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Okay, that's pretty cool. I have to admit I'm surprised there's a market that big, but hey, with the reach of the internet- and, as I said, most people thinking a carb is some manner of dark magic :) - I guess there is. I wonder if she also offers tuning advice, or just a straight up rebuild...

Thanks guys! Hope you had a good Fourth! :) In my earlier days as a car-guy, I was a bit of the local carburetor expert. The cheap cars us snot-nosed kids could actually afford often still had carbs, and were even back then old enough said carburetors always needed a good cleaning and rebuild...

As of July 1st, Doc's Machine & Airsmith Services has been in operation for twenty eight years. Officially started July 1, 1998. I attribute my longevity to skill, determination, dedication, obstinacy, stubborness, sheer ignorance, misplaced optimism and just plain pig-headed obstreperousness...

-Did you ***** about it? Doc.

-Very slowly, sure. :) I had one similar to that years ago- the third stage piston was only 1/4" in diameter. It'll give you the pressure, but not the volume. Doc.

-If you haven't already found out, that's a high-pressure air compressor, most likely off a military aircraft. It provides HP air (over 2K PSI, as I recall) for the avionics. Doc.

Tapping NPT threads on a Turret lathe: Doc.

Try it as-is first. That is, check the collet taper first, and if it's not out by much- maybe 2-3 thou- try tapping it into adjustment first. Also, I don't recall if anyone has already said it or not, but you can also try 'clocking' the chuck on the backing plate to the three different bolt...

Okay, right off the bat, the OD concentricity of any of it is irrelevant. It does nothing, tells us nothing. In this case, the one and only valid datum is the ID of the chuck nose where the taper of the collet sits. Everything else can be out by miles, as long as that taper seat is concentric...

Back in the leather-belt-drive days, it was common to make one-off machines. That is, a whole machine designed to do one process, often just one cut. Check out this video from 1917, showing manufacturing 8" cannon shells for WW1. Literally millions were made, and of course that was long prior...

There's about 20,000 different things that could have been used for. The leg-and-base combo is hardly unique to lathes, we're just used to seeing those most, as those are the old machines most likely to have survived to this point. It could have been anything from bench centers to a...

Doc.

Today (Sunday) was comparatively easy. For this current run, all I needed to do was turn the OD of these parts down a few thou. So, as per long-established procedure, I chucked up a hunk of scrap in the Sheldon, turned a 60-degree point on it in place (ensuring concentricity) and proceeded to...

Stolen from the internet and lightly modified. :) Doc.

Looks like it'll be Monday. :) Whipped up a fresh program to round off the distal end... And ran the whole lot through. Nice little run, less than one minute cycle time, everything ran smoothly. After that... allow me to pontificate a bit. The last time I ran this part, I did the drilling...

It's strange that, no matter how many tools you have, you still never seem to have the right ones. :) For this project I'd already modified a collet, and when it came time to run the part, I needed to be able to chamfer an inner passage. The tool block didn't already have a cutter that could do...

Man, time flies even when you're not having any fun at all. :) Sorry I haven't had much by way of updates lately- it's not that I haven't been doing anything, it's just that what I've been doing isn't all that photo-worthy. You lot have seen my lathes and turning centers before. That said, I...

Anyone tried one of those cheap 'sandblasting' setups for a pressure washer? Could you get about the same results on aluminum- like an intake manifold- if you used a fine enough abrasive? No one local offers the service, and I'd rather not build or modify a cabinet just for one or two pieces...

And DONE! Over 250 pieces, that took an average of maybe around seven minutes each. (This isn't all of them, the cart isn't big enough to hold all the bins. :) ) I'd have lit up the turning center to start crankin' em through, but I have about five hundred and eleven other things screaming...

Coming down to the last parts I need to run on the Logan- down to a dozen or so, but after the day of running, I didn't feel like resetting the machine again. I'll kick those out tomorrow, and then start feeding the Omni. One thing I did get done was dusting off another mod for the Exacto. The...