Opening

We have begun to finalize some rebuilt equipment, sharing our growing YouTube channel, digitally document some rare machine and watchmaker equipment and tools papers, books literature and blueprints missing from the web and we are talking about the making of a great American Machined product we have started work on.

Topics

  • Around the home and shop happenings.
  • Machine and tool rebuilding progress.
  • Scanning images, pages, B/P’s and instructions for our library.
  • Producing a product progress.

Around the Home and Shop

There are no home and shop happenings in this BLOG update, unless you count the addition of a paper towel rack under the laboratory sink in the workshop.

Knock on wood or metal if you prefer because when you work from home and you work the hours per week we do, between filming and doing the actual machine rebuilding or precision machining of our products, you do tend to need to do some maintenance or even upgrades to both our work and living areas as they arise.

A small short break from fixing something or adding something even when it is for the shop is okay some times.

Reality is we have a few high profile project to complete. I will just touch on them as adding a dual door seal kit to our workshop for added weather resistance and then there is the task to finalize our 12 foot by 13 foot Finishing Shop a small external building not in use here yet because it lacks pulling the 110 / 220 AMP service power and adding the cement siding for it to all be done.

Machinery and Tool Rebuilding

Wow!, it took eleven YouTube video weeks and a whole lot of thoughts and planning but you know, we are moving along well on our YouTube Series Shop Adventures.

Visit our YouTube channel at YouTube.ActiveAtom.com

See Patrick & Lance on YouTube

Shop Adventures is a weekly series that follows our lives of being two childhood best friends as we maintain our home that is converted into a full machining and finishing operation in the California Mojave Desert, which is first tasked with repairing, rebuilding and refurbishing some vintage machinery and tools.

The machinery and tool reworking have come along well so we are sharing a few completed machines and tools below and some more that need to be completed. The goal of completing the machinery and tools is so we can begin making our product on them. This real life journey features Patrick Lara and Lance Conway and takes place each Monday in Yucca Valley, California.

Thus far, we have completely rebuilt the following:

  • Restored a Mahr Dial Indicator Stand and the S-T Industries Dial Indicator that is attached to the stand.

  • Rebuilt a Bergeon Carbide tool bit sharpener motor and does it run nice.

  • Rebuilt the Flume F53 Watchmakers Lathe Base mounting station that features a hand rest and a great running rebuilt motor to operate our little watchmakers lathe on.

  • Rebuilt and placed back into service, the very much YouTube video taped German Machine Green Micro Drill Press that we accomplished the flowing rebuilding processes for:

    • Machine disassembled and components photo taken and tagged.
    • Old painted machine components stripped, inspected, masked and powder coated.
    • Non painted components were cleaned, brushed, polished and blued when needed.
    • We machined two oilite or oil impregnated bronze bushings for the main spindle.
    • We machined a 303 stainless steel replacement part for the lever activated quill arm.
    • We purchased a mini maple wood table top for portability of the drill press.
    • Selected a new old stock motor for the machine to operate, a vintage Bodine motor.
    • Laid out the wooden table to accommodate all of the parts and pieces of the machine.
    • We laid out an enclosure and electronics for the motor controller and soldiered all of the pieces making the connections even adding a foot motor control pedal. .
    • We mounted drill press, idler pulley, motor, motor controller and ran and fabricated the belt and began testing the drill press for reliability, repeatability and heat to assure a long lasting reliable micro drill press can perform for many decades to follow.

We are Beginning to Build our Machine Tool Library

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The Active Atom website has two specific categories that are devoted to a collection of both Metalworking and to Watchmaking.

The opportunity presented to us is because of a time gap. Despite the best of efforts through these modern day search engines, there is more data and informative information missing then there is currently on these great digital information portals in an area we recognize and that we are informative in.

The literature collection of the metalworking and watchmaking industries and the machining world in general are one giant casualty of the digital information age. Yet at the same time, for those that have analog data and such, there is a great opportunity to help by sharing the information that is not currently available on the Internet by uploading the missing information and historic data for inclusion missing by a few decades, since search engines and digital data collection have come to be a way of life.

Rare Machine and Tool Documents to be Shared

We are proud to have and are going to share our vast and I mean vast history of documentation focused on these two groups and in many cases, these are likely the only known remaining documentation copies of these machines, machine tools, inspection instruments and much more machine tool industry data in existence.

These two categories are website locations and are for us to place brochures, images, blueprints, instructions for machinery, small and large machine tools, precision machined tools and tooling, watchmaker specific machines, tools and other instruments.

Our website has divided these collections into two separate categories to keep it of interest to either of these types of site visitors.

This will be the link to our metalworking section:

www.activeatom.com/resources-metalworking-literature.php

This will be the link to our watch making section:

www.activeatom.com/resources-watchmaking-literature.php


Little Known Bonus about our Machine and Tool Documents

In many cases and in the course of due time, we will show and share the actual machines and tools that we also have the documentation for.
In a few cases, we will be sharing some machines and tools that have no documentation and yet, here they are big names of the machine, machine tool and watchmaker world that these particular machines are thought to have never or that no longer exist, only they sure do.

Active Atom Vintage Machined Product

We will begin making our product from the very start to the very end and each and absolutely every detail in between, so get ready to either be amazed or be unsure about what it is we are making.

HINT, bring your magnifying glass, loop, optical comparator optic lens or maybe even your auto focus so you do not miss any of this products build.

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The first product also has an update here. This product has just gone from the concept to the design phase and will go through our CAD design, theoretical operation, wear and weight factoring before the actual final blueprint is produced for us to then make the prototyping part of the process.

Just a Reminder

Once a few of these products are produced, they will be sent out to maybe a half dozen experts that specialize in such product types and will review these products all of the time to see what they see is best and what they feel is in need of more attention.

Then finally we will make maybe a dozen of these precision machined products all right here from our home based machining and finishing shop and they then are to be offered through our online store at at www.ActiveAtom.com.