Thomas Martinez

TAPER is something you’re used to measuring. You can see it drawn and figure out what it looks like by reading a line of numbers … Read more

Nothing designed to shed water is realy flat. Water will always flow downhill and stop where it stops unless something gives. Nothing about flat roofs … Read more

Sometimes the exact taper is critical, such as with a Morse socket or a custom arbor seat. Now, there’s the lathe and you’re standing in … Read more

Have you ever tried to tighten a plumbing joint that was leaking, only to find you could twist the pipe until your arm fell off … Read more

Machinists gets a particular type of frustrated when they know their tool’s out of round but don’t understand why. They’ve tapped it in on a … Read more

All too often a flange won’t lay down flat or a stubborn hub on the wheel won’t cooperate. Bolts aren’t usually the issue. It’s the … Read more

You can’t buy firewood without trusting someone at some point: before you load that wood onto your truck or stack it up against your home. … Read more

If you’ve run a cutter down into the material on your CNC machine after setting the depth stop, then pulled it back out to discover … Read more

The threads aren’t really the thing; it is usually the taper that gets ignored. Usually the issue is a taper that was overlooked. When tapered … Read more

It’s not always as simple as putting together two points with a straight line of pipe. In the field you’ll find lots of obstacles. A … Read more

Measuring handrails looks easy…until you actualy do it. There’s a rail, a few posts and some vertical picket. It seems like simple math, right? But … Read more

Woodturners is familiar with the special kind of frustration that accompanies spending three hours cutting out segments to discover ring is an oval. Why? Because … Read more

On drawings, it might say something like a Morse taper at.5986 inches per foot. To offset your tailstock or set your compound slide, you must … Read more

You’ve tightened the bolt as hard as the wrench would go, sweated thinking you had the thing locked down and turned it over. Instead, that … Read more