Sometimes things come together, albeit a bit crudely...
I've been frustrating myself with a VERY disorganised "table" on which I've been keeping my mill's accessories. This is the way things looked until today - a very good example of a very bad example, and definitely no way to treat tools:
Besides being an untidy twit, I simply didn't have space to store a lot of the "stuff", and this morning I received a package with more:
A selection of end mills that outnumbers the lot I had built up over the last couple of years I've been machining. I happily blame Bogs for this; he gave Richon Tools's web link and the rest is history; that whole selection literally cost me less than just two ball nose cutters bought locally. But where to go with them
On to the recycling....
Early in December, the nice big printer we used for the last six years at work to print a couple of thousand customer statements every month packed up. I duly got repair quotes, had to pick myself and my office chair back up off the floor, and rather ordered a new printer; it was cheaper. The old printer was moved down to my
orifoffice, and stood there awaiting "disposal" - lots of paper work needed to keep the accountants and financial director happy before it can be taken away...
Then, last week, the MD came around the building in "Seagull" fashion and demanded that I get rid of all the crap standing around my office, as we had VIPs coming later in the week and he wanted to show them our data centre. I don't mind getting the data centre shown off; it's my
responsibility baby, I put each and every bit of kit in there myself, so I feel quite honoured when we have VIP guests there. I keep it really spick 'n span; problem is, one has to go through my office - which is NOT spick 'n span
So I did all the paper work, got all the signatures, and could responsibly dispose of the crud from my office. Some went straight to the tip, but I loaded my little Polo up with some "usable" items, and disposed of it at home; quite legally, and the bosses know I do it
That big printer will be stripped down for usable bits (shafts, springs, bearings and so on), but it also had a very nice stand on lockable caster wheels:
Amongst my scrap wood, I had a 35mm thick kitchen sink cut-out from a counter top; it would work nicely with some modifications:
Further scratching around amongst the "brown stuff", and I found some off-cut pieces of pine shelving a neighbour tossed out. After a bit of work with the jig saw, portable drill and a screwdriver, those were installed in the "printer stand":
My other neighbour is currently adding extensions to his house, and a bit of pine roof construction cut-off was tossed on the builder's scrap pile; I picked it up and poked a couple of randomly placed holes of varying sizes in it:
Got to love one's neighbours - except the one across the street; my ears are hating me for having repaired some nuts on his trumpet
A couple of old 3.5" floppy disk holders (also tossed out at work about a year ago), and there's some level of sanity to the different sizes and types of milling cutters I suddenly have an abundance of:
The "counter top" also received some jig saw treatment and hole poking to hold draw bars and MT4 shanks and so on; I ended up with this lot:
So, recycled printer stand, floppy holders, shelving offcuts and roof-building offcuts... Not pretty at all, but functional, and best of all, it cost me only about N$ 1.50 (for electricity and screws), and a bit of time.
And that's most likely the last time anyone will see the mill accessory trolley that neat
, Arnold
