What did you get yourself for Christmas?

[DennisCA]

That's nice, doesn't look like it's ever been used.

Got it for a good price too IMO. Deckel stuff is usually extra expensive for the brand recognition, but the pro as well as the con of living far away from the rest of the world is that there isn't a big deckel market here, so it can be difficult to find a buyer.

[Dan Dubeau]

My Wisconsin born wife claims ice fishing is merely to get the hell out of the house. True? 2 weeks ago I was kayaking a large lake in PA and couldn't mark anything on the fishfinder. Paddled like 5 miles and marked 3 large fish on the bottom, never found a school of crappie. Dunno how you can find fish drilling holes in ice!

She's not far off lol Not many things to do in the winter time up here for an outdoorsman. Its also a bit easier to get into some good back lakes that aren't easily fishable in the summer. As for finding the fish, modern electronics make it a lot easier. We used to go out there with nothing and just try and find some points or shoals by looking at the shoreline. A couple years of going to the same spots you can start to figure things out a bit. Now I can do it with gps and contour maps from the couch, then load way points and trails on my garmin. Or I can mark spots in the summer time on the boat with the chart plotter. Once out to your spot, it's easy to see what's down there with the sonar. Or what isn't lol.

I like some places we go to for perch where we do a "run and gun" setup where we're always moving every 20-30 minutes to try and stay on a school of perch as they move around a bit during the day. You drill a bunch of holes about 20 ft apart, check with a sonar, then just keep drilling in a long line along a weed bed or shoreline. I also like just putting up a hut in a take your best guess spot, or renting one, and cracking a bottle or two with a woodstove going. All depends what you're going out there for....
Most times it's all luck though. Sometimes they just aren't there, or just aren't biting. That's why they call it fishing and not catching.

Now that I can use my garmin on the ice, I going to try and get into some northern lakes I've always heard stories about. I can trace the trails on gps visualizer, then load them into my fish finder to follow on the snowmobile. I used it like that a couple years ago for our spring atv fishing trip and it worked great. Just need to make a mount for my sled bars now.

Those in wisconsin take it to a whole 'nother level though with the ice trailers they use out there. It looks like a lot of fun the little communities on the ice they have. One big social event. Not much else to do, might as well embrace it.

[Astronowanabe]

Not sure how to categorize this, but I got the only brand new lathe I have had.
Swung by the local Harbor freight for the first time in a year and checked their
scratch-n-dent return shelf as always. This time there was a little red 7x12 lathe
that had been sitting there still covered in cosmoline for long enough
to have been marked down several times. was less than half price
and clearly had never made a chip, manager did not know the story,
no can't let you plug it in ... safety reasons.
figured what the heck, parts is parts and if they wanted to pay me to
fix and keep the lathe why not, worst case I could put a treadmill motor on it.

But it did not come to that, it was missing a spring contact on the fuse holder
So I'm counting it as they paid me $20 to get it out of the store.

Don't really have a use for it in mind, but it can use lots of the tooling from my logan
and it is portable maybe I can have a camping lathe!

[Bented]

figured what the heck, parts is parts and if they wanted to pay me to
fix and keep the lathe why not, worst case I could put a treadmill motor on it.

A treadmill motor fixes everything.
I once put a lathe motor on a treadmill, it was glorious to behold.

[boslab]

Most cutting pantos were 1:1, did see one that seemed to have adjustable arms like an engraver, can’t imagine what for, make pattern out of plate, mount and cut, the mag spindle motors often failed, thickest I’ve cut was 254 mm slab, beats hand cutting, esp thick stuff
mark

[flathead4]

A no-drill scope mount for my116 year old Swedish Mauser. The mount is designed to take a LER pistol scope like the scout rifles. Although with a 29" barrel and weighing in almost 9 pounds that stretchers the definition a bit. Still this should be more fun than the original iron site with its 300 meter zero and no windage adjustment.

[Tim Clarke]

Man, that is one GORGEOUS ole Swede!

[flathead4]

Man, that is one GORGEOUS ole Swede!

I agree. It is a work of art and the 6.5X55 cartridge is a dream to shoot.

[754]

Most cutting pantos were 1:1, did see one that seemed to have adjustable arms like an engraver, can’t imagine what for, make pattern out of plate, mount and cut, the mag spindle motors often failed, thickest I’ve cut was 254 mm slab, beats hand cutting, esp thick stuff
mark

I was thinking for numbers, letters , and company logos ..

[nickel-city-fab]

Got a nice new 4-jaw for the SB. The chucks that came with the machine were a bit "used" to put it gently. Also ordered a slug of A36 plate 6" dia x 1" thk for a backplate. Recalling Metal Butchers recent adventures with chatter, I think it should be enough for a 1/2 HP SB 9A. In all honesty, the crossfeed and top slide nuts are the greatest problem.

[The Metal Butcher]

Got a nice new 4-jaw for the SB. The chucks that came with the machine were a bit "used" to put it gently. Also ordered a slug of A36 plate 6" dia x 1" thk for a backplate. Recalling Metal Butchers recent adventures with chatter, I think it should be enough for a 1/2 HP SB 9A. In all honesty, the crossfeed and top slide nuts are the greatest problem.

Sounds like plenty to me.

On the bright side the 7.5" set-tru is doing great. Dad and I just balanced it+the backplate Saturday. So at least I'm still sane and know how to make a backplate.

I never found leadscrew nut looseness to create chatter, you have?

[interrupted_cut]

I got a 3 axis DRO with magnetic scales from DRO PRO's for my 9 x 36 Rockford knee mill. Installing the scales was interesting. These mills are rare enough that I couldn't find anyone online who had installed DRO scales on one. Mounting the X axis to the back of the table is pretty straightforward, but the Y and Z required some creative solutions. There was nothing square or vertical on the column so I mounted a piece of aluminum angle on some angled pedestals to provide an adjustable surface to attach the Z scale to. The Y scale also had to be on standoffs to clear irregularities on the cast mounting surface. Both took a little bit of trial and error to get within the allowable tolerances for runout over the travel length. DRO PRO's provided lots of brackets and fasteners to allow for many options for mounting, but I think I only used the X read head bracket in its intended location. The other read heads were mounted using modified pieces from the kit, attached in ways they weren't intended, but it all worked. I was only able to use the scale cover on the X axis, but the locations of the Y and Z make them relatively insensitive to chip accumulation. The kit comes with a good supply of hardware, but it is all metric; 3, 4 and 6 mm for the scales and brackets, and 10 mm for the readout arm pivots. I couldn't bring myself to tap any metric holes in the 60 year old cast iron, so I substituted 8-32 and 1/4-20 for any fasteners that needed to be threaded into the mill. (It didn't hurt that I also have a much better supply of U.S. standard than metric taps). The readout arm pivots were really sloppy, and the arm not really long enough to mount in my desired location. I reworked the pivots to use larger diameter shop made bolts with a .421 shank and 10 mm threads (because I happened to have a 27/64" reamer to open up the holes), and I fabbed and added an additional 6" arm segment to give me more reach and articulation. I am really happy with how it came out, and it makes working on the mill a lot easier when you don't have to take into account backlash or worry if the dials have slipped while you're cranking multiple turns of travel. It also inspired me to complete some other mill improvements I had been thinking about, like making a vinyl way cover for the column and some table cover tool trays fitted around the vise. I'm just sorry I didn't do this years ago.

Davis

[epicfail48]

Not quite an old Mauser, but ill confess i like the new stuff more anyways

Savage Axis II in 6.5 creedmore was the base rifle, dropped it into an MDT LSS chassis with a Luth MBA-3 buttstock and a Magpul grip, put a Primary Arms 4-16x scope on it. Still waiting on a change to take it out to the range, i shot the rifle before all the changes so i know it shoots, but i cant wait to see what it does now. Eventual hope is to have it sub-MOA and accurate out to 800 yards

[nickel-city-fab]

Sounds like plenty to me.

On the bright side the 7.5" set-tru is doing great. Dad and I just balanced it+the backplate Saturday. So at least I'm still sane and know how to make a backplate.

I never found leadscrew nut looseness to create chatter, you have?

Thanks for the vote of confidence -- hope you got yours figured out too! My compound and crossfeed nuts have caused problems when doing things with a lathe that are illegal in 39 countries. (small milling projects) The SB9 nuts are not adjustable -- I have considered splitting them with a hacksaw and putting a set screw axially to take up backlash. But that feels too hackish. The nuts are the bronze originals from 1945, yet oddly enough there is no discernable wear on the screws themselves. My leadscrew and halfnuts aren't even on my radar of things to worry about.

[flathead4]

Thanks for the vote of confidence -- hope you got yours figured out too! My compound and crossfeed nuts have caused problems when doing things with a lathe that are illegal in 39 countries. (small milling projects) The SB9 nuts are not adjustable -- I have considered splitting them with a hacksaw and putting a set screw axially to take up backlash. But that feels too hackish. The nuts are the bronze originals from 1945, yet oddly enough there is no discernable wear on the screws themselves. My leadscrew and halfnuts aren't even on my radar of things to worry about.

I have a 1966 SB9A that was has some wear but is by no means wore out. Both the compound and cross feed have about .010 play as read on the dials. I have mostly worked around it and always make sure to snug the compound or cross slide towards me before taking any cut that matters.