Recent content by milkovich

Leaving Nascar and bullying customers over a $3 socket doesn't seem like good business but they're still going while Sears and Sears Hardware are a memory so "the way it ought to be" clearly isn't profitable.

The price of VIM mag rails is kind of overkill for a home gamer, but even if it's 1 double rail for deep and short 8mm-24mm sockets, it's a huge reduction of "therbligs" for a "messy worker" like me. The other innovation that maybe is less than 10 years old is the EVA foam inserts. I'm never...

Hah that’s my line too, I had to talk him down from the $20 retail antique store price. The day wasn’t quite done, I hit up a garage sale and found a ton of starret dividers, calipers, Italian rifflers, an old Stanley v logo 5c, and an ECE toothing plane. The cool thing is these tools belonged...

Slow day at the flea market. Was doing good till I found the moulding planes at $15 a pop, but they are minty. About $50 for the whole pile so not quite a “you ****” but a lot better than eBay for little stuff like brace bits and good saw files.

I'm worried about what air hammer they benchmarked. There are some really sucky normal ones (high bpm). The long barrel ones from SO, CP, or Sunex are hitters. It's one of those tools where your day is going to **** when you run out of oomph.

I used these t-track nuts and knobs to make a resaw fence. One thing to note, it's nice to have adjustability in the fence because every blade will kind of wander in it's own direction. I'd love to give it the full "snodgrass" every blade change, but I guess I'm lazy. FWIW, this is an 11 amp...

One of the cool things about tool hunting here in Akron Ohio is that there's a good chance that the tools were somehow related to the rubber industry. My patternmaker's vise supposedly came from Goodyear Aerospace (which Lockheed later bought). Here's an estate sale No. 4 handplane from the...

If they didn't want us to collect them, they wouldn't give them neat brands and part numbers.

Don't know that I'd buy 60293s from Amazon/eBay. There are a lot of imports that look identical, it's one of the most copied products on earth, it'd only take a sticker to make them "3M." It might be worth the extra few bux to get them from MSC/Zoro/Menards/Home Depot or wherever that sells...

I have a 135 degree HSS Hertel index that has served me well for years but if I'm going to abuse it or do a lot of the same operation, I'll buy a pack from MSC/Zoro/KBC. The stuff you get at the big box stores isn't really up to the task. That said, bosch is the least worst I've found.

That looks beefy, the mass certainly helps. If the feet are adjustable so you can level it, it'd be good enough for the girls I go with.

My old Hitachi leaves a decent finish with the grain but there are still machine marks to take out with a smoothing plane. I never really noticed knife marks until I got into hand tools but now they stick out like a sore thumb. The helical heads do a much better job than straight knives though.

It's funny to think how spoiled we were buying the "cheap junk" like phase II and Taiwan machines from Enco, that's all high end stuff from Jet / Grizzly now. KBC still does Enco style flyers. There are decent deals in there or at least there were pre-tariffs. Shars has rough import stuff...

This seems like a great deal to me because you're making chips day 1 and you have a way to learn. The SB 10L is also a prolific lathe and you'll have a huge knowledge base and spare parts to buy if it does need anything. I wouldn't worry about the ways or even the headstock wear, you can tighten...