Opinions please....

Great video. I appreciate your hard work and sharing your thought process. Having also read the Connoly book I would have been thinking along the same lines. But I had the same question as Bob about the straight edge as you were putting the blue to it at the beginning of the vid. The Connoly book has made me paranoid of all my metrology tools as they are all used and I spend more time proofing them than I ever would have before reading it. Starting with my granite surface plate that was inspected shortly before I bought it used.

I would think that straight edge, if proven to be accurate, would be great for checking dovetails. And would be improved by putting some wooden handles on the ends like I've seen some done to keep from handling and heating/warping it. If warped, it would be a wonderful candidate to be scrapped in.

I'm curious why you went with this straight edge instead of your camelback? I truly am just curious, not judging. I'm trying to learn this by reading and watching vids. I've done a couple of small things and realize I've got a long way to go. I was most impressed by Wes Johnson's scraping vid as it was so straight forward and workmanlike.

C-Bag, how does that saying go? "The most used tools are the ones' you can reach?" The straight edge is hung on a very strong hook, easily accessible. The camelback and cast iron plate are kept stored on a purpose built shelf that is under my workbench, post #11 of this thread. At the time, the bench was covered with the parts to the lathe drying from paint.
Laziness to go digging is a poor excuse.

Everybody's input here has me really excited to get all of this stuff back out and do some exploration.

I even gave Richard King a phone call yesterday and we spoke for some time about where he will be teaching classes this year. He was very easy to talk to and offered to forward my contact info. along to a previous student in the Maryland area.

UPDATE: It's up and running!!

VFD installed, going to order an operator switch station. Still reading up on all of the features.

First project is to make a proper chuck key. All I have right now is a piece of square stock that I turn with an adjustable wrench.

Good luck with the VFD. After hearing what one of the guys on YouTube went through on his I think I'd have a better chance of undstanding a corporate legal contract!

So you've decided after talking to Richard King to just use it as is for a while and get a feel for what it needs?

C-Bag said:

Good luck with the VFD. After hearing what one of the guys on YouTube went through on his I think I'd have a better chance of undstanding a corporate legal contract!

So you've decided after talking to Richard King to just use it as is for a while and get a feel for what it needs?

Click to expand...

The VFD is easy to setup, but I know there is more that can be utilized from it.
The scraping and measurement situation is not over for me. I've been looking around for a place to take or have someone come out to check the surface plate. Once that is verified, I will proceed with more scraping. In the meantime, I just bought all of the articles on scraping from Home Shop Machinist off ebay for a good price. I'm just looking for more opportunity to be exposed to the topic.