-
Welcome back Guest! Did you know you can mentor other members here at H-M? If not, please check out our Relaunch of Hobby Machinist Mentoring Program!
Harold Hall Tooling
- Thread starter Smudgemo
- Start date
- Joined
- Nov 2, 2012
- Messages
- 415
Thanks for the welcomes back and the appreciation for my projects. I conversed with Mr Hall some years back and he was a very nice and helpful guy. I hope he's doing well if he's still around. I'll post some photos of where I'm at with the grinding rest when I get back out in the garage.
I've been going back and forth on whether to build one of his dividing heads, but I don't have a set of change gears and there are a lot of semi-universal units out there for not a ton of money. And for what I typically do, it would be pretty easy to just make some plates and a handle for my rotary table. Sector arms would be the hardest part, and they can't be that tough. Round steel plates of an appropriate size are $5 on eBay.
I've been going back and forth on whether to build one of his dividing heads, but I don't have a set of change gears and there are a lot of semi-universal units out there for not a ton of money. And for what I typically do, it would be pretty easy to just make some plates and a handle for my rotary table. Sector arms would be the hardest part, and they can't be that tough. Round steel plates of an appropriate size are $5 on eBay.
It's not that hard, but I try not to assume that I can always use the same conversion in every case. Usually the raw materials are close or oversize, and I'll either use them as is (like for the grinder rest table - who cares how thick it is?) or I'll take it down to size. My dial calipers does both so I typically just go by metric dimensions and sub Imperial fasteners. I'm sure some day there will be some guy dismantling my work to clean it up for use and wondering what the hell this guy was thinking with the mishmash of sizes. But that's his problem, not mine.
Last edited:
- Joined
- Jan 2, 2014
- Messages
- 8,852
Hi Dave ,
Without derailing the thread too far, retirement always seems to be a year or two off.
How much income is enough in retirement? How much savings is enough?
My wife is big on the idea of budgeting; me not so much...... of course I get the concept, it is logical, but it sounds so confining.
Plus I know if I do not build a dedicated workshop before retirement I will be jammed into the current too-small, two car garage forever!
Brian
- Joined
- Nov 24, 2014
- Messages
- 3,169
IMHO, the smart thing to do is to work as long as you can (assuming you're healthy and they don't make you crazy).
Another good technique is to secure an income stream during retirement. I mean produce a product or provide a service that there is a market for.
I retired at 55 and my health insurance cost (employer group policy) cost quadrupled in the first four years. How do you anticipate and budget for that sort of thing? And, yes. Build (and pay off) that shop before you retire. YMMV
- Joined
- Nov 2, 2012
- Messages
- 415
Focus you guys, we're building tools here. This where I'm at with the grinder rest.
I can't attach the handles to the nuts until the orientation is known, but most of these parts are ready to assemble. It should be noted that Mr Hall's website has some modifications to this project that you may want to incorporate should you build it. One is to thin the side supports you can see labeled as 20Y/20Z, but since I made them to the old specs, I figured I might as well try them as is. Nothing done yet today on this project as my car and moto needed some electrical attention. Sure pays to be a handy fella if for no other reason than to skip the whole drop off/pick up the vehicle waste of time.
Anyhow, I need to sort out the upper slide that's marked up with red dye because something isn't right. Then I'm down to just a few parts left to finish building before I figure out how to mount it and my trusty old grinder in some way that's functional and looks good. Oh, and the colored writing was made using a Sharpie set my daughter found at Ross as an Xmas gift. Works great and various colors can signify status like part number in green = done. Part number in red = incomplete. Blue is just notes in my scheme.
I can't attach the handles to the nuts until the orientation is known, but most of these parts are ready to assemble. It should be noted that Mr Hall's website has some modifications to this project that you may want to incorporate should you build it. One is to thin the side supports you can see labeled as 20Y/20Z, but since I made them to the old specs, I figured I might as well try them as is. Nothing done yet today on this project as my car and moto needed some electrical attention. Sure pays to be a handy fella if for no other reason than to skip the whole drop off/pick up the vehicle waste of time.
Anyhow, I need to sort out the upper slide that's marked up with red dye because something isn't right. Then I'm down to just a few parts left to finish building before I figure out how to mount it and my trusty old grinder in some way that's functional and looks good. Oh, and the colored writing was made using a Sharpie set my daughter found at Ross as an Xmas gift. Works great and various colors can signify status like part number in green = done. Part number in red = incomplete. Blue is just notes in my scheme.