When I was nerding, I was complaining about the amount of effort I was going through to just display a line of text with proper word wrapping. I introduce you to, QTextLayout which does exactly that. I’m in the process of debugging the newly re-written code.
3 steps forward, two steps back. Regardless, I feel better about it.
On the other hand, I started reading the transcript of Delaware State Sportsmens Association Inc v. Delaware Department of Safety and Homeland Security, 23-1633, (3rd Cir. Mar 25, 2024) ECF No. 118. My blood pressure went up. I’ll be reading the rest of it and presenting some feedback. Suffice to say, the judges in the case asked questions that indicate that they have reading comprehension issues.
The left is busy screaming that Justice Thomas has no business hearing a case regarding the persecution of the J6 victims because his wife was “participating in the insurrection.”
Isn’t it amazing how the most heavily armed group of people in the world, showed up for the insurrection and forgot to bring their guns?
The number of J6 victims that were persecuted for having scary looking tactical gear and med kits is not surprising.
Note, I do have far too many spelling errors. “Prosecution” and “persecution” are two different words.
We are also watching the trial of Trump. If I wasn’t already sick from what they were doing to the J6 victims, I would have more sympathy for what they are doing to him.
This weekend will be “fun”. I’m going to be making a backing plate for a lathe chuck. I picked up a “chunk-o-iron” this week. 5.5in in diameter, 8.76 inches long. I should be able to get at least 3 backplates out of that. The cost of one backplate, if they made one to fit my lathe, would cost more than twice the cost of the raw stock.
This will be an adjust true collet chuck. When I’m done, it should be able to maintain 0.0002″ TIR. That is beautiful.
There are three primary types of lathe chucks. There is an “independent” chuck, a “self-centering” chuck, and then collet chucks.
The chuck is attached to a backplate which mounts on the spindle of your lathe. You machine the face of the backplate in place on your chuck. The better you do, the better your check will be centered.
When using a self-centering chuck or a collet chuck, you are stacking total indicated run out, TIR. The backplate will have some run out. By doing the final machining in place, you can reduce that greatly. You leave a boss on the face and that fits into a recess in the back of the chuck.
If that fit is very close, there is very little movement that can be done to cause run out. But there might be some.
When using an independent jaw, each jaw moves independently. Normally, that would be a four jaw chuck. By carefully measuring the run out, you can determine which jaw is the furthest from the center. You can tighten that jaw and the work will move closer to the center.
If the jaws are already tight, you can loosen the jaw on the opposite side slightly. Using this method, you can easily get your work running true (no run out) to within 0.0005.
The magic of an “adjust true” chuck is that it combines a self centering chuck or a collet chuck with an independent type of adjustment.
You put the backplate with chuck onto the spindle. You put a known quality pin in the chuck. You can now shift the front part of the chuck independently to get that very low TIR.
Using a collet chuck, you can take the work out of the chuck, do something to it, put it back in the collet. It will have the same run out as it had before.
This allows me to do some things more easily.
I’m glad you all got to laugh at my misfortune of losing some of my music. The magic of streaming music has introduced me to 1000s of songs I would never have heard otherwise.
What artist or song from your past have you listened to recently and said, “that’s horrible?” For me, it was Olivia Newton John’s “Physical”. I thought I would enjoy that blast from the past, I didn’t.
What artist or song have you discovered today that you would not have enjoyed in the past? For me, it is all the old time swing bands and Frank Sinatra.
The comments are open.
music comment- far too many from the past to mention… music now- steel guitar, regge, metal ( Five Finger Death Punch type), instrumentals, rap(yes, I know, I know..) but I like some of it. some country, SOME, alot of today’s country really suks , older country. I haven’t listened to fm radio in years. Its either stuff on my phone or an audio book..
Stuff I used to listen to and now think is horrible: Space is Deep by Hawkwind (or at this point, anything by Hawkwind. Interestingly, the band is still touring after 55 years).
Re backing plate: some years ago I bought a quite old Reed-Prentice lathe (18 inch). It came with a chuck bolted, rather insecurely, to a face plate. No backing plate. I did just as you did: take a hunk of iron and make a backing plate out of it. Part of the fun was measuring the spindle nose well enough, and figuring out how to match the spindle thread (4 inch by 4 tpi if I remember right). I had to make a makeshift gauge matching that spindle nose to check my work when doing the backing plate boring and inside threading. And part of the challenge was that I had never done threading before, and the one and only time I ran a lathe at all was a day or so for a boy scout project. I don’t think my work is good to half a mil, but I’m not sure the lathe is, either. It’s probably from around 1930, perhaps older; no good way to tell.
Re “3 steps forward, two steps back.”
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A thought… It seems to me that in situations like this, the phrasing should be reversed, e.g. “two steps back, then three steps forward.” You might have had to backtrack a little, but you’re further along than where you were and now closer to where you wanted to be than when you started. Same result in the end, but frames it a little more positively. 🙂 (Or if you prefer, it’s like when doctors are questioned as to how many people to save vs. how many to let die.)
The normal phrase is “One step forward, two steps back.” My miss quote is to imply that I am making progress. Which is good.
I hear several variants frequently enough to know there is some not-so-deeply-buried frustration running around my workplace. I see part of my job as trying to help maintain morale, at least among the early- and mid-career folks. This is simply one way of reframing I try to use when and where applicable.