Precision Mathews PM1440E-LB
#31
Now that the welder will power up I can ask it how many hours it has on it and how many arc starts it has seen ...

Hours ... 3 hours, 52 minutes

Arc Starts ... 482

I bought the TIGRunner package Willie pointed out in October of 2008. Then life intervened and I never really got to use it. At the current rate [original cost plus repair] it has cost a little over $2300 per hour. One hell of an expensive education and I'm not exactly sure what the take-away from the lesson is.
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#32
(12-21-2014, 10:19 AM)arvidj Wrote: ....... I stopped by the pawn shop on the way home from work and dug thru their "loose sockets, wrenches and other stuff" box that is marked "Make an offer". I found several 12 point sockets of the appropriate size, and assortment of 3/8 and 1/2 inch extensions and some other stuff and for $5 was on my way. Some amount of fiddling, noodling and pondering later I was all set to build a "goes around" ... a tool that would go around the motor and allow me to get at the bolts. For those of you old enough to remember what a Chevrolet small block distributor hold down bolt wrench looks like ... it 'goes around' the distributor body and gets at the hold down bolt that is under the distributor body ... that is what I was going to make.

Arvid

Not only am I old enough to remember what they look like (sigh...) I still have them. The trouble is, I'm old enough to have forgotten where I put them too!  Big Grin


   
Willie
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#33
I have a set in the tool box too, along with an allen wrench on a flex shaft with a screw driver handle to reach in the door and set the points.
Free advice is worth exactly what you payed for it.
Greg
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#34
Yep, used that one to set the points on my 350. So much easier to do with the engine running. I think I used one of the half moon wrenches for the bolt though.
Hunting American dentists since 2015.
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#35
That reminds me - I should probably go wipe the dust off my dwell meter again.   Big Grin

Right now the young guys are sitting around thinking, "points"???  17428 

Rotfl 
Willie
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#36
Dwell meter. Wow, that brings back memories. Chin

Ed
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#37
Not right now, my ute has electronic ignition and EFI.

However, with points and a carby you can always manage to get them started on the side of the road in the middle of the night. I left my lights on one day and couldn't push start the ute, as the EFI needs to see voltage to work...
Hunting American dentists since 2015.
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#38
Well I am finally getting a chance to unwind the "stuff happens" stack and get back on track with the lathe.

The welder issue ...

One of my last notations about the welder mentioned a ~$2,150 bill. I was lucky enough to get in touch with the local Miller rep and plead my cast ... yes, it was 8 years old but it had less than 4 hours of actual use. Is there anything you can do to help.

He said he would call Toll Gas and see if they could work something out. He called back a couple days later and they had worked things down to a number that I was comfortable with. I was not expecting it to be a "no cost full warranty repair", and it wasn't, but it was a number much more palatable than the original number. Both Miller and Toll Gas contributed to the bill reduction an I am very appreciative of their efforts.

The lesson learned, at least for me, is "when looking to make a significant tool purchase be sure to take the local vendor and the manufacturer into account in the price". Yes, I could have purchased a different TIG unit from an internet supplier for less but in this case the investment in what appeared to be a top shelf machine thru a local welding supply seems to have paid some dividends 8 years after the purchase.

I brought the machine home, used the engine hoist to put it back in the cart and pushed the cart into the garage. It sat there for about 4 weeks and I was finally able to get the time to reconnect the gas and water cooler and put it back with its friends.


.jpg   welders(-1).jpg (Size: 53.21 KB / Downloads: 67)

I had mentioned that the TIG, MIG and plasma cutter were on the same circuit. I thought I would pass along a picture of my non-OSHA non-NEMA approved extension cord. This is the business end, with two 4 wire 20 amp 220v plugs and three 2 wire with ground 50 amp plugs. It is on the end of a 25 foot 4 ga 3 wire with ground cable that plugs into a 50 amp receptacle next to the 100 amp garage breaker box.

   

The garage is small so shuffling the 3 devices around and plugging and plugging into a single 50 amp receptacle would have been cumbersome. As long as I was going to mitigate that issue by putting in 3 50 amp receptacles on the single breaker [I am the only one that works in the garage so 'using all three at the same time' was not an issue and therefore a single breaker would be adequate] I might as well use a flexible cable rather than inflexible wiring in the wall. After having justified the project [at least to me] I spent a day making it happen. That was at least 10 years ago and I have not had an electrical fire in the garage so I am satisfied with the results.

Now maybe I can get back to the lathe.
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#39
Nothing wrong with that Arvid. You used good, stout wire to feed it so to hell with OSHA and NEMA.

Ed
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#40
Arvid,

Have you made any chips yet with your new lathe?

Ed
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