Quality Shop Time

[PHPaul]

Spent the bulk of the day in the shop.

Removed, disassembled, cleaned, lubed, reassembled and reinstalled the 3 jaw chuck on the lathe. The jaw action was notchy, and the reason was apparent: beaucoup dirt, grease and chips inside the chuck. Scroll was filthy, jaw tracks were full of dried grease. All better now.

Then I made a set of soft copper jaw covers for gripping easily marred stuff like soft aluminum or brass.

Third project was to make a new set of jaw inserts for the ancient Craftsman 5" vise that came with the welding table I bought off Craigslist 3-4 years ago. Been gonna do that for a while, just never got a round tuit. Original inserts were hardened (file just skidded off them...) but it had been used for welding and beating on stuff so they were all beat to shit and the screws holding them to the vise jaws were worn out or plumb missing. Cut new ones to rough size out of scrap mild steel then milled them to finish size and drilled the mounting holes. Just waiting for some screws from McMaster-Carr to mount them.

I think tomorrow's project will be to put the new horn in the Corvette. I don't believe the wimpy "meep-meep" horn that it has now is original, probably got replaced by the wrong horn. Downright embarrassing sound. Makes a VW Beetle sound macho...

Depending on how that goes, next project will be to pull the driver's seat out so I can remove the doorsill kick panel and lube/free up the E-brake handle.

[GeneMO]

Put an air tank on and get some real Trucker air horns!.

Gene

[PHPaul]

Or a Dixie horn...I mean, if yer gonna go redneck...

[Bkeepr]

…I think tomorrow's project will be to put the new horn in the Corvette. I don't believe the wimpy "meep-meep" horn that it has now is original, probably got replaced by the wrong horn. Downright embarrassing sound. Makes a VW Beetle sound macho...

Sounds like a great day to spend the day.

My son just sold his well-used F150 crew cab. What sealed the deal was the horn. Soon after he had bought it new, he had installed an auxiliary horn, so it had two: the OEM horn, and his selectable aux. It was a compressor-run horn from a diesel freight train. He didn’t use it often, but some folks just deserve a special wake up call, ya know. He’d often blow it coming up the lane onto the farm for a visit so I’d know he was home no matter what I was doing.

[Patria]

wimpy "meep-meep" horn

perhaps like my 2002 Corolla's.

[GeneMO]

They really do put some wimpy sounding horns on things now.

I have a nice, brass steam whistle. That would work, but need a pretty good air source. They will work on air, but sound better on steam. Came out of the old chicken processing building in Boonville, Mo.

Gene