Last day of freedom..........

Back to work tomorrow. It has been a relaxing week. Lots of fun. Machine gun shoot was Friday. Today, drove back across the state again. Why? Last night I found a mill I have been wanting for a long time. It came up on craigslist. Less than half of the price of a new one, and it's all there and in good condition. He also had two 9x20 lathes for sale. Hard choice, but I picked between them and now have two new to me additions to the shop. My garage is too small to accommodate all my vehicles and a full size Bridgeport mill, so, a tabletop mill will do just as good. I have a smaller hobby mill, but it is too light duty for most projects. It is a CNC however, so it comes in handy for engraving and small parts.  The guy has a nice set up out there. Big pole barn. He upgraded to a full size lathe and a knee mill. He was just thinning out some of the old stuff. The lathe I bought is a central machine lathe which is the Chinese junk from harbor freight, but the price was right and it has all the accessories. Has a gear box so I don't need to physically change the gears for different pitch threads. It was a choice between that, or an old Atlas. The atlas was missing some items which I could have acquired, but, the central was complete with extras including the ability to cut metric threads. He upgraded the tool holder with a more rigid design and a quick change tool post.

The mill, a Grizzly 1005Z. Decent size for the garage with lots of potential. Have to do things the old fashion way and use the dials for a while. The way work is constantly cleaning, hopefully they clean house and pitch the Accurite digitals I took off of a manual grinder they pitched. They were going to throw the grinder away with the digitals, so, it's probably not too far down the line they tell me to throw it out. Then all I need are the two scales and I am in business. May be able to use the longer of the two scales on the one at the shop. I could live off of what they throw out at work. Have to wait until after work tomorrow to unload. Had help on the other end. Have to see if I can get someone at work to give me a hand getting the stuff out of the truck tomorrow.