I spent some time after school Tuesday night and a couple of prep hours sharpening up the tools for the wood lathes. I've been waiting until I got my new grinding set-up. I ordered a new grinder back in August and was back ordered. First it was September, then October, until they finally said that it was a no-go in January. The one I finally ended up with is a 8" Chinese thing that really looks cheap but it worked long enough to sharpen all the tools. The real secret to success, however, is the OneWay grinding jig and the Vari-Grind attachment. I used this set-up when I took the spindle turning class last summer. I made a little angle gauge from a piece of scrap aluminum so I could set all the angles correctly, roughed the tools in on the big grinder in the Weld Shop, sharpened them all, then shined them up with a Scotch Brite pad and buffed the gouges to remove the wire edge from the grinder, and finally, put a light coating of oil on them. Time consuming, but they look much nicer now and they're real sharp. So now that I've gotten over my fear of letting the boys run the other power tools, I'm going to have to introduce them to the wood lathe.
It looks like I might have a chance to finally get the CNC plasma cutting outfit I've been hoping to get for the last 18 years. I talked to the welding supply salesman yesterday and he's putting a quote together for me. Torchmate makes a little 2x2 machine that would be perfect for the school. The boys would get a chance to run a CNC machine, make some really cool stuff and, if all goes well, I can get a laptop computer with the deal. That would mean I would have a computer that actually works on a regular basis. I got a couple of DVD's from Lincoln Electric at the meeting on Monday, sat down to check them out during lunch on Tuesday and the computer decided to lock up first thing. I farted around for about twenty minutes before I finally gave up and walked down the hall and the guy opened them up and had them running in about two minutes (I would have given up much earlier but I was sitting there eating my lunch anyway). I'm seriously considering smashing the thing with a sledge hammer. If they allowed firearms on school property I could take it out back and put it out of it's misery in real style.
Looks like we might be making some sculpture in the near future. I talked to one of the art teachers and his students are working on some designs. We'll pair up an artist with a weldor and see what we can do. Sounds like fun to me. We've got several things on the burner besides the art work. Looks like it's going to be a pretty busy semester.
It looks like I might have a chance to finally get the CNC plasma cutting outfit I've been hoping to get for the last 18 years. I talked to the welding supply salesman yesterday and he's putting a quote together for me. Torchmate makes a little 2x2 machine that would be perfect for the school. The boys would get a chance to run a CNC machine, make some really cool stuff and, if all goes well, I can get a laptop computer with the deal. That would mean I would have a computer that actually works on a regular basis. I got a couple of DVD's from Lincoln Electric at the meeting on Monday, sat down to check them out during lunch on Tuesday and the computer decided to lock up first thing. I farted around for about twenty minutes before I finally gave up and walked down the hall and the guy opened them up and had them running in about two minutes (I would have given up much earlier but I was sitting there eating my lunch anyway). I'm seriously considering smashing the thing with a sledge hammer. If they allowed firearms on school property I could take it out back and put it out of it's misery in real style.
Looks like we might be making some sculpture in the near future. I talked to one of the art teachers and his students are working on some designs. We'll pair up an artist with a weldor and see what we can do. Sounds like fun to me. We've got several things on the burner besides the art work. Looks like it's going to be a pretty busy semester.
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