Always Random
Just worth saying
Look Fast
Here is a picture seldom seen in a workshop. A totally empty workbench!
After expending too many hours revising the THMS website, I got into the mood to get out in the shop and really start detailing the place. Several hours earlier before this picture was taken, this bench looked nothing like this. I am in a “put away” “tidy up” mood.
Actually I just put a new coat of polyurethane on the top since I had it so cleared off. I do that occasionally. The surface gets rubbed and scrapped off when I am working on things on the bench. You can see some old stain marks and where the X3 took a chunk out of the leading edge in “The Great Wreck”.
The red vice has swapped ends (some time ago). the original location was on the right side but then I built the Taig CNC mill bench. Both benches are extremely stable. The dark main bench is free standing and the CNC bench (light grey) is built in.
When I get a work in progress back on this bench, it will seem more like a workshop. Empty benches (like beaches) attract all sorts of non project flotsam and jetsam* if left in this present barren state too long. (*Yeah, I am a US Navy vet. I love nautical terms.)
The Hobbyist’s Monster Soup Update
The last couple of posts indicate I am doing an update on my “The Hobbyist’s Machine Shop”. I am half done with part of it. Ha!
I have decided I am going to convert the entire old website into the new CMS style. It’s been great fun reliving all those old projects and there is still a bunch more to go in the WORKSHP and VISITORS tabs, a lot more. The web site is OVER 10 years old and I am discovering the several different styles and three editing programs I used.
PHP and CMS are still very much HTML so most of the work is just copying files from the old to the new. Sounds like alphabet soup doesn’t it? The end result is I think the new pages look very good. CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) takes care of the new consistent style. (More soup anyone?) A few links are broke in the new pages until I get the Workshop pages converted. There are some internal cross links to that section. I hope I can find them again. The web site is VERY large.
You are welcome to browse the new pages but they are still a WIP (Work In Progress). I added a link in the top right column. There are a few places where I need to do a rewrite due to the changes. I did a few already, but I have been working harder on the transfer than the rewrite.
If you are the type that likes to look for those things, this is your chance. I probably know of most of them, but you may find one or two bugs I don’t know. I fixed a few expired external links but there has to be more. Drop me a bug… Continue reading
The Monster That Ate My Machine Shop
Sneak Peek
“What have I done? What have I created? It’s too late now. It lives, it is ALIVE!“
Uh, well it’s just an update to “The Hobbyist Machine Shop” website. It is just starting to take on a life of its own. I was expecting it would.
I am moving the old pure HTML website into a PHP coded, MySQL database assisted, Content Management System (CMS). I documented my intention and provided more information in a previous post.
As of this post I have the new monster breathing and it can be viewed live at http://thehobbyistmachineshop.com/cms/.
It’s not ready for prime time with only about 8 hours work on it so far. When ready, I will change the link and the new site will just open without needing the “cms” directory pinned on the end of the URL.
I already like the better file management the CMS provides. The present (old) site is a monster of its own far worse than the new one as to how all the pieces are stuck together. I was going to let the old monster live and just start using the new beast for current events. That creates a lot of look and feel differences. So I am pretty resolved in letting the new site devour the old until the old can just go away.
That’s no easy task. There are hundreds of directories and many thousands of files. I have found a way to copy and paste and transfer whole directories of files and pictures. But that means I have to re-link every picture in an article to its new location. I could leave the photos where they are and the links will work just fine. Then the photo files live outside the expected structure of the… Continue reading
Time For Change
Time For Change
The Hobbyist Machine Shop website has served well on the Internet as encouragement for new home machinist getting started in the hobby. The ton of email (if it could be weighed) sent to me confirms this statement.
The web site was built through the years with several HTML editing tools. First was HoTMetaL Pro which many years ago went out of existence. I switched to Adobe GoLive and then to Macromedia Dreamweaver. Adobe purchased Macromedia and there was an inside battle between GoLive and Dreamweaver as to which program would be Adobe’s HTML flagship. Dreamweaver won out and is still my WYSIWYG HTML editor.
HTML5 is the newest version of HTML, created to do battle mostly against Adobe Flash. Adobe counters with Adobe Edge, a new HTML5 animation editor. I don’t do much direct FLASH editing so HTML5 is not a big deal with me (yet).
I’m getting off track, back to my story. I have been using a freeware CMS (Content Management System) web publishing tool known as Joomla. It is a graphic intensive creative and web display product written in PHP . With today’s high speed backbone and much faster user computer systems this high overhead system has been working well for me on many web sites I manage. It stores information in a MySQL database and builds the pages dynamically. Enough black magic, it just works.
Joomla and all CMS systems have a very good “back end” management system that doesn’t exist with standard HTML web sites. It is much easier to maintain all the information in a standard form. This THMS BLOG website (using WordPress and my own template) is a CMS system and works in very much the same way as Joomla.
My secret weapon to building CMS templates is Artisteer.
Bottom… Continue reading
Gear Cleaning
I import steel gears for the mini-mill and the mini-lathe. I have sold over 200 sets of gears to people all over the world. Most buyers are machinist, used to working with wire brushes and getting dirty hands cleaning gears covered with grease or a little surface rust. Most carbon steel will rust. However, I show nice shiny gears in the photo’s. My Bad. The real gears have to be cleaned because there is some “gook” used to preserve them from rust while shipping across the salty brine. (Ocean to you land lubbers.)
Most gears are well “gooked” but a few, especially the change gears are only “oiled” a bit light. There is a coating but looks like almost none and as shown here, have definitely gathered some surface rust. The first picture is a worst case gear I could find (65 tooth change gear ). It is the largest in the group and the only one showing rust. It really does look nasty but looks are deceiving.
I think some salty air got into the last shipment. Only one side had this rust and all the other gears clustered in one group on a long bolt with this one had no rust. It is cosmetic and does not make the gear defective.
A spray with WD40, about a 5 minute soak and two to three minutes with the brush shown and the gear is photo perfect. Perhaps too much work for some people with arthritic hands. It is hard for me. A rotary wire brush would do it faster and easier.
I could clean and inspect all the gears, shine them up like shown in the store photos, re-coat with that heavy LPS3 grease for maintaining protection in storage and sell them for about 50% more… Continue reading