Here's Dennis O'Brien!

Who? Well that's me. Ive been using a Bridgeport and a South Bend for about 30 years and I'll be the first to admit I'm a rank amateur at both not even knowing how to use all the "bells and whistles".

I'm the world's leading manufacturer of car club plaques and have accumulated a collection of over 15,000 different car club plaque patterns, 12.000 are from two companies (Speed Gems and Chicago Metal Craft) who made plaques back in the 1950/60's and the rest are for the ones that I have made 150,000+ from for clubs all over the world. We also make buckles and key chains for clubs and associations.

In addition. we make and sell about 370 different rod and custom parts and accessories and sell them thru dealers all over the world or thru our website (Custom Car Club Plaques from O'Brien Truckers). And many of those parts are where the fancy drill press (by Bridgeport) and the lathe come into play.

I just bought (under the alias "Santa") a quick change tool post for the lathe that started me getting interested in the capabilities of the lathe and started playing around making some EDC items like spinning tops, lanyard beads and fidget spinners.

The thing that got me to this site was the desire to buy or build a 2 x 72 sander to use on the parts I make and maybe try making a knife or two. Intrigued by the use of treadmill motors for their torque and variable speed for cheap money, but not knowing an ohm from an amp I'm looking for that aha moment when someone does a really dumbed down how-to on getting them wired and working.

So that's about it. Love all the MacGyver things that you guys are doing and sharing on this site.

Thanks for having me,

Dennis O'Brien