Enjoy the show; hopefully there are some good companies represented there. I would give Okuma, Nakamura-Tome, and Mori Seiki a shot at the deal for sure before I bought a Hardinge; Hardinge service and support are really sketchy in New England but may be much better in your area. One of my beefs with the Hardinge Super Precision lathes we have is that they have no balls at all; the torque limiter system they have [to protect the machine] trips under all kinds of circumstances that leave another machine running [insert chips, decent DOC, normal feeedrate with a big drill, etc] which means increased cycle imes or other limitations that I do not care for. That's my $.36 C

Hey Craig How'd you make out with this? Or haven't you taken another whack at it yet? I would like everyone to note that I have not bashed Mazak in this thread where I normally would've back in the "old days"; turning over a new leaf since the accident: live and let suck C

quote: Nah, I've just been putting +1 every time John posts. ROFLMAOAC God D_MN Jimmy if you aren't one of the funniest MF I know. I laughed out loud in my basement when I read that. Glad to see Johnny Bravo back

I'm with gcode; there are many threads on the O/T forum [or most of them] that nobody's going to miss. The "regular" forum history still contains good information and it shows the origins of this place; to me both of those things are worth saving. C

Glad I could help, Rob! I'm doing OK; long way to go, though

Our Okuma L370 Captains are better than our Hardinge Super Precision lathes in every respect, including size control. We have [6] of these machines, [4] 2001 and [2] 2005 models, and we are in the tenths all day long. We aim for +/-.0001 and usually are on the money with these machines. Be careful with cutting tool selection on a feature that small because that could have some bearing on your aize control.

I was at physical therapy yesterday and the guy on the table next to me was also in for a bike vs. car wreck, although much slower speed than mine. He told me he'd been riding since 1963 and never had an 'impact accident' until now. Just goes to show it don't matter how long you've been at it or how good you are; when it is your time to go down, down you are gonna go.

I'm never going to catch John or some of the other boys on the post count; I'd have carpal tunnel on top of the rest of my f_cking problems. I don't want to get to into the legall stuff Jimmy, but the doctor bills will be paid for and my excellent disability coverage kicked in right away so things could be worse. Thanks for the images, John, I'll hang on to them until I'm in a better frame of mind. C

Hey Chris, I thought you'd learned your lesson with Haas...send that POS back and buy a Servo Quickload from LNS, ours is 6 years old now, runs all day every day, and never needed a part [except for a battery once a year]. Jim, I'm still running V9 so I don't know if the X-era posts are improved, but they use d to take a lot of customization to make the Misc Ops stuff work correctly. Typically all the barfeed wants to see is: Spindle stop, headstock home [if it moves], chuck open, then an M code for stock advance, dwell a couple seconds to let it do its thing, chuck clamp, and away you go. I have stock push and new bar subs that live in the machine [its an Okuma, so no help from me with the coding] and just call them from the main program at the proper time. The stock advance portion of your program should have a check to make sure you aren't at the end of the bar, otherwise you'll get into trouble when you're ready for a bar change. Sorry I can't be of more help. C

I like that handle, "Cannonball", rolls off the tongue pretty nicely. I may even need to change my emastercam screen name for that. Anyone have a jpeg of a human cannonball? The monkey banging the football may need to be retired as my avatar image.

Thanks, guys Hey John; do you have a spring on your a$$ or what? I heard you were at S4A now; that's about 4 jobs in the last 6 months! I hope things work out well there for you; I'm sure you'l be hearing from me in an "official" capacity pretty soon as we're due for some training sometime in Q1 or Q2 of 2008. C

I'm sure these updates are getting old, but I have nothing much else to do, so you guys are stuck. I went to the Spine Center at UMASS Memorial hospital yesterday and was given the OK to remove the hard cervical collar [a "Miami J" for those who have worn one] after wearing it 24/7 for a month and it feels GREAT!! I am so stoked to be able to move my head and to be able to touch and see my neck again. This also means that my saintly wife doesn't need to help me shower anymore or tote me around like a surfboard. I am required to do some physical therapy before they clear me to drive, which is a slight downer, but on the whole I am super pumped to get this much further to "whole" again. My weight is now down 40 pounds in just over a month [take that Atkins] but hopefully now that eating is more enjoyable hopefully I can begin to rebuild. My broken ribs are going to keep me out of the gym for awhile, but when I'm cleared to go back I should be able to re-establish the rest; maybe even with a little less spare tire. I also finally had a chance to speak with the two off-duty firefighters who happened to be on the scene [really "on the scene" as they told me that I physically flew over the hood of their truck on my way to the sidewalk] and made the 911 call as well as stabilized me prior to the ambulance's arrival. Somehow information had flowed back to them that I had not survived following the accident so the calls were pretty emotional ones and I had to let my wife take over the talking a couple of times while I gathered my emotions, but it was really terrific for me [and them] to be able to thank them for keeping me alive and minimizing my post-crash injuries because with the extent of my internal damage it is quite possible that I could've bled out right there on the street if not for their quick and competent assistance. I always used to find it somewhat corny on the old show "Rescue 911" when grown men would break down crying thanking the people who had rescued them or helped save their lives; I am embarrassed now that I was so cynical because I was the same exact way last night. Enough for now, the road to recovery continues. C

Thanks guys, for all of the kind words. I am, slowly getting better physically and trying to keep myself in check mentally while I heal. I am very thankful to be alive and have all my limbs working [though sometimes they hurt like hell] and my brain as functional as it was before the accident [how functional that is can be debated, but it works], but at the same time I am very angry that I am in this position at all. I was simply riding my [only about a month old] motorcycle down a wide, straight road, at a legal speed and BANG somebody took me down because they "couldn't see me" because of the setting sun. It is not productive to be angry but sometimes I am just overcome with outrage that I'm in this condition at all; luckily I was not injured more severely or I'm sure I would be consumed by this anger. Hopefully my emotions will heal as my body does and I can resume my "normal" life in fairly short order. Thanks again, guys, for all of the kind words and support. C

Nothing yet, Kevin. I went down to the hospital Tuesday afternoon for my first follow-up appointment and they said that I'm "progressing well" but gave me no real idea how long things are going to take. They also removed the last of the staples from the incision they made from my sternum down to my pelvis and removed the stitches from my left elbow [which was a "disgusting mess" according to the wife] and removed the stitches from my left lower jawline as well. My teeth have apparently 're-seated' in my lower jaw because they were loose after the crash but aren't lose now and my jaw fracture seems to be mending OK because I really don't have any pain there and I can bite down OK. I have another follow-up next Tuesday with an orthopedist to assess the damage done to my knees but my range of motion seems to be getting better and I'm feeling less pain down there so hopefully that'll be a 'self-healing' deal. The big appointment is going to be with the spine guys, which is in another couple weeks, to see if my neck ligaments and muscles look good enough to take this GD cervical collar off. Right now I have to wear a hard collar 24/7 to protect my neck because when I hit the ground with my helmet I apparently stretched the crap out of everything in there. I've lost 29 pounds in just over 2 weeks [262 to 233 as of Tuesday] and I'm feeling pretty low [tough to go from big strong guy who's running sh!t to broken down old geezer who can't put his own socks on] but I'm trying to stay as positive as I can and just trying to hold things together inside my brain until I'm well again. This has been a tough deal so far but I could've been injured far worse so I try to look at the upside as much as I can. C