23 May
2012
23 May
'12
3:35 p.m.
> [...], or don't have the "model
engineer's workshop" tools... [...]
If you don't have said tools, the solution is much
the same as for me
if I needed a scanner. There are basically 4 options :
Build them
Buy them
Borrow them
Get sometody else to do it.
I think we can forget about 'build them'. It
is possible to build a
small lathe at home, [but...].
So :
'Buy them'. The only major expense would eb a
lathe with milling
facilities.
Personally, one major expense - not a monetary expense, but still an
expense - would be arranging a place to put the silly thing. I do not
have, anywhere in my dwelling space, a space which is already suited to
hosting a lathe or equivalent.
The parts of a paper tape reader as amall enough that
you could make
them on soemthing like a Unimat. That would cost about as much as a
good PC + scanner +... setup.
Yes...but, again, if you already _have_ the scanner....
And I suspect it would be useful for a lot longer. A
larger lathe is
going to cost as much as a small car, but it'll easily outlive said
car :-)
One of my regrets surrounding the deaths of my parents is that I didn't
end up with my father's lathe. That was a _nice_ lathe. I don't know
where it did go; I hope it ended up in the hands of someone who could
appreciate it and make it useful. (Not that my taking it was ever
really much of an option, for - among others - the same physical
hosting reason cited above. But that doesn't mean I don't have
regrets.)
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