Metal work is so much different than woodworking...
I have heavily modified my Bridgeport mill (above) to include ball screws, power drive on X and Y axes, an Accurite DRO and variable speed motor.
Below is a 13" X 40" lathe I bought myself as a retirement gift. IBM gave me a food processor... The lathe has a digital readout and is fantastically accurate - the best tool purchase I have made. This model is imported by Eisen Machinery from Taiwan, and there is no comparison to my old Chinese lathe. I moved all 2500 pounds of it into the shop and leveled it out myself, so the lathe and I are very close friends. Yes, it is an it...
Below is a 13" X 40" lathe I bought myself as a retirement gift. IBM gave me a food processor... The lathe has a digital readout and is fantastically accurate - the best tool purchase I have made. This model is imported by Eisen Machinery from Taiwan, and there is no comparison to my old Chinese lathe. I moved all 2500 pounds of it into the shop and leveled it out myself, so the lathe and I are very close friends. Yes, it is an it...
HAL 9000 Build
Seems kind of silly, but this is one of my favorite projects - a HAL 9000 control panel from 2001 A Space Odyssey. A lot of work goes into one of these things. The lens is a Nikon FC E8 Fisheye adapter, readily available on Ebay. The lens ring is 1/2" X 4" 6061 aluminum stock machined on the lathe. The frame is 1/8" X 1" 6061 stock with a 1/8" groove to align everything for soldering. I am posting a few pictures to show my progress. I am building three of these; for me, my son, Justin, and George my best friend. Notice the HAL 9000 control unit on the right.
The above photo from the movie shows HAL, and one angry Dave, who is in the process of deactivating HAL after he (it?) killed off the rest of the crew. Notice the key in Dave's hand... The lens below now has three bright LEDs to illuminate it when mounted in the case. The case is 6061 aluminum, machined on the mill, as are the lens rings, machined on the lathe.
I got to thinking... If I am building a HAL 9000, I had better have a way to deactivate its higher order functions. So this weekend I built a replica of the deactivation key from the movie. Here it is, that is, here they are. One for each of us and one spare in case I botch the machining. They need a bit of polishing, but look very close to the movie. The keys are machined from some scrap silicon bronze. Notice that the key is exactly the same blank as Kubrick used in the movie. Finding the blanks was a challenge, but I wanted them to be accurate. Kubrick likely used aluminum bodies for his keys and that makes sense if one is truly going into space, but I really like silicon bronze and the patina it forms after a few months. So there you go... bronze it is. Holding one of these things is a joy - bronze has a wonderful presence.
OK, I'm getting carried away, but I just cranked out four more key blanks. They still need a lot of work; there are two pieces of 1/2" 6061 aluminum, each having two blanks. Oddly, double sided tape holds them together during machining. Perhaps these last four will go up on ebay.
Some progress on HAL. I built an Arduino wave shield (electronics shown strapped together to fit the case) which can hold lots of wave files - 30 in my case. It sounds really good, even with the crummy little 2" speaker. The case actually looks nice, although it is difficult to come to that conclusion looking at this picture. Wait a bit for the next photos once I have the wave file player imbedded in the case.
Here is one completed HAL 9000. It is completely operational and all of its circuits are functioning perfectly. It looks and sounds great! I just wish I had built this, or could have built this, years ago. Amazing what a piece of black anodized aluminum, a Nikon lens, a HAL 9000 sticker and an aluminum lens ring does to make this look professional.
Just a little detail, but those sometimes make all the difference. I made a small aluminum plate to highlight the HAL 9000 logo decal. The corner detail is evident as well.
Here's the back of HAL. I set in cherry panels which I suspect were not included in the movie. Tho oval is my maker's mark.