I couldn’t believe it, today my milling machine broke. Now it’s not the most expensive machine in the world, nor the biggest or best, but its mine, and as I use all my machine tools as often as I do, when one breaks its like a lame dog you have by your feet. You know they want to play but can’t beacuse they are unable to.
It was only 2 weeks ago I had my lathe repaired because of an electrical failure, now the milling machine is stuck, to say the least. That will teach me to buy “cheaper” Chinese products. Anyway with the milling machine the handle on the column came off in my hand. No big issue you’re thinking, but the 1/2 inch metal bar it was attached to had sheared off and the locking nut jammed tight shut. Now you see the problem. With nothing to grab hold of to un-tighten said offending nut, it’s taken hours of careful grinding with a Dremmel tool to get passed the hardened part of the shaft to be able to drill the bolt, and use a left hand tap to back out the very offensive bolt.
Now this is not over yet. I still have to buy a left hand tap and as the brake only happened last night, no shops were open to by said tool. Now the point of me telling you all this, is simple. Its not till somethings broken do you realise how much you use it. When the lathe was out of commission, it put me back 4 whole days, due to the amount of Damascus steel rings I’ve to make, cutting those by hand is nigh on impossible. Same as the milling machine, I was roughing out a Damascus steel pendant and the next thing I knew I was breaking out the hacksaw to try and save the time.
Well its all part of the daily life in my workshop. Boring to some, exciting to others. It’s just normal to me so thought I’d let you all in on it.
Royston