# What's your best find?



## Dave G (Feb 19, 2011)

Last winter I broke the handle of my shop broom in two pieces trying to sweep the snow off of my snowplow. Well now I needed a new shop broom, so while at the store I figured I'd pick one up. They wanted a whole 15 bucks for just a broom so I figured i"d just do without, I'm kinda frugal as you may have guessed. About a month went by without a broom and the chips were building up to the ceiling so I headed into town for a broom. When I reached the first intersection on the way, I noticed something laying in the middle of the road. A new bright yellow broom laying in the middle of the road waiting for me to pick it up. I got out of my truck and picked up my new broom and looked to the sky and said thank you then turned around and went home to sweep up my shop. Has anyone else had a simular experience? And no, no one has stopped at my house looking for a lost broom yet and yes I would give it to them if they did. Thought you may enjoy this, I know I did. Dave


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## mu38&Bg# (Feb 19, 2011)

I usually find a fabulous deal on something just after I buy it. but recently I scored a 300+USD set of bearings for a $10 buy it now on Ebay.


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## Cedge (Feb 19, 2011)

Ran out of gas and rolled to a stop..... right beside a nice new bright red plastic gas can. 

Steve


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## DaveH (Feb 19, 2011)

My Wife

Dave


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## Foozer (Feb 19, 2011)

Happens too often that I tend to take it for granted. yet it is dependant upon "need"

Once flew into Georgetown CA, passenger (Trout knows the area, middle of nowhere) borrowed a car and drove down to Auburn. Got the room for the night blah blah, next day back to the plane and cant find check book. Oh well. Taxi to end of runway and buddy sees something flipping on the ground. Its my check book. Course hes spooked and I let him be. He never could understand the "Cant worry a problem away, let it solve itself"

Another, some guy shows up don't know him but he's looking for a ride to a middle of nowhere spot to see his kid, late at night no stations open but I take him anyway. Way back of course, car runs out of gas, Oh well. Car barely rolls to a stop and a truck other direction stops, guy hops out " Out of gas? Yup! He goes to back of truck and grabs a 5 gallon can pops it into the tank and just smiles, takes off about his way.

Them lotto numbers now are a tad more elusive, but pose they be a want and not a need.

Robert


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## doc1955 (Feb 19, 2011)

I have to agree with DaveH : :big:


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## DaveH (Feb 19, 2011)

doc 1955.

What my wife!!! I think I found her first :big: :big: :big:

I miss-read it - I thought it said Who's your best friend! ;D

Plus my wife was watching me 

Dave


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## Ken I (Feb 19, 2011)

My carburettor throttle link broke - bringing me to halt in the middle of nowhere in the dark.

I figured I could fix it with a piece of sturdy fencing wire and ran off down the road in the direction of a friends house to look for some.

Hadn't gone more than a dozen paces when I tripped over a loop of the stuff and fell really hard.

Fate can have a rather strange sense of humour.

Ken


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## Metal Butcher (Feb 19, 2011)

HMEM :bow: :bow: :bow: :bow: :bow:


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## DaveH (Feb 19, 2011)

MB,
Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear, :-[

Did you bring an apple :big:

Dave


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## cl350rr (Feb 19, 2011)

Cedge  said:
			
		

> Ran out of gas and rolled to a stop..... right beside a nice new bright red plastic gas can.
> 
> Steve



drove my "under construction" CJ5 to work one day (15 miles) on the way home it started acting funny. kept running so I drove it home and it died in the driveway rolling to a stop in it's parking spot. the gas tank was completely dry of gas.

Randel


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## Bill Gruby (Feb 20, 2011)

I have to agree with Metal Butcher. Only been here a short whils and it seems like home. Thanx Rick.

 "Bill Gruby"


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## mu38&Bg# (Feb 20, 2011)

So I've been searching craigslist for a few months now trying to find more machinist tools. The more I Look the more I realize i got a very good deal on the toolbox I bought. Kennedy 5 drawer bottom Kennedy 2 drawer middle and Craftsman 8 drawer top boxes. Filled with random shop made parallels, some vee blocks 3 indicators, 4 mics, depth mic, 2 calipers, a full drawer of mostly broken carbide endmills, and just a bunch of small stuff you end up needing while doing this stuff. All for a whopping $400. I can't find a deal remotely similar in value.


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## Jtrain (Feb 21, 2011)

Metal Butcher  said:
			
		

> HMEM :bow: :bow: :bow: :bow: :bow:


  I agree,  HMEM


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## GWRdriver (Feb 21, 2011)

My best find was my Troyke 9" rotary table. I had looked for years for a low profile (relatively speaking) 8" or 9" table with no luck. In looking on eBay the Troyke 9" appeared to be as close to what I wanted as I had found but any for sale below $500 seemed to be in bad shape if not beaten up. After about two years of lurking a really grungy looking Troyke 9 came up on eBay. The photo was very poor and there was no description other than 9" Troyke rotary table and the base bid was $150. On a hunch (what could I lose?) I emailed the guy and asked him to tell me honestly what the actual condition was and he wrote back that he was retiring from his grinding shop business after 60 years and the table had been bought for one job a few years ago and had sat on a toolroom shelf since then. So I took an chance and bought it at $150 figuring that if it was a dog I could clean it up and at least get my money back out of it.

It came, and it really was filthy dirty, so I proceeded to strip it down and clean everything in solvent and I discovered that under the grime was essentially a brand new rotary table and inside the table casting was the assembly date, Jan/1953! So the guy had bought it for one job . . . _"a few years ago"_!! The best thing about this transaction, even better than the price, was the quality of the tool and how it had been designed and made. It's first _very_ heavy, and then every single part has been designed to be either adjusted, slack taken up, or rebuilt. It was all hand-fitted and the finish on the exposed metal parts is as smooth as glass. I'll have it for the rest of my life and I'll expect it will outlive many owners after me. This is my best ever tool find.


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## lee9966 (Feb 21, 2011)

Last year I saw an ad on Craigslist for a machine shop's worth of tooling. 

I met the guy and it turned out there were just over 400 end mills most never used, 2 albrecht chucks ( zero - 1/16) on sensitive drilling sliding shafts, and a lot of strange things like an indicator for a paper mill to monitor rolls of paper for runout. Some Starret depth gauges, old in original box. Two brand new Mitutoyo mics, 0-1" and 1-2". Browne and Sharp jewelers vice. A diamond wheel. A few OLD things like some kind of DTI that is made without an enclosure, old belt joining tool etc all engraved with the name Dario, whover he was. Also a few curiosities like a big gear hob that I wont ever use, some GIANT end mills and so on.

So how much? I offered $800 cash, less than his ad, and he said "Let me help you load it in your truck".

If anyone wants new and nearly new large end mills, like up to 1" shafts or one of the Albrecht chucks make me an offer. I have been planning on putting them in the for sale forum for a long time.


Lee


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## Metal Butcher (Feb 21, 2011)

This was my best find in tapered and round nose end mills. I found these last year. It' an old post, maybe some of you never saw it.

http://www.homemodelenginemachinist.com/index.php?topic=7044.msg74873#msg74873

-MB


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## techonehundred (Feb 21, 2011)

I am still going through the things I got with this find. 
http://www.homemodelenginemachinist.com/index.php?topic=10802.0
I could have worked years and not afforded what was given to me.


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## pmerritt (Feb 21, 2011)

I have a non-machinist one in addition to the wife and HMEM. 

I was driving down the road with my sister one day and she saw a chain saw. We backed up and threw it into the truck. It was a Stihl 044 in good running condition! I eventually traded it in for several hundred dollars worth of tree work as it was way too much saw for me!

Peter


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## milotrain (Feb 22, 2011)

I found that my neighbor, a really nice guy who loves to chat was a machinist on the docks in Long Beach. He made fire pump drive shafts for ships.

A recent story from him:

A ice breaker ship called the Glacier has a pair of prop shafts each 9' long and 36" in diameter. They are sleeved in giant bronze bushings at a huge pressure due to the fact that when they get very cold in the arctic they must survive the massive cold without allowing water blow by.

So he used to work for Bethlehem steel who used to build these assemblies for the Glacier, until South West Marine bought the yard from Bethlehem. The process they go through is to take the shaft and the bushing separately and wrap them in electric blankets and heat them up to a high temperature, sleeve them together and cool them back down together thus creating the high pressure junction. Well SWM heats the pair up sleeves them together and turns the blankets off to let them cool down. The problem is they should have turned the blankets off from the center out to the edge, as is the bushing insulated the shaft, letting it cool at the ends and stretching in the middle. Stretching a full inch and within a few hours snapping the 9' 32" shaft in half and making a huge shattering bang. 1/4 million dollars later...

Totally lucked out on neighbors!!!


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