Greetings from Normandy

[Paul H 1Participant @paulh1]

Greeting from the Basse Normandie. After a long time lurking on this site, learning and finding answers to questions I have posed myself, I have decided to lurk no more. Not having had a lathe for at least 30 years, this year I decided to take the plunge and tool up the metal side of things in my workshop, which I equiped for machining wood years ago. Having done a lot of research I bought a SP2129 lathe from SPG Tools, with a 38 mm spindle and so far so good, a nice machine. To complement this, never having one at home before, I added an SPG 2217-30, building a very substantial bench so that I can have more storage underneath. As I haven’t used a mill for probably 25 years (Bridgeport and EMCO) I invested in Harold Hall’s excellent milling book to give myself a refresher course. Buying the machines from the UK is vastly cheaper for pretty much the same as sold over here and SPG’s service was great.

However for the cut off saw the opposite was the case. I bought the widely sold horizontal/vertical bandsaw that many of you have under different names. This was a lot cheaper from a German supplier on a French web site (still Chinese). I bought one a good 32 years ago when my company was very small and money was very tight. My workshop manager promptly called it the Mickey Mouse saw and awarded it a MM badge. It did very good work for many years! Mickey Mouse 2 seems improved and more accurate out the box. Some of my projects will be doing some of Mike’s Workshop mods though to make life easier and MM2 more versatile.

I like tools and an advantage of a decent workshop as you all know is to be able to make more tools. There is the well known precedent for this in model engineering with Harold Hall. Despite being time served and basic trained 44 years ago in a great company training school, I still feel very much a beginner. So there are quite a few projects lined up and questions to ask.

My machines are the biggest I can afford so as to tackle restoration and maintenance of my collection of tractors, mini digger and accessories, (I am well equipped on welding too). My favorite being my 1969 Massey Ferguson 135. You probably think this is big stuff, but mine are hobby machines compared to what runs around the farms here. We have horses and they create all kind of “interesting” maintenance tasks for which the workshop is essential. I am currently machining parts to recycle stable door hinges that a horse took out. This also needed a spot of hot forging as well (oxy propane).

It would be very interesting to know if there are any others from Normandy on the forum as it is very difficult to find like minded people here. The French home machinists don’t seem to be in this region though I am still looking. Also I am looking to find out where people buy their metal for machining in France as so far I have not found many suppliers unlike the lively forum posts about metal in the UK. Structural steel is easy but not machining grades.

[Paul H 1Participant @paulh1]

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