For all those voicing support, thanks much, Bernd, couldn't get that avatar up without your help, and more pictures are on the way. I just got hit with a bad virus, I think it was disguised as an upgrade for sun/java, as that was the only thing I up-loaded when I got hit. I was loading pictures onto photobucket, got stopped with a popup demanding I download a new version of something java/sun, closed all my windows, pulled up something that looked just like the popup, from my desk top, ignored it, couldn't load pictures and went back. I went to down load the demanding version, got told I had to remove the old one first, un-installed it, the new version installed right away (that's about twenty minutes if you're on a land line) got four pics up loaded to photobucket, and then the virus took over my computer. This is the second time in a week I was hit in the same way with what looks like the same virus, as it did all the same things. I got hit with what I think is the same one about three months ago, so I'm thinking I pissed someone off. The computer shop says they'll call me when its fixed, but I wanted to at least give everyone a head's up. I think it's personal, I write a lot of political essays which are rather conservative and not popular with the "progressive crowd", and I'm pretty sure this forum will have good protection against anything coming through it, but when a virus hits, a person should give warning. On another note, we're having the coldest winter since I moved to my new house by the creek, maybe this summer the mosquitoes will be vastly fewer due to the first two week continuous freeze in nine years!!! Had to weld up the seal collar of a dump truck wheel which lost all its bearings about a hundred miles before the wheel was noticed, nice weather for heavy welding and grinding. Had to put the hub in my three jaw with an inside grip to grind out the weld to the point of being able to machine the spigot open again for the seal to press in, the sheet over the whole lathe did not keep all the grinding swarf out, so the whole carriage assembly had to come off and get washed out. You're not supposed to mig weld cast iron, but since most wheel hubs are "semi-steel" which is cast iron with about thirty percent scrap added, I did it any way, leaving lots of metal to remove. I was going to use my die grinder in the tool post, but a thousandth was a heavy cut, and wasn't going well. I ended up using a four inch angle grinder with a worn out wheel, spinning my lathe at about six hundred, rpm, holding the grinder inside the spigot and trying to get it ground even by feel. Wth about forty or fifty thousanths left, I ground a carbide tipped boring bar (a real short one) with a fresh, sharp no radius edge, and got the spigot five thousandths undersized for a good press fit and done. I should be done with cylinders soon, although I was way to optimistic on how fast cutting lots of fins would go, and doing up a couple extra is both necessary and time consuming. I'll be posting pictures of where I've got as soon as my computer comes home. Can't trust the wife's computer, it doesn't even like me using it.
