Had a banner day of Craigslist shopping today. Bought a 1950's toolbox that belonged to a machinist that worked on nuclear submarines. Got a bunch of HSS lathe bits ground to purpose, some end mills, some shaping & polishing stones, a hardened machinist's ruler (that needs some love, it's got a couple bad rust spots), and two micrometers. I've been wanting a quality mike for a few months now.

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The larger of the two is a Reed Small Tool Works from the 1920's (from what I can tell). It's a 2"-3" with ten thousandth accuracy -- unfortunately, it's in desperate need of a calibration and cleaning. It currently closes on 33,000ths.

The smaller one is a Brown & Sharpe circa 1950's. There's a calibration sticker from 1970, and it seems to be on the money. I'm very psyched!

Also included was a personal inventory of tools, when they were purchased, how they're identified and how much was paid. It all ranges from 1952 (the toolbox) to 1970. Plus a filled-out procedure test for working on nuclear subs!

There's all SORTS of stuff in there. Ball bearings, pen nibs, grub screws, scraping tools, mysterious carbide insert tooling, precision sawblades, boring bars, blank HSS lathe bits. Dirt. Rust. That 'old machine shop smell'.

I've got on order right now a collet chuck for the lathe because threading parts was starting to drive me completely mad. These power-punch style screw-in dies need to be flipped a couple of times in the lathe and the standard three jaw chuck on my HF lathe is giving me fits matching concentricity. It's really just "open chuck, turn part, roll dice". YOU LOSE, TRY AGAIN. Feh. Three jaw chuck.