#linuxcnc Logs
Aug 15 2025
#linuxcnc Calendar
12:13 AM lcnc-relay: <meisterdippel@> moin
12:28 AM xxcoder: raining for real now
12:35 AM lcnc-relay: <meisterdippel@> 7 am and 22°C in germany
12:35 AM lcnc-relay: <meisterdippel@> * 7:24
02:32 AM lcnc-relay: <lucid.nonsense@> Moin, about the same in the uk
04:20 AM Tom_L: morning
04:34 AM -!- #linuxcnc mode set to +v by ChanServ
05:35 AM lcnc-relay: <meisterdippel@> i can use now the 7c81 via SPI and via Ethernet (w5500) 😍
10:29 AM roycroft: well, it did not rain last night after all, but the sky is completely overcast this morning and it smells like rain
10:29 AM roycroft: i expect we'll get a bit of it today
11:04 AM roycroft: and i just found out that my flooring is discontinued, which i suspected might be the case
11:04 AM roycroft: i need to either find current product that matches it closely or sand it down and refinish it
11:05 AM roycroft: if i decide to do the public spaces with it
11:05 AM roycroft: if i use it for the private spaces then i'll have a lot left over
11:06 AM roycroft: which maybe i can sell for what i paid for the lot
12:26 PM Tom_L: weekend has arrived
12:29 PM roycroft: not here quite yet
12:29 PM roycroft: but soon
12:31 PM Tom_L: figure out your estop conundrum?
12:40 PM roycroft: i'm going to get a different power supply that is fed by the mains, not by the spindle power supply
12:40 PM roycroft: i haven't found one yet though
12:41 PM roycroft: and when i get back to the project, i can continue to work on it using 5v for now
01:10 PM * JT-MShop ponders where to put the beer fridge
01:15 PM roycroft: right next to the bottle opener
01:18 PM JT-MShop: I needed a 30mm shielded prox which is $34 to get free shipping I needed $49 so I got some spare torx bits
01:19 PM -!- #linuxcnc mode set to +v by ChanServ
01:22 PM JT-Shop: it won't fix next to the bottle opener but I just discovered a spot next to my desk where it will fit on a small table I "think" I have in the other shop
02:19 PM pcw---home: That was nice, someone broke off the hose bib in front of our building, got a note from EBMUD that they turned off the water at the curb
02:33 PM roycroft: i hope the water wasn't running for too long
02:33 PM roycroft: your water bill could be really high
02:38 PM pcw---home: Probably not too long, The note was at 7:30 and we left work at about 6
02:41 PM pcw---home: ( I suspect it was the neighboring businesses kid that was zooming around in our parking lot and sidewalk in from of the building )
02:41 PM pcw---home: (on a bike)
02:44 PM roycroft: that's good
02:45 PM roycroft: when i lived in eugene i had the water main from the meter to my house break twice, underground
02:45 PM roycroft: the first time i was out of town and it ran for several days until i got home
02:45 PM roycroft: the second time it still ran for a couple days but did not pool up or anything, but the utility had just installed smart meters and notified me that i was using a lot of water
02:46 PM roycroft: both times, since the pipe had failed, i got credit for the tens of thousands of extra gallons of water
02:46 PM roycroft: that utility will write that off once every 2 years
02:46 PM roycroft: my current utility will not, so i hope the pipe never leaks/bursts
02:47 PM roycroft: after the second time i completely replaced the water main - i was not going to repair it again (the second break was in a different place to the first one)
03:48 PM JT-Shop: beer fridge has a new home and the opener sits on top of it along with the keyboard and mouse for the BP knee mill
03:49 PM Unterhaus_ is now known as Unterhausen
03:50 PM Unterhausen: which 26 pin card can plug into a 7i96 to offer servos? As in, existing firmware?
03:50 PM JT-Shop: 7i77
03:51 PM Tom_L: https://mesaus.com/product/7i77/
03:51 PM Tom_L: ethernet version https://mesaus.com/product/7i97t/
03:52 PM * JT-Shop killed two birds with one stone... got the table out of the big shop that was in my way and got a spot for the beer fridge
03:53 PM JT-Shop: Unterhausen, you will need to flash the 7i96 with the correct firmware for a 7i77
03:56 PM Unterhausen: I recall a much cheaper card working with it
03:57 PM JT-Shop: not for analog servos
03:57 PM JT-Shop: hmm let me think
03:58 PM JT-Shop: https://mesaus.com/product/7i85s/
03:58 PM JT-Shop: https://mesaus.com/product/7i88/
03:59 PM JT-Shop: if you don't need any I/O
04:07 PM Unterhausen: seems like I could use the 7i96 for io
04:10 PM JT-Shop: yup
04:21 PM JT-Shop: those two are step/direction or pwm/direction so depends on what you need
04:23 PM roycroft: yes, a 7i96 can be used for io
04:29 PM JT-Shop: speaking of sweet german baloney I need to call Stonies and reserve some
04:34 PM JT-Shop: chili cheese freetos are addictive
04:34 PM JT-Shop: fritos even
04:35 PM Tom_L: fritos or cheetos?
04:35 PM JT-Shop: fritos
04:36 PM Tom_L: i generally go for the plain fritos
04:36 PM JT-Shop: that's what the mrs likes
04:36 PM roycroft: that's all that matters
04:36 PM Tom_L: kid had somebody go off on him at a stop light today when he was on his bike
04:36 PM lcnc-relay: <skunkworks8841@> yes.. They are in the vending machine at work.. the co-workers hate it when I buy them because they stink up the whole department..
04:36 PM Tom_L: he has no idea what triggerd it
04:37 PM roycroft: friday derangement syndrome
04:37 PM JT-Shop: road rage
04:37 PM roycroft: chalk it up to that
04:37 PM Tom_L: he was just going from work to get some lunch
04:38 PM Tom_L: he came by and took his car back to work
04:38 PM JT-Shop: I watch people careful when driving for any kind of odd behavior
04:39 PM Tom_L: yeah i guess he was just sitting at the light
04:39 PM JT-Shop: I had someone come right up on my ass for a moment in the C8 but I left quickly
04:40 PM Tom_L: didn't mean to interrupt the fritos conversation....
04:40 PM lcnc-relay: <skunkworks8841@> lol
04:40 PM JT-Shop: fritos are important like naps
04:40 PM Tom_L: he ran the light because the guy got out of his vehicle but the guy followed him
04:40 PM JT-Shop: holy crap
04:41 PM JT-Shop: could have been a case of mistaken identity
04:41 PM Tom_L: he lost him but we told him to take the car back as a precaution
04:41 PM Tom_L: could be i suppose
04:41 PM JT-Shop: like he looked like the guy that kissed my gf
04:42 PM Tom_L: he wears a vivid helmet to stand out on purpose
04:43 PM Tom_L: try the fritos out on the coon
04:43 PM JT-Shop: I put large marshmallows in the trap
04:44 PM Tom_L: nothing else has been done to mesact i need to look at yet?
04:45 PM JT-Shop: last commit was 3 days ago
04:46 PM Tom_L: looking, it shows me up to date
04:47 PM Tom_L: dunno if i tried it after that or not
04:48 PM JT-Shop: jambalaya tonight
04:49 PM Tom_L: dunno what we're having yet
04:49 PM xxcoder: todays packages of randomness, tallow honey balm
04:49 PM xxcoder: got car tire wash package too
04:49 PM JT-Shop: found a couple of T bones at walmart today big enough to make two meals
04:49 PM roycroft: it's pizza night here
04:49 PM Tom_L: nothing good i hope... with this cold i can't taste much anyway
04:50 PM xxcoder: its bit annoying but I cant find source of company thats sending those in error to me
04:50 PM JT-Shop: you're getting free stuff?
04:50 PM roycroft: somebody likes you, xxcoder
04:50 PM xxcoder: all I can hope for for evenually getting million bucks in box someday
04:50 PM xxcoder: or gold brick
04:50 PM xxcoder: roy seems so
04:51 PM roycroft: i just discovered that when i rebuild one of my hypervisors, and backed up every virtual machine i thought useful, i missed one - the one that contains my music/book/video libraries
04:51 PM JT-Shop: opps
04:51 PM roycroft: the book library was well out of date
04:52 PM roycroft: but i had over 3000 entries in it - it would certainly have been easier to do an audit, and delete stuff i no longer have, and add all the new ones i've acquired since i last updated it (before i moved, so a lot of new books)
04:52 PM * roycroft is now looking for a backup that is newer than the one from 2012 he found
04:53 PM xxcoder: oh yes jt yeah. only thing useful so far was nice car dryer towel
04:53 PM roycroft: and none on my backup server
04:53 PM xxcoder: considering the tire cleaner I just got, probably from same order
04:53 PM roycroft: but maybe a snapshot from a few months ago would have one
04:54 PM roycroft: and yes, i just confirmed that i had been backing that vm up
04:55 PM roycroft: the good news is that i've not made any updates to any of those databases in months - perhaps not since i moved - because when i unpacked everything and shelved it all it was just shelved randomly
04:56 PM roycroft: with the new bookcases, and the rest of the boxes of books unpacked, i've started sorting them and shelving them in order
04:56 PM roycroft: so i thought i'd fire up the database and see what i need to do
04:56 PM roycroft: then i found out there is no database any more
04:57 PM roycroft: and yay - it looks like i have snapshots going back to 2022, so there's a chance i have a backup of the database
04:58 PM xxcoder: whew lol
05:01 PM roycroft: if i do have it, recovering it is still going to be a lot of work
05:01 PM roycroft: and even then, the audit will be a lot of work
05:01 PM roycroft: but all that will be less work than recreating it from scratch
05:06 PM xxcoder: lol when I wanted to make a library, I got cuecat
05:06 PM xxcoder: still have it
05:08 PM roycroft: i think i found a backup from 2022
05:08 PM roycroft: which probably has 95% of what's cataloged
05:12 PM xxcoder: not too bad
05:33 PM roycroft: i have one from 2022-11-07
05:33 PM roycroft: hopefully it's a good backup
05:44 PM roycroft: i have 3163 books in the database
05:44 PM JT-Shop: are those your books?
05:44 PM roycroft: and that seems like almost all that have been cataloged
05:44 PM roycroft: yes
05:45 PM xxcoder: nice
05:45 PM roycroft: so i think this backup will help a lot
05:45 PM roycroft: i still have to do the audit
05:45 PM xxcoder: reminds me of that story where IT guy figured a way to make backups go much faster
05:45 PM roycroft: my goal today was to add an audit field to the database so i could start work on that as i reshelve the books
05:45 PM xxcoder: just minutes
05:46 PM xxcoder: after bit over a year of doing it that way, server was wiped out. turns out method was "test backup"
05:46 PM xxcoder: so they didnt backup anything for over a year
05:46 PM roycroft: i try to insist that my customers do a test restore of their backups every couple months to be sure that they are still working correctly
05:47 PM roycroft: i think the sum total number of customers who actually do that is zero
05:47 PM roycroft: my backup server keeps backups for 2 months
05:47 PM roycroft: because backups are not archives
05:47 PM lcnc-relay: <ccatlett1984@> This is why I suggest Veeam, "surebackup" does automated restores (and functional testing of the restored vm, beyond did it restore)
05:48 PM lcnc-relay: <ccatlett1984@> for a business, it's worth it
05:48 PM roycroft: and 2 months should be long enough under most circumstances to realize if something has gone wrong
05:48 PM roycroft: but my backup server uses a share from a nas for its storage
05:48 PM roycroft: and the nas does snapshots that are supposed to be retained for 2 years
05:48 PM JT-Shop: fritos are good survival item to have
05:48 PM lcnc-relay: <ccatlett1984@> lol, scoops 😄
05:48 PM roycroft: but for some reason i had some snapshots of the backup server datastore that are almost 3 years old
05:49 PM JT-Shop: great fire starters
05:49 PM roycroft: and the 2 year snapshots are missing - i have to investigate that
05:49 PM roycroft: but more fortunately, the amost 3 year old backup had what i needed, and only took me an hour or so to recover
05:50 PM roycroft: and now that database runs on a machine that does other important work and that i would never delete because i thought it was unimportant
05:51 PM JT-Shop: I think we settled on going to https://www.maryjaneburgers.com/ for lunch/dinner then on to Stonies
05:54 PM JT-Shop: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=41_mGDAEe6U
06:00 PM andypugh: I was trying to test the new probe fix today. Only to find that my mill isn’t currently working. I don’t think I got as far as starting it up when I swapped the PC some months back.
06:02 PM JT-Shop: Murphy strikes again
06:03 PM xxcoder: doh
06:07 PM * JT-Shop calls it a night
06:12 PM lcnc-relay: <skunkworks8841@> well - I must have blocked this out.
06:12 PM lcnc-relay: <skunkworks8841@> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wsE-BdvPCJw
06:12 PM _unreal_: How DARE you block out a video
06:18 PM lcnc-relay: <skunkworks8841@> (that is a stirling engine I built.. 16 cylinders.
06:18 PM lcnc-relay: <skunkworks8841@> 8 hot - 8 cold
06:18 PM xxcoder: inaccessable video
06:19 PM lcnc-relay: <skunkworks8841@> sorry - work now?
06:20 PM xxcoder: yep
06:20 PM xxcoder: wow ancient
06:20 PM lcnc-relay: <skunkworks8841@> must not have made it unlisted
06:20 PM lcnc-relay: <skunkworks8841@> 2011ish
06:25 PM xxcoder: that machine is cool tho
06:25 PM xxcoder: I wonder how much torque it would supply
06:30 PM lcnc-relay: <skunkworks8841@> I measured it .. It was less than 1hp.. iirc.. again - this was a long time ago
06:39 PM xxcoder: interesting. I wonder what heat differental was
06:41 PM lcnc-relay: <skunkworks8841@> hot side was 250f - cold side was well water - around 65f
06:41 PM lcnc-relay: <skunkworks8841@> so - not a lot in the scheme of things
06:41 PM lcnc-relay: <skunkworks8841@> *in the stirling scheme of things
06:41 PM xxcoder: its cool that you made working one thi
06:41 PM xxcoder: tho
06:41 PM xxcoder: I bet it would be inproved with better working gas
06:42 PM lcnc-relay: <skunkworks8841@> the only thing better was hydrogen.. I didn't want to go there.
06:42 PM lcnc-relay: <skunkworks8841@> (I used helium)
06:42 PM xxcoder: interesting. yeah explosive risk eh
06:44 PM lcnc-relay: <skunkworks8841@> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fjJH48T_7F8
06:44 PM lcnc-relay: <skunkworks8841@> that was just 2 cyclinders... sucks I didn't really show the hot side - I was just running a torch on it
06:45 PM lcnc-relay: <skunkworks8841@> (hot and cold side were identical..)
06:47 PM lcnc-relay: <skunkworks8841@> wonder if there is a better video around here
07:06 PM xxcoder: too tired to make more fancy meal, so decided to just airfry green beans
07:10 PM lcnc-relay: <skunkworks8841@> my son wants an air fryer
07:10 PM xxcoder: its very nice to have. I want to buy 2 bin air fryer evenually.
07:16 PM _unreal_: stirling nifty
07:32 PM lcnc-relay: <skunkworks8841@> I bought swiss and ham and made hot ham and cheese tonight
07:46 PM _unreal_: skunk I'm so jelous of the plasma cutter
07:46 PM _unreal_: skunk I'm still working on trying to figure out what to do with all of the extra tools I have
07:50 PM lcnc-relay: <skunkworks8841@> Yah. There is so much stuff here...
07:58 PM _unreal_: skunk all I can say is I can relate very much. god my dad was a horder
07:59 PM lcnc-relay: <skunkworks8841@> Yep
07:59 PM _unreal_: I've still got like 20 pcs left to go though
07:59 PM _unreal_: trashed in total so far like 80
07:59 PM _unreal_: I'm loving my new house though
07:59 PM _unreal_: havnt relaly gotten to enjoy it though :/
08:00 PM _unreal_: mving from such a big house to a smaller home and by force getting a lot of my dads ... junmk
08:00 PM _unreal_: junk
08:00 PM _unreal_: i"m still drowning
08:02 PM _unreal_: looking at the nebelz video
08:02 PM _unreal_: god I cant wait to get my metal endmill and lathe CNC'ed
08:11 PM andypugh: I have my dad’s workshop to dispose of too. It’s all nice stuff, but by now I have all my own, even nicer, stuff.
08:13 PM andypugh: My dad was great at finding bargains. I just earn a good salry and don’t have anyone to tell me not tu buy the latest shiny thing I see.
08:13 PM lcnc-relay: <ccatlett1984@> https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/886380314539229214/1406077275866271905/image.png?ex=68a12702&is=689fd582&hm=33efcc45df37a100db64ef64ca3a61a4de0d37a8969f16a2cba2d9c7c233c987&
08:13 PM lcnc-relay: <ccatlett1984@> this made me lol
08:14 PM xxcoder: arms of steel
08:14 PM andypugh: Wierd local shop (used to open saturday mornings, which is why I was looking) https://ejalloys.wixsite.com/home
08:15 PM andypugh: (It’s a random shop in a parade of normal shops. selling metal)
08:19 PM lcnc-relay: <skunkworks8841@> Yah.. dad had a way of finding decent stuff cheap
08:21 PM lcnc-relay: <skunkworks8841@> Always having an 'i can probably fix that' attitude helps
08:35 PM _unreal_: My dad was more of an, I'm going to use that some day, FIX was included in that statement
08:51 PM fywolfluff: apparently a bunch of youtube machinists did a secret santa in the middle of the summer. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNc6rQMhMqA there's blondihack's; going to watch some of the others next.
08:51 PM xxcoder: yah it was interesting
08:52 PM roycroft: still no rain
08:52 PM roycroft: but it's coming, i'm sure
08:52 PM xxcoder: been raining here for a while. hydro warning here
08:52 PM xxcoder: high rivers etc
08:52 PM roycroft: this book sorting is going very slowly, but i'm making progress
08:52 PM roycroft: 10 bookcases altogether
08:52 PM roycroft: 1 is done
08:53 PM roycroft: it took about 4 hours to get that one done
08:53 PM roycroft: but it should go faster as i get more and more sorted
08:53 PM fywolfluff: the problem is, I don't have room for ten bookcases.
08:53 PM fywolfluff: and my one is full.
08:53 PM lcnc-relay: <skunkworks8841@> Storming here
08:53 PM roycroft: i printed out the entire catalog, so i could audit the collection vs. the database
08:54 PM fywolfluff: ... and thus there's about a dozen moving boxes of books stacked up in the middle of my bedroom...
08:54 PM roycroft: i'd say i'm missing about 5% so far
08:54 PM roycroft: two entire bookcases are full of uncataloged books
08:54 PM roycroft: i got behind on cataloging
08:54 PM fywolfluff: I don't have my own book catalog. lol
08:55 PM roycroft: sequentially, it seems i'm doing great - i'm sorting on 'h' now (mostly economics)
08:55 PM roycroft: but p (fiction), q (math and science), and t (technology) are by far the bulk of my library
08:56 PM roycroft: i bet those three categories alone comprise well over half the collection
08:57 PM roycroft: i'm a library of congress person, btw, because that's what most research libraries in the us use, and because dewey is stupid and short-sighted
08:57 PM fywolfluff: my library is mostly classic and weird scifi, stratemeyer syndicate books I read as a pup, and lesbian werewolf romances, because they're all hilariously terrible.
08:58 PM roycroft: it feels good to be working on this
08:58 PM roycroft: i have what i think is a great library, but for the past year i've been unable to use it for the most part
08:58 PM fywolfluff: (yes, the latter is an entire genre, with hundreds of books...)
08:59 PM roycroft: with so many of the books in boxes (all unboxed now), and those that were shelved in random order, it was logistically impossible to find anything
08:59 PM roycroft: and obviously i've not been able to even look things up for a while, since i nuked the database in june
08:59 PM fywolfluff: several of the moving boxes are "NY TIMES #1 BEST SELLER!!11!!1" stuff, which usually end up going straight to the nearest LFL after I look at them.
08:59 PM roycroft: it's all better now, though :)
08:59 PM fywolfluff: I want to build my own LFL, but time, money, etc.
09:00 PM roycroft: i live at the end of a dead-end street
09:00 PM roycroft: but i still think i'll build one some day
09:00 PM fywolfluff: anything that mentions ny times on the cover isn't worth putting on a bookshelf, in my experience. lol
09:00 PM roycroft: perhaps once i get all my books organized and realize that i'm almost out of shelf space again
09:00 PM roycroft: and i'm out of space to add bookshelves
09:01 PM roycroft: i mean, i probably could add another one or two if i really needed to, but i don't want to dedicate the space for that
09:01 PM fywolfluff: I got a lot of my scifi from an estate sale of someone who kept finding space to add bookshelves. the whole house was lined with them, including the hallways, kitchen...
09:01 PM roycroft: i've been meaning for years to do a decent size purge of books, but since i've never had them all properly cataloged and organized, it's hard to do a purge
09:01 PM fywolfluff: I should have gotten a lot more from that sale, but I just don't have space.
09:01 PM roycroft: hard to decide what to get rid of
09:02 PM roycroft: space to store stuff is a real problem for some of us
09:02 PM fywolfluff: the hallways were super narrow since bookshelves on both sides...
09:02 PM roycroft: hmm
09:02 PM roycroft: dear leader did not end the war today
09:03 PM roycroft: i thought he was going to end it on day one
09:03 PM roycroft: oh well
09:03 PM fywolfluff: wow. what's next, rain is wet?
09:03 PM roycroft: at least he didn't give alaska back to the russians :)
09:03 PM roycroft: that we know ...
09:04 PM roycroft: i should go try to finish 'h' before the dough is ready
09:05 PM roycroft: maybe 'j' too (law)
09:05 PM roycroft: oh, 'n' (the arts) is also a big category for me - that's going to take a while
09:09 PM fywolfluff: closest thing I have to a book on arts would be https://www.amazon.com/Ornamental-Ironwork-Illustrations-Pictorial-Archive/dp/0486298116 ... and nothing on law whatsoever.
09:23 PM roycroft: i try to have a well-rounded library
09:24 PM roycroft: when the zombie apocalypse comes, or when this or some future regime limits what folks are able to access online, i'll still have my books that cover a vast breadth of topics
09:28 PM fywolfluff: when the zombie apocalypse comes, law is probably not going to be very useful. :)
09:29 PM Tom_L: https://news.itsfoss.com/debian-13-release/
09:36 PM * fywolfluff votes linuxcnc use devuan instead of debian, but probably doesn't even get a vote.
09:56 PM roycroft: i think debian is fine
09:56 PM roycroft: it works well, and it's very widely deployed
09:56 PM xxcoder: debian tend to move slow but sure
09:57 PM roycroft: and i'm not a fan of systemd
09:57 PM roycroft: but it's not a deal-breaker for me
09:58 PM roycroft: of course you may feel free to port linuxcnc to devuan, or any other os of your choice :)
09:59 PM roycroft: and i shouldn't think it a difficult task, as devuan is pretty much debian without systemd
10:07 PM fywolfluff: devuan is debian, but without systemd
10:24 PM fywolfluff: machining-related question. yesterday I stopped at an estate sale. mostly junk, but I did get one item I've never seen before... a set of tapered taps. about 5" long, ranging from a point at one end to maybe 1/2" at their widest, in a variety of thread pitches. what the fuck do you use these for? lol
10:25 PM xxcoder: sounds like tapping, but cuts threads with smaller bite as it goes down
10:26 PM roycroft: new uri tuchman video
10:26 PM xxcoder: could be wrong tho
10:27 PM roycroft: he made an oil pot for clough42
10:27 PM roycroft: it is a fried egg, sandwiched between two pieces of toast
10:27 PM xxcoder: watching inheirance myself
10:27 PM fywolfluff: yeah, it's part of the secret santa I mentioned earlier...
10:28 PM roycroft: and quinn sent uri a steam-powered whirlygig
10:28 PM fywolfluff: I can't find a picture online of any similar taps. brb, will get them out and take a photo. (also going to reboot the hotspot, since it's close to crashing, again...)
10:29 PM roycroft: i hope that in uri's will he donates his brain to science
10:29 PM roycroft: it would make for some really interesting studies
10:35 PM roycroft: about the taps
10:35 PM roycroft: electricians use them
10:36 PM roycroft: oh, wait, i misread that
10:36 PM roycroft: i was thinking about a different kind of tap
10:37 PM fywolfluff: https://imgur.com/a/mxYkYTB these. what the heck are they for? lol. the shorter ones look to be broken; presumably they started out the same length.
10:37 PM roycroft: maybe thread chasers?
10:41 PM lcnc-relay: <funkenjaeger@> well, NPT threads are tapered, and all sizes are tapered to the same angle. the thread pitches vary but in many cases adjacent sizes share the same pitch (i.e. 1/4 and 3/8 are 18 TPI, 1/2 and 3/4 are 14 TPI, etc) - so maybe they're NPT taps that each handle more than one size?
10:43 PM xxcoder: wow the IH got such an interesting tool
10:43 PM fywolfluff: they're too small to be anything larger than 1/8 and 1/4 npt, the taper is wrong, and the pitches of most (or all) of them are wrong...
10:43 PM roycroft: those don't look like ntp taps to me
10:43 PM roycroft: but maybe
10:44 PM roycroft: perhaps there's some other archaic taper thread that was industry-specific
10:44 PM fywolfluff: they appear to say e.f. reece co on them, which googling confirms is a long-gone tap and die company.
10:44 PM xxcoder: hm is that thread where its designed so it seals very strongly as you bolt on
10:45 PM roycroft: i wonder if there was a taper thread for steam fittings
10:45 PM fywolfluff: found a reddit thread with an obviously wrong answer, as usual.
10:47 PM fywolfluff: made around 1905 apparently
10:48 PM fywolfluff: (a history page mentions name changes in 1901, then again at an unspecified year to the name shown on the taps, then again in 1910 to a different name)
10:49 PM roycroft: i'm thinking it's for something either really soft or really thin, or both
10:49 PM roycroft: where you can't cut a really deep thread, so to get strength you cut the thread really long
10:50 PM xxcoder: the expanding by threading in could also help on strength
10:50 PM roycroft: it would be interesting to find matching dies
10:51 PM roycroft: taper threads are generally used to make gas- or water-tight connections without gaskets/o-rings
10:51 PM fywolfluff: https://www.practicalmachinist.com/forum/threads/antique-tapered-tap-id-please.426512/ suggests they might be for boiler patch bolts.
10:51 PM * roycroft posited whether they were for steam earlier
10:51 PM fywolfluff: but the ones they show are short, not super long like these...
10:52 PM roycroft: the ones in the picture at the top look pretty long
10:53 PM fywolfluff: the thread is also mostly them disagreeing with each other on what they are. heh.
10:54 PM fywolfluff: I hate sites that don't let you view attachments.
10:54 PM roycroft: that article suggests that they are essentially form taps
10:54 PM roycroft: and if so (and they look like they could be), they would have to be extra long, because if they were shorter it would take too much force to form the threads
10:55 PM fywolfluff: they feel like normal thread-cutting taps to me
10:55 PM fywolfluff: at least the ones I have.
10:55 PM xxcoder: does set all match? ie they have same threads, besides diameter
10:56 PM xxcoder: I remember one yt channel guy making set of 3 tapering tap tools because its too hard to tap enough
10:56 PM Tom_L: https://irontite.com/p/7778-a-200-hss-tapered-tap/v/7778
10:56 PM xxcoder: so basically tap though one a time and you get whole threads
10:56 PM Tom_L: there you go
10:57 PM fywolfluff: they're all different pitches
10:57 PM xxcoder: ok dont sound like a set then (besides normal definition of tap set)
10:57 PM roycroft: what's the use case for those, tom_l?
10:58 PM Tom_L: used in the cold crack repair of engine blocks and other metal castings.
10:58 PM fywolfluff: that url 403s for me
10:59 PM roycroft: fywolfluff's taps are 120 years old
10:59 PM roycroft: would people have been doing those kinds of repairs back then?
11:00 PM Tom_L: castings have been around longer than that
11:01 PM fywolfluff is now known as fluffywolf
11:01 PM roycroft: but would that type of repair have been done that long ago?
11:01 PM Tom_L: https://irontite.com/p/7777-a-155-hss-tapered-tap/v/7777
11:01 PM Tom_L: different taper
11:01 PM * roycroft has no concept, and no opinion on whether it was or was not
11:01 PM Tom_L: i wasn't around then so am not sure
11:02 PM Tom_L: it's in that category under that brand
11:02 PM fluffywolf: also a 403...
11:02 PM Tom_L: https://irontite.com/c/45-engine-crack-repair
11:03 PM roycroft: you need a vpn to the usa
11:03 PM fluffywolf: I'm in the USA! lol
11:03 PM roycroft: well then it doesn't like you for some other reason
11:03 PM Tom_L: you thought you were
11:04 PM fluffywolf: I tried signing up with practicalmachinist so I could view attachments, but I'm not getting the confirmation email, so bleh.
11:04 PM Tom_L: i've had some cast repaired in the past
11:05 PM Tom_L: what the do now at least is the whole article is preheated, sand bagged to retain the heat and welded with specific rods
11:06 PM Tom_L: you don't see much of that nowdays
11:07 PM Tom_L: https://www.smokstak.com/forum/threads/tapered-taps.156261/
11:08 PM xxcoder: castings, whil still expensive, is cheaper nowdays I guess
11:08 PM roycroft: i had the base of a drill press break once
11:08 PM roycroft: that's what i did, but i did not use the sand bags
11:08 PM roycroft: i preheated for a long long time, then used a nickel rod that was made for cast iron
11:08 PM roycroft: and it worked
11:08 PM roycroft: the collar that supports the column had broken off the base
11:08 PM fluffywolf: blacksmith's tapered taps. now that's something I've never heard of.
11:09 PM roycroft: i did this with an oxy-acetylene torch
11:09 PM Tom_L: and now we know the rest of the story as Paul Harvey would have said
11:09 PM fluffywolf: those are expensive taps
11:11 PM fluffywolf: I don't understand the process whereby a blacksmith could precisely create, say, 28TPI, without having the diameter pretty damn close too.
11:11 PM Tom_L: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rest_of_the_Story#:~:text=The%20Rest%20of%20the%20Story%20was%20a%20Monday%2Dthrough%2DSaturday,premiered%20on%20May%2010%2C%201976.
11:12 PM Tom_L: for you young whipper snappers
11:12 PM fluffywolf: looks like blacksmiths had open dies they could mush a rod onto and turn it, regardless of diameter.
11:13 PM Tom_L: fluffywolf, maybe it was so you could use a wood screw :)
11:16 PM fluffywolf: life would be pretty miserable when every bolt had a different diameter and had to be used with a specially made matching nut...
11:16 PM roycroft: if you clean the rust off of them you could thread little bits of veggies on them to make kabobs
11:17 PM fluffywolf: I mean, I get annoyed at ford when I need to have both my metric and inch wrenchs out... lol
11:19 PM roycroft: that won't be a problem much longer, once freedom units are the only legal units
11:19 PM roycroft: you won't be able to grab a metric wrench any more because they will be illegal
11:20 PM roycroft: you'll be able to purchase a 0.512" wrench, though
11:21 PM fluffywolf: we were always at war with metricsia.
11:25 PM Tom_L: don't forget your whitworth wrench set
11:26 PM roycroft: in the early 20th century many wrenches were "sized" for the bolt size, not the bolt head size
11:26 PM fluffywolf: I have a whitworth socket set... somewhere...
11:27 PM fluffywolf: looks like practicalmachinist is not planning on sending me a confirmation email. bleh.
11:27 PM roycroft: so a 3/8" wrench would be 9/16" across the flats
11:27 PM Tom_L: http://tom-itx.no-ip.biz:443/~webpage/cnc/temp/wrench1.jpg
11:28 PM roycroft: hmm, my password does not work
11:28 PM roycroft: i haven't logged into that forum for a long time
11:28 PM roycroft: i'll try a password reset and see if i get the email
11:30 PM fluffywolf: Tom_L: I've found those old wrenches look nice, but suck compared to just about any real brand modern wrench.
11:30 PM fluffywolf: they're sooooft. and they make up for it by being too wide to fit anywhere.
11:30 PM roycroft: so far no password reset
11:31 PM Tom_L: i keep them because they belonged to my grandfather
11:31 PM roycroft: bolt heads were wider back then
11:31 PM roycroft: they have shrunk with age
11:32 PM fluffywolf: that's a good reason to keep them.
11:32 PM fluffywolf: I'd accumulated a pile of them from buying tool lots, and gave them to someone who gave them to someone else who makes sculptures out of them.
11:33 PM Tom_L: may they rust in pieces
11:36 PM fluffywolf: I don't like seeing tools turned into non-tool things, but it's better than the scrapyard I guess.
11:38 PM roycroft: wrenches like that are fairly common
11:41 PM * Tom_L calls it a night
11:42 PM fluffywolf: almost time for me to get to bed too.