Ace-Garageguy

I have thousands on my desktop for reference or inspiration, and sometimes I'll just let them shuffle while I listen to music. Much better entertainment than a lot of what's out there.

HOT today, right at 100F in the shop up until 4:30 PM when a really violent downpour thunderstorm with hail started. Temp dropped to 71. 72 right now, but with 100% humidity.

Though Amazon shows the Bondo 2-part polyester 801 putty to be unavailable, NAPA still shows stock. This may or may not be true because...internet. I'll check my local NAPA tomorrow. In the meantime, the above mentioned Dolphin Glaze is an excellent product and has become the go-to for the high-end bodyshop I work with. The package "pouch" is a kind of plasticized metal foil, and keeps the product fresh longer than other 2-part polyester glazing putties in plastic tubes. BEWARE: SEVERAL ONLINE SELLERS ARE LYING AND LISTING THE BONDO #907 ONE-PART PUTTY AS "PROFESSIONAL" (WHICH IS THE 2-PART #801) AT STUPIDLY INFLATED PRICES. PAY ATTENTION. ALSO BEWARE: THE DOLPHIN GLAZE PACKAGING HAS CHANGED. ANYTHING IN THIS PACKAGE IS OLD

Road rash is usually less fun than the rash from poison ivy.

VERY nice. Some aspects of it make me think of Allard, had they built a full-fendered somethingorother.

When someone highlights a part of a quote with questions in it, the normal assumption is that the highlighted part is what's being addressed. As above. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- And though there are some necessary internal similarities among lathe chucks, the means of adjustment, the "operator interface"...two small bars ("tommy bars") stuck in holes in the chuck and the adjustment collar...which is what I was addressing in my first post, is identical on the Unimat and Sherline 4000, and unlike the adjustment means on any conventional full-size lathe I've ever worked with...a T-handled square key that you insert in holes in the chuck, and turn to scroll the jaws open or closed. The very first lesson in Lathe 101 is to NEVER LEAVE THE ADJUSTING KEY IN THE CHUCK...EVER EVER EVER FOR ANY LENGTH OF TIME FOR ANY REASON WHATSOEVER. The first time the key hits you in the face indicates exactly why. Big lathe, below, showing the chuck key very clearly "Tommy bars" for opening and closing the chuck jaws on a Unimat, similar to the Sherline, below.

PM'd.

The plan is to make molds of it, and put copies in several Stratos kits. But it'll be a while. I seem to remember that Model Builders Warehouse had a beautiful engine kit, but if so I missed it, and they're gone now.

I got the partial refund I'd asked for on the Testors 246 Dino kit that had a warped body and broken roof pillars and windshield, so that's something.

Amazing fall colors can be found in many parts of the country, with upstate New York and all over New England being among my favorites.

Yup. Stretching and exercise do much good to keep everything functioning, but I have to rely occasionally on aspirin, ibuprofen, and topicals like Bengay to get me to the point where I CAN exercise. That six weeks of immobility with the rib deal has been harder to get back from than I'd anticipated.

Very nice, and the big sparkly flake is really appropriate for that build style.

Yes, I do.

Several stainless socket head capscrews in lengths not available locally. Excellent quality for a very good price with free delivery, from Fastenere. And a roll of heat-shrink tape that's devoid of adhesive, and not anywhere as user-friendly as the great stuff that used to be available from Radio Shack. Heat-shrink tape is particularly useful when building custom wiring harnesses where branches sprout from the main wiring bundle, and you want a permanent un-sticky solution that won't let go and unravel over time, but if it's not self-adhesive, installation is much more time consuming and just about requires you to grow a third hand. The alternative, self-vulcanizing sticks-to-itself tape, is easier to use, but it tends to be considerably thicker, and makes klugeier looking junctions. I'm disappointed in this product from one of my regular electrical component suppliers, Sherco.

"South" isn't my favorite region unless it's followed by "west", though there is some very beautiful country down here.

OK, I'm corrected. But the means by which the lathe jaws on the Unimat and the Sherline are adjusted, among a few other things, appear to be absolutely identical. That wasn't coincidence (though I haven't disassembled anything on the Sherline to see how far the similarity goes).

Yup. I've had a full size gap-bed lathe (16" max OD workpiece) since 1995. And a full size Bridgeport clone. Bought a Unimat lathe and mill maybe 6 or 7 years back, about a 1969 issue, and subsequently collected a lot of tooling, parts, upgrades. Great little machine, good for model and other small precision work, but not sufficient power to efficiently work as large pieces as it will accommodate. Bought a pretty complete used Sherline lathe and mill setup with a LOT of tooling back in February of 2024. First time I've really needed it was this week, and it's impressive: well thought out and plenty powerful. And very obviously influenced by the little Unimat.

Austrian. The Unimat.

A learning experience. I set up the Sherline, for the first time, in the shop where I'm finishing up the Chevelle build. Needed to turn multiple parts, some of which have to be hand fitted, so taking the tool to the shop was the most efficient way to do it. Interesting...to anyone who owns a Unimat too, it's obvious that the Sherline's designers had looked very carefully at the Unimat before they put pen to paper.

"Joke, is this a?" is my first reaction watching most news stories these days.

DELETE...WRONG THREAD. DUH.

Late model Ford vans: We do bodywork for vehicles operated by Lockheed here. One common failure is the front door hinge attach points literally ripping out of the pillar at about 30k miles. We developed a reinforcing retrofit that solves the problem permanently. Fleet vehicles...like stripper vans...get used and abused hard by people who just don't care. Seems like Ford might have taken that into consideration during the design phase. Just a little thicker steel in the pillar shell...and maybe a 50 cent doubler plate inside the pillar shell...and there never would have been an issue in the first place. But I guess their billion-dollar computer simulations never simulated the effect of careless operators repeatedly slinging the doors open against the stops. Some human with a reality-aware functioning brain has to tell the simulator what to simulate. The Isuzu Luv trucks had an almost identical problem back in the late '80s-early '90s, which I saw a lot of in my shop, running fleet repair/maintenance for the largest Domino's Pizza franchise on the planet when they still operated small pickups with the 30 minute delivery guarantee. Back then, by the way, the little Toyota pickups were almost indestructible, well outperforming the little Fords, Isuzus, and Mitsubishis in a variety of areas.

Writing with a pen is becoming a lost art.

102F in the shop today at 4:30 PM. Honestly, really not too bad. Glad I'm heat tolerant. Probably drank a gallon of water though.

"Unwell" almost ranks up there with doubleplusungood for clarity.