I am constantly using an ultrasonic cleaner to clean small parts of machines or tooling as I disassemble and rebuild them. I also have a project in mind to use one to clean a collection of albums I won at auction for $1.00. When Vevor reached out and asked if I wanted to review a mag drill, I turned them down and instead asked if they would be willing to provide an ultrasonic cleaner instead, and they did!
In this video, I disassemble, clean and reassemble a really nice Argentinian made live center for the South Bend Lathe and give an opinion of the ultrasonic cleaner also.
Vevor Ultrasonic Cleaner: https://s.vevor.com/bfReE0
You can also use discount code VV2324 for a 5% discount on any product.
In my journey to get a working DRO on the K&T 2HL, I have been struggling to find a solution of where to mount the scales. There are NO flat spots on the knee. At all. So I have to come up with a creative solution to mount the scales. I am confident this will work. I’ve never seen anyone do this before, so maybe I’m the first to think about this solution!
For my YouTube channel, I have been using Final Cut Pro on my Mac to assemble and edit all of my videos. I generally create one library for each video, sometimes I will create multiple videos in one library, but all on the same subject. It often matters as to when I think I will be recording and editing them. I have no hard set rules.
When I am working on these videos, I keep the Final Cut library on a faster Solid State Drive. But when I am finished, I move it to one of two 8TB external Hard Disk Drives as an archive/backup. But these drives are starting to fill up.
What I need is a place to archive these old projects, so I never lose them. If I need them, I probably won’t need them right away. And a way I can do that cheaply. I could just buy another hard drive, but my worry is that they can and do fail. Even if just sitting on a shelf. I’d still need some other kind of backup for my backup.
Commercial Online Cloud Backup
I started looking at a commercially available cloud based solution. The ones I look at have some pretty steep prices, but they seem to be targeted to the user that might need ready access to the files in the archive, or even unattended backup/archiving of files. That’s not what I am looking for.
Amazon Web Services
I am an AWS Solution Architect so I started looking at the cost of storing these files in Amazon’s Simple Storage Service, or S3. There are several different storage tiers with S3. And some of them can be costly.
For example, if I were to upload all 16TB of archived projects I have right now, it would cost well over $350 a month for the standard, ready access storage class. But I don’t need that. I’m only interested in moving the files up that I haven’t looked at for a year or more. And I probably will never need to look at them. But I’d like to be able to, even if I don’t need them right away.
The least expensive S3 storage class is called Glacier Deep Archive. That same 16TB of storage would only be a little more than $15 a month. Which is perfect for me. Even storing 100TB is only around $100 a month, 1/3rd the price of the standard tier S3 tier and 1/6th the price of the more popular online backup solution. I’m not saying those other options aren’t worth it, they are for what they provide, which is a lot more than what I need.
My Solution
So I set off, with the help of AI, to write a script that will scan a directory and upload my Final Cut libraries to Amazon S3 Glacier Deep Archive. I wrote it in BASH to make it portable to other operating systems and for other uses. So far, I have uploaded well over a terabyte of data to S3 and I might be paying $1.00 for the month. It is going to take me a while to upload all of these files, but it sits and does it in a terminal window.
The script scans the directory structure, locates any Final Cut libraries, creates multi-part zip files using 7Zip, then used the AWS S3 API to upload the multiple parts. Once all parts have been uploaded, it’s completed. I still manually verify that the file made it before I delete the local version. If it fails at any point during the upload, I can execute the script again and it will skip all of the parts that have already been uploaded.
In this video, I share some clips from previous videos as well as some statistics about how the channel did in 2024. I even share how much money YouTube paid the channel!
When the boiler on the Reading 2100 steam locomotive (soon to be American Freedom Train 250) is fired up again, instead of coal, it will be running on oil. As a result, there needs to be a way to regulate the flow of oil into the firebox using a new valve that will be controlled by a power quadrant. My task this week is to machine the quadrant and bracket to accept a new bushing and to also machine the busing. A control shaft will then be machined to fit.
No shop video this week. I am spending time with family and friends to celebrate the reason for the season – the birth of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. I hope you find peace and joy in whatever part of the world you are in.
With the bulk of the machine clean-ish, I can start putting it back together. But first, I need to examine the ways to see if they are too far gone or are the usable or is it going to need a complete rebuild.
In this video, I walk through the installation of a Trav-A-Dial on my 1942 South Bend Lathe. A Trav-A-Dial is a handy tool that gives you a precise way to measure linear movement directly on the lathe without needing a digital readout (DRO). It’s great for improving accuracy, especially on an older machine like mine. I go through the process of mounting it up, making adjustments, and getting it ready to use. I still need to calibrate it for absolute measurement once I figure out how to make the right gage.
This Sanford 6×12 Surface Grinder is disgustingly filthy. The level of abuse this must have seen is like nothing I have ever seen before. No effort was made to keep it clean and serviceable. The question remains, am I crazy to even try and use this clapped out machine?
