For Ken F. So He Doesn't Feel So Bad... (Or "If I Was Any Dumber, I could Be a Post")

[David DeCristoforo]

After reading Ken's recent tale, I feel compelled to share this story, one which, under different circumstances I might not want anyone to know about.

I was working on my vacuum chuck system and that involved a lot of mounting and removing things from the spindle. My lathe has a spindle lock but it does not lock out the electricals. Si it's easy to forget that the spindle is locked and turn on the machine. I have done this on more than one occasion, but this particular time, I did not get the switch turned off quickly enough and a breaker popped.

At first I thought it was the main breaker but, no, everything else was still powered up. I figured there must be a reset button on the motor somewhere. So I'm looking at the motor which, on my lathe, is mounted at the bottom of an enclosed cabinet. I can't see any reset button so I'm feeling around for one. Then I remember that on many motors, the reset button is on the end. But the motor is mounted so close to the cabinet side that I can't slip my hand in to feel round. And no access cover on the side of the cabinet either. Oh crap… now I'm going to have to pull the freakin' motor out just to get to the stupid reset button!

With a long sigh, I get out my wrenches, get down on the floor and start unbolting the motor. It's really tight in there and so it takes me a half hour to get the motor out. Plus, the sides of the steel cabinet are kinda sharp and the opening is not all that big so in the process, I scrape the dickins out of both forearms. But, finally the motor is out and I turn it up on end to press the…. DOH! no reset button!?!?.

Now, I'm really freaking out because I'm thinking the motor is effed. But I did not smell any burning motor smell and I get the brilliant idea that the reset must be in the switch somewhere. So I spend another twenty minutes pulling the switch but no…. no reset there either. OK, maybe the switch is toast. I have a motor over at my shop so I drive over there, get the motor, bring it back and connect the power leads to it. Punch the button and…. nothing happens.

At this point, I have even less of a clue because it could be the motor or the switch and how am I going to figure out which? I'm standing there scratching my head and looking at my lathe scattered all over the place when my gaze falls on the power strip my lathe is plugged into. Oh, right… bingo. the light goes on (finally). There on the end is a… guess what? If you guessed reset button you win the prize.

So, Ken (and anyone else who is feeling particularly stupid today), Don't feel so bad. There is always someone out there doing something dumber than whatever dumb thing you just did. I feel sorry for the guy who is doing something dumber than what I just did!

[Ken Fitzgerald]

David,

The only people who don't make mistakes aren't doing anything.

[John Keeton]

There is always someone out there doing something dumber than whatever dumb thing you just did.Funny story, David!! Trouble is, that "someone" trying to outdumb me, is usually.....ME!!:D

[David DeCristoforo]

You're right. It does seem like it's always easier for me to do something stupider than the last stupid thing I did!

[Ken Fitzgerald]

The thing that bothers me abut this dumber thing...it's like I'm in a contest ....with myself....:o

[Steve Schlumpf]

I still think I got you beat.... http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=132961

[David DeCristoforo]

Well, Steve... at least mine was related to turning! It a good thing lathes don't run on gas....

[Steve Schlumpf]

True - just wanted to show that I excel (NOT) in many fields!

[David DeCristoforo]

Well, anyone who spends a half a day trying to "fix" a snow blower that's out of gas qualifies for a free membership in my new dumbass club. You get a full charter membership including all benefits, not the least of which is 24/7 access to the help hotline staffed with the dumbest dolts I can find. If they can answer your question, you get a full refund which, since your membership is free, amounts to zilch! How dumb is that?

[Baxter Smith]

Great story. Since I knew it had a happy ending, I was trying to figure out what was going on while I was reading. That possibility never occured to me.....either!;):)

[Wally Dickerman]

Oh yes...we sometimes do unthinking, dumb things. A good sense of humor helps. I have several Talon chucks which I use most of the time. I also have one Stronghold chuck. A couple of days ago I needed to use the larger Stronghold. Removed the Talon and installed the Stronghold. Chuck key wouldn't work. Gears are somehow locked. I took the jaws off...still wouldn't work. By this time a bit of swearing going on. Suddenly it hit me...If you own Oneway chucks, you,re probably way ahead of me...Dummy, the Stronghold takes a different key!! Sheesh...

Wally

[Bernie Weishapl]

David I guess I can belong to the club. I worked on my snowblower this last week. Couldn't get it to start. Just would not do it. After a lengthy amount of time and won't say how much time I tore the carb down again (I had overhauled it) to find out it was dry. Looked in the gas tank and well you know.:eek::mad: Didn't dawn on me when I took the carb off no fuel came out. I did manage to remember to put oil in it after draining.:rolleyes:;) Put some fuel in, primed it and it started on the third crank. I hate it when I look up and the LOML is standing in the window laughing cause she knows what I did wrong.

[Joe Bradshaw]

David, I want to play too. I was going to turn a bowl. When I started my lathe I heard a loud rattle. A loose chuck? No, the chuck was tight. Loose jaws, no. Loose insert. Every thing was tight. After several more attempts to find the rattle, I happened to notice my knockout bar sticking out the end of my headstock spindle. So, I guess maybe we could form a club and have secret handshakes and whatever.

[Ken Whitney]

David,

I was finishing the bottom of a bowl and had mounted the vacuum chuck, brought up the tailstock, got everything running true, turned on the vacuum pump, and got 25" of vacuum. Great!

I finished most of the bottom, pulled off the tailstock, and the bowl fell off.

Of course I had neglected to attach the vacuum line to the lathe.

And if I had a dollar for every time I try to blow dust off something with a full face shield on...

Ken

[Mark Hix]

I lost my spur drive, could not find it anywhere. I looked in my tool boxes, the drawers on my work bench, all over the place... even sorted thru the bucket of odd cutoffs that we never seem to be able to throw out. Gave up, went to Woodcraft and bought another. Turned the project and while cleaning up, stuck the hose on my shop vac between the ways to get the shavings off the top of the motor....yep, it had fallen between the ways and the motor.

Not as much fun as running out of gas or a missing reset button but still feels the same!

[David Woodruff]

Went down to the shop yesterday to put in a brandnew/unused 1/4" R8 collet in my Bridgeport. My 20 year old Grandson was spending the afternoon so granpa was going to show the youngster, in a casual way, how to do a quick check of X-Y index prior to doing a little milling. Didn't really need to do it but I thought it would be a good learning experience for Jordan( the grandson ). I do an indexing setup on all the equipment when he is around as I know he will eventually want to use it. Anyway out with the old collet in with new, surprise the new collet somehow seemed misaligned. Drawbar would not thread. Removed drawbar & collet, test threads, screws in fine, full depth. no problem, slight anomaly, try again, same result. Here is where the definition of insanity comes to visit, "trying the same thing over and over expecting different results". At least the results were consistent for at least a dozen times. Light bulb comes on, remove draw bar, collet, screw to full depth tight, chuck up draw bar in super accurate metal lathe, reduce speed to 16 rpm, draw bar turns true, collet wobbles like a street drunk, about half inch run out. Who would have thought, felt stupid, did not expect a perfectly new unused collet to have been bored and threaded off center angle. Then I went through all the Grizzly brandnew in the box collets and found two more. There were two additional missing from the original set, I suspect Dad found the same problem in this set and tossed them as well. Somehow we expect this shiny new pretty stuff to be perfect. A few years ago my wife surprised me at Christmas with a 5HP-10" Grizzly Table Saw with roller base. I have a wonderful wife that loves tools and what I do with them. If she senses that I really want a tool, she says, "buy it". But I digress, I put the beast together. I almost instantly see a problem. I get a straight edge and measure a .020" center valley in the cast iron table. Unacceptable. I talk with a Grizzly tech the next business day, he gives me the, that's impossible response. I describe my two methods of measurements. He describes Grizzly's casting process, heat treating to stress relieve, surface grinding to within .001" flatness. I agree that is a good and correct process. He suggests that somehow the table I received must have escaped heat treatment. So I sent it back and actually received a new table before I get the other one off. I unpack the new table and measure it, the unthinkable occurred, I received another table that escaped heat treatment but better at .015", unacceptable! I call him back. He just says OK and ships another table. By now we have a steady stream of cast iron saw tables going back and forth between Lewisville, NC and Bellingham, WA. The new table measures .002" not the .001" represented as standard. I keep it and thank the guys for being customer oriented and they were but I don't buy Grizzly any more. To be fair after alignment with the good table, this has been one awesome saw. At 5hp it will cut anything that will fit a 10" blade. It has a very robust arbor system. The saw runs smooth, quiet, vibration free, and just speaks
power. My son in law has the $1500.00 Delta 5hp-10", I had rather have my Grizzly.
The collet experience reaffirmed my perception of the quality of Grizzly suppliers and attention to detail, but Dad bought the collets years ago. I did have the mis-fortune to own Grizzly's best wood lathe about 15+ years ago, seems even then it was $550. noisy piece of junk that after a years use, changed speeds at will. Promptly sold it to a guy that had one and wanted another....go figure! I did buy a Grizzly wooden tool box earlier this year, should have put the money toward a Gerstner factory second. I am insane by definition

[Michael James]

I realy Hate when that happens! Some days I can blame it on the moon!:o

[David DeCristoforo]

OK... it looks like we have a club going here. But really, Joe... leaving the knockout bar in the headstock? Pretty light weight dumbness. I'm afraid you will have to do better than that! Surely you can come up with something dumber?

[ray hampton]

I never work or use a snow blower but a certain lawn mower
use a engine-fuel system that would not start if the tank
was not more than 1/4 full---I prefer the type of fuel system
that use every drop of gasoline in the tank before you add
more fuel---pulling the rope starter is too much work
nobody mention trying to start a car when the shifter was in
drive or reverse [automatic trans. ]

[ray hampton]

mine car quit on me in the middle of a highway and I open the
hood check battery,spark ,fuel--finally after about 20 minutes
I noticed that the wire from the coil to the distributor were not
all of the way in within a week I pass a broken-down car-the
driver had just got the car tune-up--the first thing that I check
were the coil wires---I did learn from this mistake and were able
to help the mad driver

[Curt Fuller]

Dang near rewired my entire garage before I figured out (actually my son-in-law electrictian pointed out) that my garage was on the same circuit as one bathroom and I had only tripped a GFI outlet.:confused::o