Not only is my choice of coffee service "mocked" ;) (fine, so I am that girly, Tam -- and when did you buy your Unimat and load your better small hand-tools into your Gerstner Machinist's Chest?), I've also been tagged with a meme.Since it was from Plegmmie, one of the kewlest gurrls in the entire school (see photo for a few of the Gifts of the Phlegm-i), I'm goin' along, mostly.
Link meme rules:
1. Must be clean, no R rated material.
Done.
2. Tell 5 people.
If you have read this, consider yourself told. The judges will also accept "pwned."
3. Only 5 links allowed. You can link to business, favorite, affiliate sites, etc.
- SpaceX Delos D. Harriman, eat your heart out. These kids are goin' to orbit for money. Carryin' passengers.
- Guy Lautard, the real reason we keep Canada around. I want "The Machinist's Bedside Companion" for my birthday! ...At least one volume.
- Nixie tubes, baby!. They're kewl!
- Two words: Emma Clarke. Go. Listen. The London Subway gonifs fired her over this.
- I'm torn! Old radios or neat-o toolstore? H'mmm. Radios later, a recurring theme; for now, look around Lee Valley for tools, incredibly wonderful hardware -- Tansu blivits! Repro Victorian hardware! Yankee screwdrivers (made by Japan's Vessel tools and yet some claim irony is dead)! -- and gardening niftiness, too.
And there you have it. Try it, if you'd like.
14 comments:
Has she turned the stove into a hot blueing rig yet?
Hey, that's why we have a garage!
Wow. Nixie tubes, Lee Valley, and a Unimat. Cool stuff indeed. I remember a larger version of the Unimat, I think called a Multimat, that I friend of mine had at work, but IIRC, the milling turret was a seperate add-on piece. Fun toy to play with, for sure.
I'm guessing you like Bridge City Toolworks and Lie Nielsen as well. Okay, I admit $160 for a plumb bob is extreme, but then nothing exceeds like excess, you know.
The wonderfulness of you, indeed. I love that you are techy and girly and funny and quirky and geeky.
I love that we all can be whatever we desire - and you are such a great role model. =)
Gerstner, I can't afford. I have a Kennedy.
I blue outdoors. Keeps the smell down. I have tempered on the stove, though. On the other hand... nixie tubes? I gotcha beat by miles. Look for a post the next couple days.
...I hope to be, Breda; I can be terribly moody, though, and that's nothing to emulate. I am eternally grateful for having grown up in a household where "being good with your hands" was considered admirable no matter you were doing -- gardening, painting, messing about with electronics or whatever.
Jed: Bridge City just about killed me and Lie Neilsen's even more so! ...I drool over Garret Wade catalogs and carry a pair of the smallest two Starret pocket screwdrivers in my toolbag. (It makes a nice set with the Schroeder Yankee-type driver, as they have matching black-painted wooden teardrop handles).
Og: swelp me, if the name "Veeder-Root" crops up... ;)
zomg! Those nixie tubes are maybe the coolest things ever! Me want!
Wow, I forgot about that other little crap I stuck in the package - glad you liked it!
The little rubber pencil-topper guys can be made to pick their noses.
It's the greatest thing evar.
Roberta: Veeder root? nah, too primitive. Think "Friden"
Where I work at the ***** Dept., they are continuously "surplussing-out" old electronic gear. By the pallet-full. Most of it consists of XT-era computers and so forth. They put it on pallets and shrink-wrap it and ship it to God-knows-where, maybe the same warehouse where Speilberg keeps The Ark.
I pass by this stuff every day at the loading dock, and one day I saw something that made my heart stop: wrapped in the middle of the plastic webbing was a well-used, 1960's vintage, rack-mountable R.L. Drake general communications receiver, with a digital frequency read-out made of Nixie tubes. Just think of what that radio must have heard! Cuban missile crisis! Bay of Pigs! Mideast War! Just sitting there, and nobody looking ...
I still dream about that radio and in my dreams I cut the Drake free of its bindings and we rush toward the exit together, as the sirens howl and the guards draw their guns and shout, "Halt!" But our love gives us wings and we skitter around the corner just before the first shots ring out and we are free...
Gerstner tool boxes are somewhat uncommon these days in machine shops, as they tend to get grungy, and they cost a fortune. Far more common is a Kennedy box.
I'm not going to even go into unimats - any machinetool you can pick up, isn't big enough. :)
You want machine tool links? Hehehehehee..
http://www.5bears.com/index.htm 5 bears is a really nifty site with all kinds of projects.
http://www.homemetalshopclub.org/projects/project.html has a bunch of good plans for projects.
http://cnccookbook.com/ run by Bob Warfield, a regular over on the HSM forum http://bbs.homeshopmachinist.net/
Finally, I'll add this - if you think Lee Valley is shit hot(admittedly they have some nice stuff, but..)Then you need to go to MSC, McMaster Carr, and Grainger.(I'm not gonna post links, just google 'em).
Oh, I use those three a lot at work! McMaster-Carr is especially good: they have everything and the prices are good. Grainger, more costly but on those days when you need an electric motor at 0600, there they are. (And W.W.G. is not always pricey -- I have been buying "Retrospecs" side-shield safety glasses from them for several years, both sunglass types and plain. Under $10.00!) MSC's good for general tool stuff, drills and mills and the like. I can happily spend hours with any of their catalogs. Websites, McMaster-Carr's is made of win, the best "drill-down" setup of any.
...And now I must go follow your kewl links! Yayy!
I have something 200 or so different links, on this machine, which I've only had since the middle of feb. I could post dozens of links, but I'd probably be the only one interested in them, like websites that sell nothing but nuts and bolts(The Bolt Depot).
Interesting thing about McMaster Carr - there's no way to request a catalog from them. You have to be deemed "worthy", usually by spending lots of money. MSC meanwhile, has stacks of catalogs at every location, free for the taking. Go figure. Mcmaster website is, however the best industrial website online. MSC's is terrible. There's also J&L, Enco, Travers, Penn Tool, Victor Machinery, and dozens of others.
Let me know what your looking for, and I can point you in the right direction.
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