Gettin' Smarter

Care to become better educated without taking out a loan? Here's a list of schools offering courses on the cheap. I just glanced at the list briefly but there's a bunch of them covering a wide variety of subjects. Since most of these would be taken as an audit, I don't know how much value they would have on a resume but maybe this is going to be the future of higher learning. Because the world is changing so rapidly and education has gotten so expensive, why not just take the courses pertaining to your specialty and forget all about the whole "campus experience"? As things change, take another course or two to stay current. Makes all kind of sense to me. In fact, I'm planning on doing a bit of this myself this year.

In my case, getting smarter also includes getting more organized.

When I went to Harbor Freight last week I picked up this little small parts organizer - only five bucks. I bought some more metric hardware that I needed specifically but figured I should get a few more pieces to keep on hand since the selection at the local hardware stores is pretty weak. The ones I usually go to both stock the same items, so if one doesn't have it, the other one won't either. Menards has a relatively good hardware selection but invariably, they'll be out of the item I'm looking for. Now I've got a designated place for the 6mm socket head screws instead of the soup can. Next time I order I'm going to add a couple of additional lengths in the 6mm size and get a few 8mm as well. I also re-supplied the metric cap screw organizer that's sitting underneath the new organizer. I bought the hardware from BoltDepot.com. I'm real happy with this outfit. Prices are real good, no minimum order, and shipping is about as good as it can get, both as to price and delivery time.

I've got the job for the high school's high mileage car just about done. The only thing left is to broach the keyway. I'll take that to the college and do that there. I've got a 3/16" broach but it's too large to fit in the bore. The one at the college will fit, has the proper bushing and shims and the big cheese said sure, bring it in. 

This has been an interesting project. I threaded the bushing with a 3/4-16 left hand thread on the old South Bend lathe. Left hand threads are a little tricky, especially when you need to start the thread against a flange. I made the part in one chucking so the bore and the threads would run true. The carrier I clamped down to the milling table and then indicated the edge where the sprocket bolts up to make sure it would run true to the bore. Because the bore was a little out of whack and it had a keyway, I used a milling cutter to size the hole for the threads and then tapped the hole while using a center in the mill spindle to keep the tap running true. After threading the two parts together, instead of pinning the two pieces to prevent the bushing from loosening up, I drilled and tapped a couple of holes and then put a couple of set screws so the piece is actually bolted together. I used thread locker on the center hole and the two screws acting as pins as well. I also drilled and tapped the bushing for set screws to secure it to the shaft and to keep the key in place. The job was a little time consuming but I had everything pretty well worked out in my head prior to starting. Good job to keep my skills sharp. Hopefully it will function as planned.