The Year of Reversals

To Do List:

Current projects on the languish:   The Three Tumico Terrors

    It's been blazing hot in the shop, and I don't have the heat tolerance I used to.

Future projects on the to do list:   

free for the asking.  mmmmmm, iron oxide....

I have seen those tap handles go for pretty nice coin.  Plan is to clean these up and put them up for sale.  I gotta get some cash flow in the positive direction.  I have everything I need to do it.  Just need to break the cheek weld with the chair, and get to it.

Status Update

This year has been nothing but a  good news / bad news joke.  And I'm the punchline.

Lots of sand in the air at work, and I finally decided to check again on the how and when of the pension at work.  I ran the numbers a while back and it showed about 2500 per month at the normal age of retirement.

Well, the numbers that I ran this week show it's closer to 25% of that number...  I'm at a loss.  So calls will be made next week to see if I'm mistaken or I spent 20 plus years in a gilded cage.

I was lower than a snake's belly in a wagon rut last night.  I woke up at 0400 with this crushing weight of lost youth and wage potential.... 

It hit me like a brick, that this is like a betrayal.  And that is the worst.  In my mind, betrayal means the present relationship is undefined because you didn't understand the other party even though you thought you did.  The past is wasted, it was not what it seemed.  The planned future is gone, and what kind of boob am I that I didn't see this for what it is.  It is the destruction of reality as I understand it.  I guess there wasn't as much virgin ground to rip up as I have gone through this once already this year after the head injury.  That took about three months to come to terms with.  I'm sure there is more un-tilled soil in my field, but, God spare me that, please.

Then, I remembered that other men have been zeroed out later in life than this and done well for themselves.... 

"What Are You Prepared To Do?"

It takes industriousness and mental change to get over this.  I'm not wired to mope, or sit in the dark...  My mind started working out how do I turn this around?  What is holding me here?  Why is staying a good idea?  What is the best solution to what I see here?  What about me needs to change to harness this and sling shot off it?  What short term, medium term and long term goals need to happen?  What do I need to prune to do what needs doing?  Basically, a reordering of my entire life.  Overwhelming?   Yes, but necessary.

The plan is, throughout this weekend, to brainstorm what is positive about this position I find myself in.  What options do I see?  I've got to quit limiting the view, get on top of this, stand on my toes and look out to the horizon.

I ordered a couple books off my goto book site.  They'll be here in a couple weeks.  Nice cheap used books, from the Rich Dad series.  I need a fresh view from that perspective.  It's been on my list for quite a while, but I just never did it.  My previous forays into entrepreneurship foundered on the rocks...  And caused a crop of grief.  But I should have different issues now.  I learned some good lessons from the past.  I hope.  My goal is to leverage the info in the book to make smaller mistakes by aiming better. "Aim small, miss small."

I don't believe "the way is shut".  I think it's I'm not used to seeing this kind of situation as a positive place.  But I am seeing glimmers of that now.  I don't know if the head injury was a reboot into a new way of life, but things have gotten very different after that happened.  The world seems to look brighter and quite different than at anytime before.  The previous post was a glimmer of the change I'm seeing.

Postlude

I don't know if you even care to read about the status updates.  If not, I don't blame you.  There is enough heart ache out there to overload everyone.  Consider the status update title an exit ramp if you aren't interested. But I feel a bit of responsibility to keep you apprised of why I haven't posted like I had planned and where my head is at.  You have invested some time reading what I post, and I appreciate it.  

If you can take a warning from this, Great!  If you can take encouragement, Excellent!  If it kicks you off high center into a change, it was worth the time to write it up.  If you just laugh and point, then it was good entertainment.

I got work to do, thanks for stopping by.

Quality Drill Press (on the cheap)

Phil, over at Busted Nuckles recently got a drill press.  An old Jet.   That reminded me, I picked up one from CL a few years back.  It went through a restoration of sorts.  It had been in a squirrel-possum outhouse, and they used the open top as a urinal.  The old machinist had passed on, and the shop sat unused and neglected for 10 years or so.  The smell was so bad, that parts of the shop were 30 seconds of holding your breath and dash or you'd be sick and dizzy.  That drill press was the nastiest thing I'd worked on in years. I don't have a picture in the condition I got it in, but this is close....  It came from the same shop.

Everything in that shop looked like this.  Or worse.

I used the electrolysis method of de-rusting the foot, and hooked up the power supply backwards.  I had a beautiful, smooth sacrificial anode, and the foot was looking pretty rough.  Swapped out the leads, and let it run.  It's a reminder when I look at it, that double checking is not an option.

I took the column off, and used flap wheels on the 4 inch grinder to clean it up.  It rang like a bell, and hearing protection was the order of the day.  Car wax keeps it relatively rust free in my un-conditioned shop.

3 years and still pretty.

Custom clamp hole, and a gob of derusting

The table had been drilled in the usual, "not my shop, not my tools" arc of shame.  One was a through hole near the edge, so I embiggened it and threw in a vise grip type clamp.

way prettier than I found it.

If you can find one, a neglected one that hasn't seen too much abuse, they are well worth the efffort. 

New bearings for the spindle, cleaned up the head casting, and repainted. It really needed a lot of work.  New reversing switch, and wiring, new bearings in the motor.  New chuck (it's a goose from China with a Rohm in the wings).  Runout is acceptable (.002 to .003).  

top of the head, looks like I need to do the top of the column again

Check out this guy.  I printed off his posts (in color!!), printed out the manual, and bound them.  That was my reference material for the rebuild / restore.  Took a couple months (like posting on this blog!!)  I figured he'd done an excellent job with pictures and was very detailed on his restoration, why not leverage that on my resto?  It worked a treat.

The reference file on the Clausing Variable

It runs too fast though.  I really need to slow it down.  500 rpm minimum is whipping for a big drill, and this press has some power and flexibility.  Just needs to calm down....

Next project is an overarm for the table to tap with.  Soon...... maybe....

PS:

Not healthy dust at all....

This was my arm after I cleaned the column.  I just found the pic.  I remember taking back to back soaks to clean all that...... residue off.