Cheerful little tale Tom!  Nothing done in shed yesterday, I am mulling over how I can find room for easily accessible shelves for lathe accessories without putting shelves up across the window where they were before.  The older I get the more light I need.  When you work in a small space you need to have efficient storage and improving this is a very good exercise.  The more room you have, the further you have to walk and the more untidy you can be.  I've always liked small, densely populated workspaces for that reason.  Probably the product of spending so much time in a wagon cab!

I'm expecting the plasterers in this morning to make good round the new window so there wasn't a lot of point making any muck.  I had shelves in front of the window for the last 12 years, a hangover from a very quick organisation when I flitted the machinery in.  I decided that I wanted to keep the window clear and so had a bit of a tidy.  All the bits and pieces are still there, nothing chucked out, but a tidy up of shelves beyond the drill and the addition of a new shelf under the cutting oil tank resulkted in a far better and tidier layout.  When I do the Pickles 12" lathe in the far left corner I shall do another tidy up.  Hopefully I can get back to gear-cutting after the plasterer has repaired the damage done by the window-fitter.  Roll on the day!

No plasterer so I tidied up and carried on.  Three gear blanks bushed and ready for pinning, boring and turning to the required OD.  Not much but at least it's progress.....  I'm told I am to get platered on Thursday.....  I wish!

Have been looking for the topic about dreams all morning so I could tell everyone about one of my recent dreams, but can't find the topic, so as the dream was about you Stanley, I've just popped it on here, hope you don't mind! I noticed a lot of memebers seemd to dream about things connected with the sight but didn't think I ever would, anyway a few days abstinence ( of og) seemd to provoke one. i was visiting a pub with two of my brothers and my new old car. You were there with ringo, who was also Another and when I asked you why you were there you said he needed his tablets, then you both slagged my car off soimething chronic, saying I had to watch for the join under the foot well!

What do you make of that!?

Back to our onions today....  Three blanks bored and keyways cut and one 75 tooth gear cut.

No probs with the gear-cutting now I've sussed the 4mm pitch but when I tried it on the lathe there was a bit of a problem, there is a proud spot on it.  I had a close look and there is a hard inclusion in the casting.  It runs OK but noisy.  I shall wait until I need it and then do a bit of fettling on it.

I'm going to have the plasterer in this week sometime and I can foresee a scenario where plaster is dropping behind the lathe where it would be nigh impossible to clear up.  I decided to take the swarf guard off the back of the bed and replace it with a light plywood shield to stop anything dropping down.  I was only thinking of this as a temporary measure but when I had finished it was such an improvement that I'm going to leave it off permanently.  Apart from anything else it means I can get to the back of the headstock to clean it so my lathe is even cleaner now.