Scrapack: One of the best presents I ever got was a rusty lathe circa 1950's or prior. A very close friend of the family gave me the old Atlas lathe he inherited because he had no interest, and It had been rotting since his father died and when his mother passed away it became his problem. Old enough to be made of low radiation steel unlike anything possible to make on Earth today, and steel was cheap back then so they didn't skimp on it. This was the same model the USA sent the British for the lend lease program during WW2 that they used to make mortar shells with. Between my love of building things and my love of fixing things a lathe in need of restoration was a wonderful gift. Replacing the broken transverse drive carriage, age rotted belts and wiring, missing parts then pulling the rust, hours of fun just making it spin up again for what was probably the first time in at least three decades. Still not complete, it at least now runs and is functional, indoors, and free of rust. Still, a good catalog to help identify the various tooling names would go a long way towards figuring out what fragments are machine parts from something else and what is specialty bitting.
I am interested in the GA.
That sounds pretty cool. I wouldn't say that I have two left hands, but I have basically no understanding of old machines and mechanics. That's why I admire people who can repair them and bring them back to life. I could never do that.
Santa is proud of you too and left a gift in your stocking.
Thanks, for you're kind words and the gift.
One of the easiest repairs is electrolysis rust removal for any rusted steel or iron tools or objects that aren't chrome plated. I've saved tools that were stored for months outside in bins of brown rust water, like a old 1/2" Snap On ratchet that had screws to remove the back plate, presumably to replace broken gears once upon a time. I've seen chunks of rust come out as shinny workable tools, just remember to dip them in oil, or paint them to keep the bare steel from rusting in the air again. WD40 is cheap, so use it like it is what your tools breathe if you have nothing better.
I have found that really old machines, like stuff from the 50's and 60's were very obviously designed to be repaired indefinitely, unlike modern machines like Keurigs, three different broken models I tried and found assembled in such a way to be impossible to fully dismantle again. Replacement parts to build loyalty used to be part of the business model I think, but now old machines are easy to repair if only those spare parts still existed, and the new stuff is often designed to fail(Apple has been sued for this multiple times), or sometimes designed to where it has to be destroyed before you can even get dismantle it far enough to see what is wrong, allot of no screw chargers for battery power tools. Just because they don't sell the charger for my not worn out tool with all metal gears doesn't mean I want to replace it with one with all plastic gears. Luckily my lathe is a popular model, being made for several decades, so some replacement parts are still being made by modern machinists, and others can be found from parted out units once their beds wear out.
I started by tearing apart junk, noticed patterns, and learned how things were put together and better ways to pull them apart without marring/chipping them, eventually started working on things I cared about, and then on things others cared about. Some of my family would bring me junk before tossing it out hoping they wouldn't have to buy replacements. I fixed a electric bread knife where I volunteer by re-arranging the plastic spacers inside so that the worn down plastic gears would mesh again, some raised some lowered. Even when I couldn't fix something I often learned something from it, either from the device itself or from my readings when stumped, trying to troubleshoot it and learn the properties of it's design. I learned much, much more from working on projects with a goal, than I did from just reading old technical books for fun. The more I work on and the more I build with scraps from what couldn't be saved, the better I get. Mechanical problems usually seemed quite obvious to me, but most things today seem to fail electrically, cheap capacitors or inadequate mosfets/heat sinks. It seemed like many of the things that I couldn't fix mechanically, could be fixed If I only had a lathe or a welder. I now have one of two, and a need of further practice, and practice materials. It is not as easy in practice as it is in concept, for one the chuck isn't self centering like a drill is.
The Law of the Backyard Mechanic: If it doesn't work try fixing it, if it breaks you've lost nothing.
