Machinist Hobby Request

I am trying to find people with similar machine interests who are located in the San Antonio, TX area. I have numerous used machine tools that I am trying to restore and rebuild into fully operational machines. Among these are two Monarch EE (one in progress) and a 18" CK that is fully restored. Work is not part of business activity. In my case, this is all hobby work targeted to historical preservation of high quality machine tools that can then be used to make parts for other projects.

I realize that my plastic rating for years on the Forum makes it look like I don't care much, but I read and just don't post very often. This results in a rating penalty, but I have a very deep love of machine tools. I want to help other folks with kindred interests.

No photos? don't be like Bill post some photos of your stuff
john

Amach328 said:

I am trying to find people with similar machine interests who are located in the San Antonio, TX area. I have numerous used machine tools that I am trying to restore and rebuild into fully operational machines. Among these are two Monarch EE (one in progress) and a 18" CK that is fully restored. Work is not part of business activity. In my case, this is all hobby work targeted to historical preservation of high quality machine tools that can then be used to make parts for other projects.

I realize that my plastic rating for years on the Forum makes it look like I don't care much, but I read and just don't post very often. This results in a rating penalty, but I have a very deep love of machine tools. I want to help other folks with kindred interests.

Click to expand...

Did you sign up for Richard King's Texas scraping class?

dee
;-D

I think the rating...

I think the 'rating' is based basically on the amount that an individual posts... probably both in the threads you start, and in the threads to which you contribute. I suspect that it's not a highly accurate 'metric'... or if it is now, probably wasn't in early forum software... because I've seen incidences of people who had high 'ratings' that never posted any comments of useful value. it may be that the more recent forum software actually looks at quantity of 'likes' and 'thank yous', or perhaps attempts to rate value using content size or something like that.

So that being the case, don't let it bother you, but DO tell us about the stuff you're working on. Keep in mind the quip- "Pictures, or it didn't happen"... ;-) What you'll find, is that there's someone working on the same stuff, and have likely faced problems that you have, but never posted a picture of it... when you do, you're helping others who search for the same issue.

And also- although this is a substantially 'professional' forum, I suspect you'll find that there's a very large contingency of forum users that are not professional machinists, but rather, have professional machines, and use them for purposes that are ultimately integral to their occupation, but there's LOTS of 'hobby' use here. Let's face it- if someone is a professional machinist, AND as a hobby, they go home and play on their own machines, they're certainly guilty of being somewhat sick.

All my machine tools are in my personal shop. My company workshop is very limited in equipment, for safety and liability reasons, but I'm constantly developing improved components, tools, and techniques for problem solving in the field, so I use my machines at home, to enhance my occupational capacity. I prototype... and then test my protos in the field, and once they're proven successful, I look for commercial shops and processes to economically manufacture a production version of my protos.

And when I'm not doing that, I'm making all sorts of silly gadgets like garden windmill-driven fish-pond aerators, converting an old tractor to high-volume live hydraulics, hot-rodding a weed-eater motor for my son's RC boat, fixing whatever my dad broke yesterday...