To grease or not to grease the 3-jaw

[Larry$]

I bought a decent new 8", 3 jaw last year. It has a grease fitting. When I took my 6" apart for cleaning I used a Mobile moly grease. Much smoother feeling now. I have mixed feelings about the use of a grease fitting. It makes it tempting to just give it a squirt rather than taking it apart and cleaning.

 

[Tim9]

FWIW.... AS a clueless 18 y/o.... I always heard art degrees don’t earn you money. That might be true, but if I was 18 again... I’d probably take some courses of Liberal Arts. A real good liberal arts has a lot of interesting stuff.... welding, casting, pattern making. But....the drawing and painting might have given me fits.

 

[Papa Charlie]

FWIW.... AS a clueless 18 y/o.... I always heard art degrees don’t earn you money. That might be true, but if I was 18 again... I’d probably take some courses of Liberal Arts. A real good liberal arts has a lot of interesting stuff.... welding, casting, pattern making. But....the drawing and painting might have given me fits.

Sounds like you would have enjoyed a Vocational school in the trades. Some of my more fonder memories from high school days, class wise, was metal shop. I took it 3 times and was a TA for two of those times. I really enjoyed working the metal. Sometimes wish I had gone into the trades instead of 4 year college.

 

[dewbane]

I think you're confusing industrial arts and liberal arts. There are no useful skills in a liberal arts curriculum, unless you consider it important to be able to analyze the meter of ancient poetry or something like that.

I drank the kool aid they were serving in high school, and went to college with no clue that I would emerge from the process with no job skills, and no prospects. I was later told that college isn't supposed to train you for a job, it's supposed to train you for life. Yes, because every time I encounter iambic pentameter in life, I am so grateful that I don't have useful information stored in that part of my brain instead. Useful information is so pedestrian.

I think if I had it to do all over again, I'd become an electrician. Machining is fun, but I could do that as a hobby as an electrician as easily as I do it as a hobby as a truck driver. Electricians make bank.

The chuck is doing just fine, incidentally.

 

[kb58]

dewbane, I can't tell if you're kidding or not. For me, college just furthered what I'd already decided to do - electrical engineering and I don't regret it. I had a friend who never went to college and was in Software, so in a way, he was 4 yrs ahead of me. He did fine but many places demand a degree, so not sure how his career turned out long term.
As an aside, in high school I had to take English Literature and to this day I don't miss it. If I ever want to read stories from the Bard, I can pick up a book...

 

[Masterjuggler]

Being a physics major right now I'd be lying if I said I don't make fun of all the liberal arts people, and a lot of college is just useless weed-out classes. That being said, there's definitely value in learning basic skills like reading comprehension, writing, and some history. Public grade schools should have taught that, but I'm sure you have some idea about how ineffective the majority of them are right now.

 

[pontiac428]

Science can tell you how to clone a dinosaur.
Liberal Arts can tell you why that's not a good idea.

 

[Larry$]

I graduated from high school in 1960. My uncles had been in the Navy and merchantmarines during WW2. I had listened to their tales and also watched a TV series "Victory @ Sea." Before starting college that summer I signed up for Navy ROTC. Vietnam was a minor conflict at that time. By the time I graduated in 1964 it had turned into a much bigger conflict. The draft had been implemented. I got my commission as an officer. Filled out my duty preference card: light combatant (destroyers), and Atlantic fleet. I got sent to the USS Ranger CVA 61 (aircraft carrier) based out of CA. After a short shake down cruise and qualifying an air group, we headed for the South China Sea (Vietnam.) So what my first college degree got me was many months at sea. But also part of what I had hoped for, seeing far flung places. I had hitched a ride (on a plane) into Da Nang for just one day. Spent a total of several weeks in the Philippians, 8 weeks in Japan, a week in Hong Kong, another hitched ride into Taiwan, a few days in Hawaii and a few months in San Francisco. Lots of memories I wouldn't give up for any amount of $.

I later went back to college and got a degree in architecture. I spent my last semester of college in London. Then back packed across Europe for several months. Got as far as Israel. Started a business making architectural interiors and store fixtures. During my business years I traveled to job sites all over the US. I'm convinced that travel is good for you. Way off subject! Sorry.

 

[Larry$]

My interest in all things mechanical lead me to becoming an engineering officer on the carrier. I oversaw the repair division, including the machine shop. Stood my watches on the bridge, CIC & engineering control. Inspected all ships mechanical systems. After my first cruise I was sent to nuclear, biological and chemical warfare training for officers. Quite intense training about things most people will never have any idea of. Next cruise I became the Damage Control Officer. A position I never felt fully qualified for. For fun in port, I would volunteer for Short Patrol.

 

[dewbane]

dewbane, I can't tell if you're kidding or not. For me, college just furthered what I'd already decided to do - electrical engineering and I don't regret it.

I'm not kidding about a liberal arts education. The way it happened for me, I applied to school A as a computer science major, and school B as a foreign language major. I didn't get into the CS program due to my math scores, which was ironic, because I could have taught a lot of the undergrad programming courses. In fact, I only managed to graduate, because school B let me take CS courses instead of math. It turns out I do know a lot of math, and I just learned it in code form.

Anyway, I was deep into a triple major when I figured out I was on a useless trajectory, and that was kind of that. I finished my degree, and found myself qualified to do, in the famous words of the great Tommy Lee Jones, precisely dick.

I shoulddda been a CS major, or better yet, I shouldda been an electrician, or a plumber.