Musings

Jersey Jon Visits Bearing Gifts

IMG_6464

As you may recall, this past July I attended the annual Martin J. Donnelly toolapalooza warehouse cleanout auction, when more than three thousand lots of tools in less than twenty hours of auctioneering.  My old friend Jon was there with me, it was his first time there and it blew his mind.  At his strong suggestion I bid on and won a superb vintage Lamson machinist’s lathe, to bring back to the barn and add to my inventory.  To sweeten the deal, Jon offered to tune up the headstock and outfit the unit with a new drive mechanism.

cIMG_7922

Recently Jon dropped by the barn on his way home from a vacation of vintage motorcycling with his pal Mike from the Pickers television show (I believe Jon was one of the brains who came up with the show’s idea) and brought with him the refurbished headstock and the attached new drive motor.  He had done some bearing work and scavenged a DC motor and control from a treadmill, his favorite source for machine motors.

cIMG_7930

We spent a few hours assembling the lathe and getting it running, which was very exciting. Watching the first hot curling chips come off was quite a thrill.

IMG_793c2

Jon will return in a month or so to finish the tune-up, as only someone with almost two dozen lathes can.

cIMG_7925

Together we will try to decode the thread cutting chart on the lathe.

cIMG_7936

After the obligatory portrait of a fashionable man with his retro-fashionable lathe, we bid each other farewell as he raced for home to beat the coming snowstorm.

Jon’s account in the Bank of Don is full to overflowing.