I was never one for old clothes, old furniture, old music, etc.
But heaven help me, I bought a lathe that’s twice as old as I am, and I’m doing my damndest to make sure it outlives me. http://tinyurl.com/ntzfx documents the progress.
I was looking for a hobby, one that was unusual and could take years to tire of and fell into a Harbor Freight store one day. Ended up buying a mini-mill. Decided that I didn’t want to go ‘cheap chinese’ on the lathe and took a look around.
So, I’m loopy for my lathe, I just hope when it’s all said and done, I’ve made something the next owner will appreciate. In this world of disposeable everything, it’s a nice feeling to be a caretaker of something, not a comsumer.
That is exactly what I say about my house. It was built in 1760 and we bought it in a completely dilapidated state. We were careful to leave it original as much as possible while making it beautiful and livable again. Five years and countless resources later, I suppose I can say that it is done as much as you can ever say that about such things. The room I am typing this from is older than the U.S. and is largely original down to the floors, fireplace with cooking hook, and horsehair plaster walls.
I discovered the foundation of an outbuilding on a forgotten corner of our property a while ago. I am going to excavate it this weekend and see what it was.
Well it’s certainly not without it’s challenges. Oddly enough, some of them are, I’m sure, similar to yours. Take electricity: I mean, how many people know how to power a 3 phase 220v motor in a residece? (Short answer: use a VFD or get a different motor)
Mom’s got a 100-ish year old house that she and dad got mostly restored just before he died. It’s got these, like, 14 foot ceilings, but 6’4" doors. I’m 6’5" and am mostly okay walking around the house, but every once in awhile I get thumped pretty good.
I get to enjoy this feeling every day at the museum in which I work. I clean artifacts and help design/install exhibits and for me, nothing is more satisfying than having a donor come in and exclaim in delight over seeing their item cleaned up to its original glory. I take a little pride in the notion that my work has helped preserve something for the future-- that even long after I’m gone, my work will still matter in a small way.
It’s an achingly slow and tedious process which would drive most people batshit in a matter of hours. It can take months to clean something properly, but I really enjoy doing it.
Old tools can be quite useful, Unintentionally Blank. Not too long ago, a donor gave us a box of woodworking tools which had belonged to his great-grandfather. My curator gently declined them because we have a blue million of them, but the donor just shrugged and said if we didn’t want to add them to the collection, we could have them to use. Man, those things have come in handy, especially when you have a smaller job and don’t want to drag out all the power tools with their batteries and tangled cords.
Well, then there’s the precision involved in machineing metal…with the right person running this lathe, it’s entirely possible to turn a piece of metal, so that it’s three inches long, and 1 inch in diameter, accurate to ‘half a thou’, meaning it’s between 3.0005 and 2.9995 long and 1.0005 and .9995 in diameter.
Everybody wanting to learn lathe work needs ‘How to Run a Lathe’…I have a 1993 printing of a 1942 edition (42nd edition) of a book originally published in 1914. It’s astounding the parts you can create even if the lathe isn’t precise. There are techniques that can be used to create precision from a machine that, itself, isn’t.
You’re not my Dad are you? No kidding - in the past few years he has become entranced with old lathes, and is forever out in his shed involving himself in the mysterious arts of lathery!
I’m going to have to direct him to this thread, I’m sure he’s be chuffed to bits to know he’s not the only lather(?) about!
Apparently 2 of the 3 guys I was golfing with last Sat.
One guy is a machinist, and the other owns a business selling and repairing CNC.
They were laughing about a hilarious story where some doofus rewired his machines in a manner incompatible with his system, while retaining the old plugs…
Several minutes later after unsuccessfully trying to explain it to this lawyer…