2017 - The Original "What Did You Buy Today?" Mega Thread

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Picked up a 7" riser block for my Bridgeport. Gonna make the tightening and loosening the draw bar a step stool job, but have plans on making a power draw bar anyhow. Next step will be picking up some 13" 1/2"-13 grade 8 bolts. Then will pull the head/ram with my gantry crane and let my BP stand tall(er) and proud. Gonna be nice to get the table up to a higher working height. I was close to bottoming the table with a Kurt swivel vise, ER32 collet chuck and a co-ax indicator mounted.

Bruce

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Did not buy today, but the 1st time to use it today when I set the SBL 13. It is a handy guy, a very heavy one. It was listed on CL for 200, I offered 100, seller took it. It maybe overpriced, but I think it is better built than those $120 Chinese specials on eBay.

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Wow, does that have servos on both the quill and the knee?
Larry,
the knee is manual, I hope to have in in my shop by the weekend. it weighs in at 4000# and my shop door is only 6'-6" tall

It has a 5hp motor and a cat 40 spindle. Now i need CAT 40 Tool holders!!

Jason
 
So I broke out the Syncrowave 250 DX to set up for welding the aluminum drawer for the Lathe/Mill tooling cart build. When I turned on the power the cooling system blew at the feed line and ****** antifreeze from three places.:mad::mad::mad:.
The weld craft WP-20 torch has fixed cooling lines so cutting and re-crimping was not an option. I called around and found an upgrade (CS310-25) for $584. What the heck, thats stupid money. I asked the young man on the other end of the phone if I could get a break since I had an account with Airgas (used to be Pima welding) since 1989, he giggled and stated that was the year he was born and quickly re quoted a more reasonable price of $288. The CS310-25 is 25' long and the torch itself can be changed out with other types of torches such as swivel or flexable style torches.
I also noticed the filler cap gasket disintegrated upon opening the poly tank. I sucked out the old coolant and small gasket pieces and headed to Airgas. He gave me the coolant at $24/gal. which is ten bucks cheaper than anyone else in town. While I was there, he talked me into trying out some non radio active tungsten (E-3). insidently, Miller doesn't offer the gasket alone and sells the entire filler cap:mad:. I think I have new wrinkles on my forehead after this unscheduled expensive repair.

Todays purchase: The short return hose was not included with the new torch:mad:. The young man noticed the wrinkled forehead and gave it to me:).

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Back in business holding/cerculating coolant.
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Being the cheap Bast%#d I am, I decided to make a new gasket from some 1/8" neoprene rubber I keep on the shelf.
I used a scrap piece of aluminum that had the exact diameter I needed and traced it with a razor blade.
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Punched the center out as its a vented cap.
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The jury is still out on the new E-3 Tungsten. I ran four open corner test pieces and played with the balance (clean/penetration) adjustment.
The numbers are the setting for each weld. .100" aluminum, filler rod .063" E-3 Tungsten 1/16" and 75 amps.
I normally use 2% Lanthanated Tungsten. Its a good stable all around electrode.
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I'm a Knucklehead, It turns out I only had ONE aluminum filler rod. I took a quick glance prior to heading over to Airgas and saw a full sleeve of shiny rod, Turns out it was Stainless filler rod:mad:. Lots of mad faces today, but tomorrows a new day;).
Keep the shiny side up.
Paco
 
Supplies,:encourage:
Getting ready to demo another wall, sheet rock, 6" studs, Osb plywood, insulation
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Another group of projects I'll be working on, handle for the mill, a number of handles for the lathe. The 10"x1 1/2" aluminium plate is for the rotary table to mount the 8" chuck to, it cost 25.00 on ebay and not much to ship, the 2"x12" round is for the knobs and dials on my mill and lathe

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Argghhh! I was scanning craigslist today and saw a Volstro in the Raleigh area. Used to use one in the 80's.
Of course it was mounted to a Bridgeport. I don't have a BP at the house. Doubt I could make it fit. Ratzl Fratzl.....
 
Picked up a few items from eBay and Grizzly. First was an impulse buy on eBay for a set of LH drill bits. Didn't have any and at $20 including shipping are probably not the greatest, but hopefully won't be a daily use tool anyhow. Curious drill case with the door hinged on the RH side instead of the LH side and the large bits to the front instead of the back. Could be my imagination, but I'm used to seeing hinge on the LH side and the smaller bits to the front. Maybe a designed in error proofing so you don't grab them by mistake. The bits look sharp and at least have the tips ground in the right direction.

Nice surprise when the $100 including shipping off eBay Blake co-ax box got opened. It had the spring-loaded center finding attachment under the Blake itself. Around $40 for that piece alone. I have a Shars which works, but it's off and when I'm on center still fluctuates about 0.010" on the dial. Checked it by spot drilling a hole with the table locked, then inserted the Shars in a collet; should be dead on center. Put the center finding attachment in the spot drilled hole and had the 0.010" wobble. Initially thought my spindle was bad, but it does the same thing on my Jet mill, Bridgeport, drill press and two BP's at work. We'll see what I get with the Blake. Figured buying the Blake is like the old saying "nobody ever got fired for buying IBM".

Lastly, a DPDT rated at 3 HP 220 V ON/OFF switch from Grizzly that'll end up on my BP. My BP has a static phase converter and is wired so the high/low speed switch is not an ON/OFF switch. The machinist I bought it from had wired the phase converter with a DPDT regular house light toggle switch. It works fine, but just looks "cheesy" to me. Need to mount this in an electrical box and screw it to the phase converter; POTD in a day or two.

Bruce

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Today i visited couple of tool makets, there was a lot old machinist tools, but they were all in very bad shape, after looking for hours i only bought this aluminium carpenters knife and this metric tap set with handle, there are couple of decent taps, the rest are only good for cleaning treads.
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