That's a neat looking ML-7 complete with the stand!
Like Buck said, once you learn enough to be dangerous, it will change the way you approach repair work.
When I started out as an apprentice airplane mechanic, the shop I worked at had a little Craftsman 6x18 lathe stashed in a corner. I was immediately drawn to that machine and spent a lot of time just looking at it.
Well, one afternoon as fate would have it, the owner of the company caught me fiddling with that thing instead of working (I didn't really have any work at the time). I was asked if I wanted the machine (DUH!) and told he would sell it to me for X hours of work.
Anyway, the deal was made and a few days later, it was sitting on a new bench in my first shop. Little did I know it was to be the first of many machines, and it would change the course of my life.
One afternoon, my uncle brought his Chevy S-10 over to have me replace the shocks and do a brake job. Long story short, road salt had taken it's toll on the shock mounting bolts, two of which are welded into the lower spring carrier. The impact promptly snapped one right off. My uncle was in the pit with me and I heard the scream over the whine of the unloaded impact.
"No worries" I said, "we'll have this fixed in about half an hour!" Over at the little Craftsman, I produced a miracle in my Uncle's eyes:
Once the remainder of the old mount was torched off and ground down, I clamped the new mount in place and welded it up. Problem solved!
Without the little Craftsman, repair would have been limited to removing the axle clamp and spring carrier. Only a junk yard would have had a replacement part, which would probably be just as hard to take apart!
Since then, I've bought many more machines and quit my "day job" to run my shop full-time. It all started with my first introduction to machining, that little Craftsman lathe.
So watch out! If you have lots of iron in your blood like me, the bug bites hard.
