Making your own lathe

I can tell the exact moment when I know my weekend has slipped out of my control. A job runs overtime, friends drop in or some family emergency comes up. I know this is when (if I am within half an hour drive of a hardware store) I am vulnerable to making a rash purchasing decision. Why? Because modern marketing has relentlessly impressed on me that by buying something I am achieving something. All I need is the next gagdet and my problems will be solved. I am trying to buy back control so I can feel satisfied (which rationally I know is an illusion). Some recent Sunday afternoon temptations: Light fittings (never installed) Sharpening system (not opened) Big Steel Toolbox (if i buy a ute one day, will be very handy) Rubber downpipe plugs for bush-fire preparedness (don't even know where these are supposed to go!) In consolation I wonder how many routers, drill presses, band saws and whipper snippers never even get unpacked in the first 6 months. Ironically, all that is needed to s...

Really productive people are not frantically busy. Instead of rushing around in panic, massively productive people are getting things done even when they are doing nothing. How? By running lead times in parallel with down time. Think of it like planting seeds - even while you are asleep, they are growing. Picture this - its Saturday and I have to attend a family lunch. But I know, that while I am barbecuing and drinking beer, time is working for me. In parallel with my social activities I have other things happening: Homebrew is fermenting away Glued up boards are setting Shellac is hardening My PC is running a full system backup, scan and update If I can find enough scraps of time to get these processes underway I can then forget about them. Indeed with many jobs the longer you leave them the better the results (ageing wine, clarifying solutions, curing glues etc).

Lead time: How long it takes for a part to arrive once you have ordered it. Critical Path: A list of jobs or stages, each one dependent (unable to start) until the previous stage has been completed. Time, we discover, does not equal output. Quality aspects aside, two people given the same amount of time will produce vastly different quantities of final product. Two simple concepts to apply to your next (or current, or long overdue) project are lead time and critical path. Lead time is lost time. Ordering a spare on Saturday morning is not much use if you need it that weekend. Sitting around waiting for things to arrive is not productive. Lead times are often connected to "preparation" and many of these steps can be moved out of weekend time and into the weekday. For example, it may take 10 minutes to find a spare part online, then 4 days for delivery. The Critical Path shows you which stages must be completed before the next stage can be started. Two or more stages may be...