Hold the Phone

My phone, a Samsung Galaxy Note 2, is one of those "phablets" - the great big phone that is almost a small tablet. Works great, but it poses special problems if you want to mount it somewhere in a car. It's big! My first attempt was a mount that held the phone perfectly because it was designed specifically for the Note 2, but it clipped into the air conditioner vent, and was so loose and floppy that it rattled and moved around and was impossible to type on.

Then, I found the same phone mount on a suction cup base, and it was cheap - only about 4 bucks shipped from China. Of course, it took a few weeks to get here, but it did arrive:

It looked very promising, but there were two immediate problems: 

A Welcome Addition to the Shop

The Grant Street Garage has a new toy! It's a metalworking lathe, of the class of lathes usually called "8X". That means that you're supposed to be able to spin something eight inches in diameter, if you're crazy enough. Regular readers of this blog know that I already had a metalworking lathe and also a mill. Indeed, a recent post detailed an upgrade I made to my smaller "7X" lathe. That upgrade helped a bit, but the small lathe was still just too light and non-rigid for serious work.