Unfortunately, last nights lathe activities were less successful than before. I was trying to turn some steel that turned out to be pretty heavy duty, and the lathe wasn’t so happy – if I went too fast, the tool bit just chattered and bounced off the workpiece; too slow, and the bit would jam into the workpiece and the lathe would stop (but continue making a grinding sound I can only assume is the belt or a gear trying to continue running even though the spindle wasn’t turning). Occassionally, red hot chips would fly from the workpiece and try to burn me (safety glasses are your friend!). All in all, I wasn’t so thrilled. Any ideas how to get it working better?

Looks pretty likely that I’ll be selling my car this week (1987 Honda Accord LX-i). Oddly enough, I don’t think I’ll miss it much at all (except to lug home big things from Home Depot).