A power feed at last

It has been awhile since I blogged. No big changes in my social life. No earh shattering news pertaining to me.

I am pleased that the new, privately funded, heavy lift rocket went up successfully the other day. I am amused the CEO of the company donated his personal car (a Tesla Roadster) to the experiment. Right now the rocket is orbiting Earth. Some time in April before May the rocket will fire an engine and begin a trajectory that will place it in a very wide orbit around Mars. The CEO speculates the rocket and his car will, if not someday retrieved or in a collision with something, orbit for the next billion years. .

I am unsure of the appropriate law on this. Space law is supposedly based on admiralty law, but every day new wrinkles, such as an unattended car in space ,emerge. My question is, by launching his car into space, has the man effectively abandoned it? Or does the fact it sits garaged in a space ship give it the legal protection of sitting in a garage? Is the rocket itself effectively abandoned, or do ownership rights still apply off the Earth? What about a decade from now. a century? If 400 years from now your grand kids encounter the rocket while joy riding in their own space ship, board the uninhabited ship and take the car, is that stealing, or is that just salvage? How long does a rocket (or a new car) have to be up there before 'salvage rights' law applies?

About a month ago I bought a Forney 140 MP 3-in-one welding machine. It does Mig, Tig and stick. It is small and runs on house current, so 1/4" thickness is pushing the performance envelope, but I have done that with it. I haven't had the chance to try the Tig function yet but as soon as a new nozzle arrives I will. I got a few small tanks of C25 gas (a CO2 and Argon mixture) but am thinking of also getting some pure Argon to expand the capabilities of the machine.

My big news this week is that I finally gave in and purchased a power feed for my Sieg X2 mini mill (video below). I have been using the mill to whittle out a new fore stock for an old (ancient - 1875 manufacture) Martini Henry carbine and an enormous amount of turning the mill's hand wheel to move the slide back and forth as the stock took shape was required. After a few hours of that I was online looking for a better way. It turns out a company called Little Machine Shop has just recently introduced a power feed for the X axis slide of the X2. I got it installed and it works perfectly. Best of all it can move the slide a lot faster than my manually turning the wheel can, which translates into increased productivity.



<For those who know about mills and DROs, yes, they now make a DRO add on kit for the X2 too and I am looking at that, but it isn't cheap ($$$), so I may have to wait.>

Beyond that, nothing much new with me.