I threw this one in here just to reinforce the need for craftsmen. Even though the economy is in the tank, broken things still need fixing. In fact, unless you're on the receiving end of the stimulus money, you're probably thinking fix or make do rather than buy new anyway. And of course, we'll get our stimulus package later when it's time to pay for all this buffoonery.
The pictures show an old drill press that had been dropped, I would guess. It's made to have another section that slips inside the pipe (shown on the far right of the bottom photo and in the detail photo). That pipe was partially broken off and the broken piece was missing. The drill's owner cut the broken part completely off and I machined up a replacement from heavy wall pipe. After boring the pipe to size and drilling and tapping for a setscrew, I clamped everything down to a piece of channel to get things aligned. Since I was welding cast iron to carbon steel, I used a 309 stainless electrode. I tacked welded the pipe in about four places then welded it all around. I had put a vee groove on the pipe when I had it in the lathe, so I welded the root pass, ground it down a little and then capped it off with another pass of weld. Easy when you know how.
I'm getting ready to start another school year and even though I've been doing this for a long time, I've never been more passionate about the importance of vocational education than I am now. Maybe the future of the nation is not dependent on finding someone who can repair old drill presses but I'm pretty sure it does depend on having qualified craftspeople to keep the wheels of production turning. The reason WW II turned out the way it did was because the US had the means of production, the natural resources and the skilled labor necessary to turn out the needed planes, tanks and weapons. If we were to go into a similar situation now, it would probably take a whole lot longer to convert factories to war production. For one thing, all technical questions would have to be answered by tech support in India. Besides, making things and repairing things is good for the soul and just plain fun. This year, make sure the young 'uns are getting their homework done, reading some books and getting some exercise. When the time comes, get them in a shop class.
2 comments:
That does look like an old one. Is that pulley for a belt drive of some sort?
Nice fix.
I wish I'd nave gotten into the metal thing as a youngun'.
The pulley is a flywheel to help keep it spinning when you're hand cranking or it could be hooked to a motor or line shaft with a flat belt. These things were pretty neat. They had a power feed setup so all you had to do was turn the handle and not worry about down feeding.
I told the owner he needs to get it all cleaned up and give it a nice coat of black enamel and then paint the raised lettering in gold. I really dig that old crap - should have been born a 100 years earlier!
Post a Comment