ways that one would never imagine.  Only $400EU!

Good writeup: CA vs TX

Simple strategy: spend less, get more. http://www.city-journal.org/2009/19_4_california.html

Hat tip: MR.

emco v13 cutting 1/2" toolsteel to nothing in one pass

Could go faster, easily. I really love this model, the thing eats SS like aluminum:


 

The best takedown of any movie, ever.

This can't possibly work, but does: Some amateur guy put together a 70 minutes long(!) destruction on "phantom menace" a  movie I've never seen (and hope you never do either).  It's really really good.  Very concrete and self-contained so you need not ever (ever) get close to that which it hates on.  

http://www.slashfilm.com/2009/12/17/watch-this-70-minute-video-review-of-star-wars-the-phantom-menace/

rhetoric over reality: brit scientist fired over looking into the relative lethality of different drugs

Article here: http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2009/12/13/you_cant_handle_the_truth/

The adviser, Dr. David Nutt, said in a lecture that alcohol is more hazardous than many outlawed substances, and that the United Kingdom might be making a mistake in throwing marijuana smokers in jail. His comments were published in a press release in October, and the next day he was dismissed. The buzz over his sacking has yet to subside: Nutt has become the talk of pubs and Parliament, as well as the subject of tabloid headlines like: “Drug advisor on wacky baccy?”

But behind Nutt’s words lay something perhaps more surprising, and harder to grapple with. His comments weren’t the idle musings of a reality-insulated professor in a policy job. They were based on a list - a scientifically compiled ranking of drugs, assembled by specialists in chemistry, health, and enforcement, published in a prestigious medical journal two years earlier.

The list, printed as a chart with the unassuming title “Mean Harm Scores for 20 Substances,” ranked a set of common drugs, both legal and illegal, in order of their harmfulness - how addictive they were, how physically damaging, and how much they threatened society. Many drug specialists now consider it one of the most objective sources available on the actual harmfulness of different substances.

That ranking showed, with numbers, what Nutt was fired for saying out loud: Overall, alcohol is far worse than many illegal drugs. So is tobacco. Smoking pot is less harmful than drinking, and LSD is less damaging yet.

He was swiftly booted from his government position. Home Secretary Alan Johnson said Nutt had crossed a line. He “cannot be both a government adviser and a campaigner against government policy,” Johnson told The Guardian newspaper.

"It was a funny, kind of petulant reaction,” Nutt told the Globe, “all about machismo and politics. We’re harder on drugs than you, we’re tougher.”

Fly cutters rock!

OK, I know I am about 100 years late to this particular party, but I have to say that fly cutters are freaking awesome! I'd always heard about them but just throught "WTF do I need another tool for?" Turns out that was pretty stupid.

The phrase you need to remember is "poor man's surface grinder."

Once you figure out how to grind the tool correctly you'll have fun. I've been squaring up aluminum for hours for no particular reason.

Pixels beat letters, so let's get to it.

I recently picked up an emcomat 8.4 mill/lathe combination. Generally I have a low opinion of combination machines (fish nor fowl) but Emco has a wonderful reputation for high Austrian quality and this machine lived up to it. It's a pretty sturdy machine (400lb?) for its size, and like the other emco's I've used cuts way above its weight. As a nice touch, the previous owner hand cut 10 quick change tool holders:



We have a rough piece of aluminum that we start making a cut on:

Fixing a 3-jaw emco chuck

So, among the many things wrong w/ an Emco V13 engine lathe I picked up (not it's fault), the chuck had been sorely abused and required serious cranking to turn the key towards the end. This is a short post on fixing it.

I'd not seen something written up (though I'm sure there has been, many times). And it's definitely not rocket science. However, sometimes it's useful to realize something is not rocket science so you actually do it. In this case fixing the problem made a big difference, though it still remains to a slight degree.

Here's the chuck. V13's have a D1-4 mount:

Adding a modern toolpost to a V13 Emco lathe

My Emco V13 lathe came with a four way toolpost. I'd rather do dishes than use shims, so that had to go. I have a 200 series KDK post with around 8 holders, so that'd be the obvious way to go. Unfortunately the press fit screw used to hold the post in the emco didn't fit the KDK --- too small at top, too large at bottom. I couldn't modify the KDK either --- it's hard enough that it ate some carbide endmills I tried to use to cut it and probably woke the neighborhood. And there's no dovetail on the emco.

So we need to make a new bushing to press fit into the compound rest. It was thanksgiving eve, so it was a perfect project. (I don't have a TV.)

Here's the emco's compound rest w/ the tool post screw sticking out:

Awesome: TX style depositions rock

Accents, beat down threats, and tomfoolery.  Must watch: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIxmrvbMeKc&feature=player_embedded


More fun at: http://www.businessinsider.com/deposition-videos-you-have-to-see-to-believe-2009-12

Memoria

I've been getting a bunch of old machines and revolvers.  Since they are generally older than 50 years, all the original owners are dead.  It's a strange feeling to be working late at night, where almost everything you touch belongs to a ghost.

Initials on tools seem more appropriate  markers  than text carved on stone:

Part II: retrofit of an Emco Compact 5 CNC lathe

This is a delayed follow up to the post on disassembling an Emco Compact 5 CNC (http://coltpython.blogspot.com/2009/10/part-i-retrofit-of-emco-compact-5-cnc.html) on putting the machine back together with new bearings, motors, etc. I did this a month or so ago; hopefully this doesn't leave out anything important.

Note: this writing is *way* too detailed for a real machinist. It includes a bunch of very basic steps since that's the level I'm at.

It's currently at around 80%: motors in, everything turns, but still have:

1. hook up limit switches, the motor, the shutoff switch, and the RPM encoder to the gecko g540.
2. do something about the cosmetics: I ripped out a bunch of the stock electronics, leaving empty holes. These will suck up dust and junk, so need to decide what to do.

It's largely straightforward to put things back together.  The two tricky things are:

1. getting the optical encoder to not drag as the spindle turns. It turns out you have to bolt the lathe in and push/pull it back and forth so that the sheet metal of the housing torques until the drag stops. I kept disassembling the spindle head (and trying to seat the flywheel assembly deeper) in a misguided belief that these were the problems.
2. You probably 't just bolt the motors right on and go --- you need to make sure the tension is sufficient. So push the motors away from the timing belt wheel until the belt is tight and then tighten the bolts.

Finally, I still cant' get mach 3 to run reliably on windows XP on a Thinkpad T61 laptop, but this seems to be a known problem.

replacing timing belt on wells index CNC

Not exactly a universal problem, but: I have a wells index 700 series CNC mill that when you put into traverse mode gets stuck frequently. It seems to be a timing belt issue, esp since the belt broke when trying to adjust the motor. This is a short post on replacing the belt since I couldn't find any documentation.

As a bit of background, if the documentation is correct, it weighs more than 3,500lbs. Unfortunately, when it was moved, the servos got whacked and it's been a problem getting it running when controlled by computer (manual is fine).

The Y axis drive was giving a lot of problems for a while, until a real machinist came over, moved the motor around and then it worked. Turns out it had been hit and moved slightly out of alignmnet --- this was making it slightly more difficult to turn the handle, which was causing the torque sensor to stop movement.
I started getting the same problem on the X axis so started fooling around, and making it tighter. 20+ year old belts don't like to be made tighter and this one promptly broke.

I paniced.

I then called the company and the owner hadn't had to deal w/ that before (?!) so wasn't sure what to do. He said he'd get back to me. He then said I could maybe get the table to seperate and go from there. These instructions were fairly vague to someone that don't know much about machines.

In any case, it sucks having a broken machine so sans documentation I started taking bolts off. Turns out it was actually not that hard to replace the belt, despite some initial false starts.

Here's more photos than anyone other than the one wells index owner out there would want to see :)