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Welcome to Westwood Metalworks, What is he building in there?

Well, had an adventurous yesterday. Got a lot done. The motor plate, the tracking pivot hinge and tracking axle hinge are all done. All that remains to be machined are the wheel axles. I'm glad I printed out the prints because yesterday afternoon, I dropped my laptop out in the shop and corrupted the hdd. As of now, I lost everything, but I will try and hopefully be able to recover some of it. The grinder model is the least of my concerns at this point.

Anyway, heres some pics.

Tracking hinge assy
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Tracking axle hinge
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Entire assy
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Motor plate20250307_180950.jpg

And my superflex tig cable showed up too. Sooooomuch better. Can't wait to use it. Which bring up another point, with the model lost, I'm flying a bit blind on assembly dimensions. Think I have most of it committed to memory, and the rest I'll just have to figure it out on the bench.
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Now that I've finally been able to rest my password, I'm typing this from my phone. I hate phones......
 
Well, I'm back up and running on my laptop. Still no CAD or CAM loaded yet though. Ironic story....I'd ordered a SSD back in 2023.....because I really wanted to replace the HDD in my laptop and migrate everything over. Never could find the time, or the motivation to do so.....so I basically used it as an external drive, and luckily had the entire backup of my old work computer on it. Obviously didn't have everything, but all my pictures and personal docs prior to last year were there. And on a few other thumb drives around.

Another ironic moment, was on Thusday I didn't have much motivation for shop work, so I spent the better part of the day browsing the web and downloading PDF's of old texts and other interesting stuff. Just under 100gb worth. Taking note of that, the decreasing free space on my HHD, and the hodge podge or organization of files on my laptop I ordered a 1tb M.2 drive and holder so that I could better organize my personal files on that other drive, and get it off my operating system drive so that maybe I could finally swap/clone over to the SSD that I already bought. The kick in the pants came when that drive just showed up today. Procrastination has bit me so many times in life you'd think I'd learn.....

Still working on recovering the old drive. Sometimes it'll load and be visible just fine, but will freeze if I try and do anything. Disc recovery software is unable to clone it. Other times it locks up my laptop when I plug it in. I've stopped for now, partly because I've hit my wall of patience with it, and partly because I know enough to know I might be causing even more irreparable damage to it by continually trying to access it. I did have a glimmer of hope this morning when I was able to reset permissions on the user folder, and start copying files over, but shortly after it started it froze. Unfortunately the files it copied were nothing of value :(. It spins up just fine, no mechanical noise. I found a matching/compatible drive on ebay I might buy to swap platters as a last ditch effort. It's a $35 hail mary, that I'm willing to take. I've done it successfully in the past with another dead HHD from an old laptop. Hoping this might work here too.

Don't feel like shop work today, don't feel like staring at a screen anymore either. Just feel like going on a very long motorcycle ride with no destination in mind......Thankfully work starts backup tomorrow with what looks like about a month of straight 12's so I'll have something to occupy my mind and time for a while, as well replenish my dwindling bank account.

The grinder project will have to wait.
 
Oh, I didn't post for sympathy btw, just to vent a little, and maybe brighten somebodies day with a "well at least I'm not that guy" story if you're having a rough go. It's all my own damn fault. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.

The laptop drop story. I had it perched on my drill press table so I could alter some programs while running. I normally don't like taking it out there with all the dust and dirt, but thought, ah just this one time.....The CNC was running, and I thought, this is a good time to polish up some parts on the scotchbright wheel. The vibration from the grinder running knocked the laptop off the table and straight onto the floor upside down.
 
Dan Dubeau said:
Oh, I didn't post for sympathy btw, just to vent a little, and maybe brighten somebodies day with a "well at least I'm not that guy" story if you're having a rough go. It's all my own damn fault. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
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No sympathy from me Dan. Just compassionate understanding. Been there, done that, don't want the T-shirt.
 
Went out in the garage and puttered for a bit. Cleaned up a bunch of clutter, and then my son poked his head in from out side and came it to hang out for a bit and help me clean and put stuff away. One thing led to another and I got him on the lathe for the first time. Below is one of the best things I've ever made, and he's holding the first thing he ever turned.
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Just a simple bearing fit. But he did it all, I just guided and explained. I couldn't have hit the #'s, or nailed the fit any better if I did it. He even had to split the line to hit his #. When we mic'd it and did the math he said "and a half? How do I make a half?" I just looked at him, and nodded towards the dial to let him look and play with it to figure it out, then he looked at me me a said "I gotta put it in the middle?". Yup, you do Pal. "But that's pretty hard?" Ya, that's why Machinist's get paid the medium bucks Pal. :)
 
Not much going on at home this week, but doing some pretty cool stuff at work, on a great crew for a cement plant shutdown, so that nice to finally have some shop funding money coming in....:)

I jumped the gun and ordered a bunch of stuff I've wanted for a while, so that it would be here to play with when the shutdown ended and it arrived from rdg in the uk today.

You ever see those videos where you have to remove a gold bar through a hole in a glass box and there's not enough room to get your hand AND the bar out through the hole? I'll admit it took me much longer to get this out than it should have.....lol
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Just some new myford Chuck mounting options. A back plate for my 5c collet Chuck, and a 2ba tap and dia. Some projects for a couple weeks from now.

Finding the myford spindle to r8 adaptor was a nice find. I was going to make one because I figured there'd be no way that was a commercially made item, but I was pleasantly surprised and it was cheap too. Saved me a few hours of work.
 
Dan Dubeau said:
You ever see those videos where you have to remove a gold bar through a hole in a glass box and there's not enough room to get your hand AND the bar out through the hole? I'll admit it took me much longer to get this out than it should have.....lol
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That happens here too Dan. I think the biggest issue is how long our driveway is. The house and barn are over a half km from the highway. So we usually use the car or truck to get the mail. That makes it difficult to get the mail out of the mailbox even when it's a few envelopes. A box is a challenge. A tight box is impossible. Add big hands to the mix and it starts to become comical. Eventually I get out of the truck but only as a last resort. The worst are packages like yours. No room at the sides or top for big fingers. The tighter the fit, the worse it gets.

Every so often I think about putting a hole in the opposite side for a push stick. Then I remember how much my wife hates spiders and mice.
 
Susquatch said:
That happens here too Dan. I think the biggest issue is how long our driveway is. The house and barn are over a half km from the highway. So we usually use the car or truck to get the mail. That makes it difficult to get the mail out of the mailbox even when it's a few envelopes. A box is a challenge. A tight box is impossible. Add big hands to the mix and it starts to become comical. Eventually I get out of the truck but only as a last resort. The worst are packages like yours. No room at the sides or top for big fingers. The tighter the fit, the worse it gets.

Every so often I think about putting a hole in the opposite side for a push stick. Then I remember how much my wife hates spiders and mice.
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It initially required a signature to release. I filled out the release form, specifying that they drop it at the front door, and take a picture for proof instead of a signature. I got the notice of delivery at 12:00 while I was at work and the Wife and kids were out all day. Yet I had no hits on the cameras of a delivery made at the house. I was just relieved they jammed it in the box, as I really didn't want to start my weekend messing around with that. The "proof" they sent me, was just a form that said "delivered package to address" lol.

Funny, building a new, bigger mailbox has been on my wish list since we moved here in 2010. Too many other fun things to do though, and just buying one at this point would be admitting defeat, so I keep going with the small rusted out steel one with no flag......I want to cast the back, and front with our house #'s in the casting, and then wrap it in aluminum riveted together. Have it all drawn up and everything, just need a foundry big enough to pour it.....

Damn, I just realized that I don't have that anymore, as it was lost with all my other files too :(. I wonder how many other work in process projects I lost and forgot about now....:( Fresh start I guess....
 
Dead drive?
I have taken to backing up on (count them!) 4 external devices (Paranoid? Me? Or just witnessed failures?). To be sure, I generally back up only stuff that would be a real pain to lose (financial records) but every time I update those I back them up. If I was really concerned I'd also do an off-site back up to a server somewhere, but currently I'm relatively protected from local failure, just not the entire house burning down.

Also, my old boss liked to say "The question is not have you backed it up, the question is can you restore it".
 
mickeyf said:
Also, my old boss liked to say "The question is not have you backed it up, the question is can you restore it".
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I've been bitten by this more than once. The problem is the OS on the backup drives. If they crap out, you often dont know it until its too late. Then what?

More recently, I've taken to NAS on an old desktop. That way the storage is format friendly for recovery, and lots of warnings about problems. I'll prolly never buy another normal NAS again.
 
Ya, it's dead. I probably could have paid to send it away and have somebody professional try to recover it, but for now will just rebuild form zero. Not the first time.....You'd think I would learn my lesson. I have backups of all the important stuff, but hadn't really done one in a while. Probably lost about a years worth of projects. Oh well. I used to tell the kids when their lego creations got destroyed by one another, If you built it once, you can build it again.....quicker the second time. It really stung when my Daughter told me that about losing my belt grinder design......My sawmill carriage, and my log arch models are completely gone though which suck. I started working on them in the fall, and once the snow fell switched to other indoor projects. Had them both fully designed ready to build once the snow started melting, and I was finished with the grinder :(. If I drew it once.....Everything else, oh well.

I started redrawing the grinder from memory about an hour ago, measuring the parts I've made, and from the prints I have. Just 2.5d for now so I can re figure out some important dims to finish assembling it. I will go back and re model it fully in 3d at some point. Maybe. I REALLY hate doing the same thing twice..... Almost done, then I'm heading out after lunch and can't wait to give this new superflex tig torch cable a try. Love it already and haven't even used it.
 
Dan Dubeau said:
Ya, it's dead.
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What does that mean Dan? And what OS was it using.

I got some pretty darn good software that looks for old Fats and can even read raw sectors and build a new FAT if it spins and the read heads work. It usually fails to recover everything but I'm always amazed at what it can do.
 
It would spin sometimes. Let me see stuff other times, but not do anything with it except freeze. Many years ago I had a drive die in an old laptop, and I was able to recover it by buying a new working drive the exact same, and swapping the platters. I tried the same with this one this week, and am pretty sure I have now killed any chance at recovery.....It will spin up in the new drive, but it comes up as a blank 2tb drive (it's a 500gb). Not sure what's going on. I have zero patience or time for it right now, and feel like I've wasted enough time playing with it, that could have been used more productively to finishing the grinder. I will get back to it at some point again. There are things on there that I would like to recover other than projects, but for now I think by removing the platters, I may have killed it permanently. Hasty ill informed decision......

On a positive note, the new SSD drive is very fast, and I now have an extra 1tb of NVME storage too....CMOS battery is dead now though. Deja vu....I ordered a pair and will go and swap my janky homemade one in the Tormach computer when it get's here.

Edit: It was running windows 10.
 
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