Just me Darren, trying to get a bit more info across.
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I was galloping along on a racehorse with this post, then it dropped dead under me.
So I am having to take a couple of days off while I find myself a new set of legs to climb on. Don't worry, the post will soon be up and running again.
So for times like this, I have prepared a little article for you to ponder over. Some of you will have seen this before, but a lot of you will have not.
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While I'm waiting to get onto the next stage, here is a little statement.
MACHINING IS ONLY A STATE OF MIND.

That really means, if you think it can't be done, then you will never be able to do it.

I am very lucky, and now have a very respectable workshop built up. But that isn't the reason I can machine to a fairly good standard. You have no idea what sort of crappy machines I have had over the years, and I have always been able to achieve what I wanted to do.
Machinery doesn't make a good machinist. You can go out and buy the most expensive bits of kit on the market, but if you don't have the right state of mind, for as long as you have a hole in your a**e, you will never achieve your full potential with your machinery.
Never, ever, be jealous of what other people have. It is a fact of life that a lot of members will never be able to afford everything they really want, so just accept what you have, and use it to it's full potential. DO NOT DROOL over other peoples possessions, especially if you are in your workshop, it tends to make your machines go rusty.
If you can get the job safely mounted on your machine, and have clearance to swing the job or cutter, then you should be able to do a good job of machining it. Never think a job is impossible until you have given it a real good dose of looking at, maybe a few times, from different angles. I can spend hours just looking for a way to achieve something. It is amazing what methods the mind can come up with when it is pushed to the limits.
Reading about it is good, thinking about it is exceptional.
I always use this as an easy example.
My old workshop setup was a 1938 Atlas 10F lathe, restored over the years by myself, and a very early small mill/drill that really should have been looked after a lot better, but again, I upgraded it a little.
So this chappie comes to me and says 'I got a bike frame that I want modding, can you do it'. I told him to bring it along and I would have a looksee. He dragged out of the back of his van what looked to me like a full sized scaffold tower, it was massive. I later found out that he had taken it to a few places before he ended up at my door, they had laughed him out of their shops.
This would be a great swapsie job, I mod the frame, he landscapes my front garden. So out comes the tape measure, a quick call to my mate, and in no time this hunk of steel was on the mill and job done.
I never did get the front garden done, he did a runner. You win some, you lose some. But I did get my own back after a fashion. I had taken some rather critical engine plates and bits off the frame to lighten it up, put them on a shelf and forgot to give them to him when he took the frame away, and with him not coming back, they ended up in my recycle bin, and are now long gone, made into little engines.
On first sight would you have attempted this?

This shot is a bit deceiving, Uncle Bogs was a bit fitter then. The frame was for a full blown chopper, and was almost 7ft long. We dragged the mill into a position where we could use the end of the workbench as an extra support, as the weight of the frame was trying to tip the mill over. The head of the mill was teetering on falling off the top of the column, with 1/4" clearance under the 20mm cutter (fitted later, after this shot was taken). But we did the job, and fairly safely to boot.
Think positive, and never give up on a job unless you can prove it can't be done on your equipment.
Bogs