Dear Sirs:
Looking at this document practically brought a grown man to tears. I don't know if you are the one who created it, but it is invaluable. Who can calculate how many hours of learning, skill, work, patience, and sweat have been distilled down into these pages. Whoever made it has done a service for mankind. 100 years from now someone will undoubtedly be staring at a battered and blackened Craftsman lathe sitting on their workbench. They will carefully remove the sludge of oil, metal filings, and (probably) sawdust from the model number plate on the back and begin their quest to resurrect a Craftsman 101.07301. When they come across the document you sent, they too, may cry tears of joy.
Reading replies like yours--and that of Site Moderator wa5cab, and so many others on this site--gives me hope for the human race. The people who contribute their hard-earned knowledge to this site will probably never get fame, glory, or money for it. They are doing it out of the goodness of their hearts.
Not because they are swell guys, but because they know that wisdom like this is all too easily lost. And when it has gone, the chances of bringing that machine back to life begin to dwindle. And a piece of our history--produced through the accumulated knowledge and effort of untold numbers, and used by who knows how many others in the years that followed, to create or repair parts that would give life to other machines--is lost.
I have to go to work now, but wanted to thank you both. I will follow up later this evening with photos and information on the thing sitting on my workbench. Please advise as to how to best do this. I am not sure if the members of this forum want to read lengthy accounts in a post, or if there is some other method or format I should use.
Thank you very much.
Matt
