More scraping, more lapping,
and getting ready to build a copy of a lathe alignment tool. The
latest update may be found here.
Still scraping, but I also do
a little lapping on my granite straight edge. Also, using the Automatic
Generation of Gages to prove flatness. This installment may be found here.
I've spent most of my
free time in the last month working in the garage with a scraper in my
hand.I've made some progress on the surface grinder, but I also made
a mistake. You can read about it here.
After spending the last
year reading about machine repair and scraping and doing LOTS of
scraping, I have finally gotten to the point that I am going to attempt
a large scraping project. The project is a 1967 DoAll D624-8 surface
grinder.The first installment may be found here.
It has been a while since
I updated anything here, but there seems to be a lot of email
asking questions on how I like the Grizzly Mill after a year of having
it. So I came out of hiding long enough to do a small piece on the
mill.
You can find it here.
Before I take a bit of a
break
from the workshop to do some spring clean-up on our home, I buy an old
South Bend lathe and give it some TLC. A new
tool is always fun.
I finish up the Shumatech
DRO with the addition of a Jenix scale and adding some ball bearings to
one of the calipers. You can take a look here.
I've been busy in the
workshop
adding a digital readout to the mill. I've finished the first
stage of the project and am quite pleased with the results. ShumaTech Dro-350 Digital Readout
I found another
little annoyance with the mill. This one got a temporary fix that
is working out well, for the time being. Spindle
Noises
There's a new piece on moving the mill into the workshop.
There's an update in the Workshop section.
My wife Susie has been volunteering at a
local organization that finds homes for homeless animals. I had
the opportunity to tag along last weekend. I must say that I was
impressed with FOHA. They are
located near the border of Prince William county, in Loudon county, and
serve the Northern Virginia and metropolitan Washington DC area. They
have been helping animals find good homes for decades and currently
have
about180 dogs and cats in residence. The kennels, complete with runs,
for the dogs and cottages for the cats are all air conditioned!
The cottage for the FIV positive cats even has a comfy couch so yours
truly could kick back and spend some time getting to know all the
residents.
Susie had told me that she had fallen in love with a bunch of the
cats and wanted to adopt at least one of them. We currently have one
cat
and he's not used to sharing his home, so we decided that we would
become a"foster family" for one of the cats and see how our cat Petey handled some company. We chose a
cat named Nubby who has a little problem with one of his hind legs as
we
thought that he wouldn't stand as good of a chance in finding a home as
the others. He's a great little guy with a super personality. Petey
is feeling a bit threatened by his new roommate, but he's getting a
little more comfortable as the days go by.
Click to Enlarge
So why am I telling you this? The answer
is
that FOHA has been helping with the rescue and boarding of some of the
animals displaced by the flooding in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina
and they have more animals than usual to find homes for. FOHA really
needs good homes for their dogs and cats.
If an animal is unlucky enough to be homeless,but
lucky enough to wind up at FOHA, they are very well taken care
of. All of the dogs and cats receive a visit with a veterinarian to get
their shots and get checked over for health issues. The volunteers make
sure that all the cats get plenty of petting and brushing and the dogs
get walked through the beautiful wooded countryside around FOHA (they
have many acres) and get washed, groomed and played with as much as
possible.
If you reside in the Washington DC metro area
and
have been thinking about getting a dog, cat, or kitten, I recommend
FOHA
highly. Please visit their website at http://www.foha.org/ or give them
a call for general information at 703-385-0224 or shoot them an email
at
info@foha.org Their
website even has pictures and a "BIO" on each of the animals.
Thanks if you can help out.
~ Jim
P.S. If you are near Sterling, Virginia on
Sunday September 18th...
Friends of Homeless Animals
presents
our 3rd Annual Barktoberfest
Music and Pet
Adoption Festival
This event is for the entire
family.Bring your blankets and lawn chairs for a day of the area’s
finest music on two stages, games, delicious food, and an opportunity
to
meet FOHA animals up for adoption.
- Six Live Bands
- Games and Kids’ Activities
- Dog and Cat Adoption Booth
- Silent Auction
Admission: FREE
(Donations gladly accepted to benefit FOHA)
When: 12 noon to 6pm Sunday
September18, 2005
Rain date: Sunday
September25, 2005
Where: Melodee Music –
Outdoor Amphitheater
46077
Lake Center Plaza
Sterling,
VA 20165
(More info on FOHA
site.) |
Geez it's been a long time since I have
posted. A lot of stuff has been going on and I am still doing
projects.It is just that the subject of the projects has changed. The
latest projects involve a security camera for the house. I have been
wanting to do this for a long time and finally got started on it a year
ago August. There was a lot to learn, especially with the electronics
side of it. I spent a few months playing with preamplifier circuits
and trying to become somewhat proficient with circuit design software.
I ended up with a pretty nice little preamp for my old sound card to
up the clarity a bit. Some time in the future I will be incorporating
the preamp/sound card setup to help control my latest project, a
tilt-pan camera mount for my infrared assisted security camera. You can
take a look at the first tilt-pan mount and the preamp here.
At this point, I am about to start on the
third prototype of the tilt/pan device. This one should be a fun
project
as I have finally broken down and purchased a milling machine. I have
been wanting a mill for ages, so this is really a neat thing.
I have cleaned up the site a bit and hope to
start
documenting a few of the projects I have planned for the coming months.
On top of building another tilt and pan mount, I will be doing some
modifications to the new mill. I also want to build a
computer controlled circuit board cutting and drilling device using the
leftover stepper motors from the first tilt and pan mount. The
second tilt-pan mount was moved with servos, as will be the third, so I
have these extra stepper motors and a controller... well, you know how
that works... I can't just let them sit and collect dust.
Well, the mill is supposed to arrive tomorrow
and I'll try to document the delivery and the subsequent move of this
beast into the basement workshop. That ought to be worth a laugh or
two.
This thing is heavy!
That's all for now. Stay tuned for more to come.
