pondering & planning future tools

  Since I can't - usually - just go out and buy tools, or even the materials to make them myself, I give a fair bit of thought to what I might need for any old tool project that comes to mind.

 So that, when I finally trip over the right giant disk of aluminum at the junk yard, or the right bent-steel drops, or the right rusty old lathe fixture plate, etc, etc, I'll know I'm looking at something needful.

 Some things you can't find in a junk yard or the used tool shop.  Some things you either have to make or buy.  Ferinstance, my hypothetical 10in fly cutter needs a cheap insert-type lathe cutter (already have), a whacking great disk of aluminum, and an R8 taper/flange adapter.

 This latter piece I always assumed I'd need to make myself, but today I thought to look for them online.  Great Googly Moogly, folks, the cheap ones are $270, and the nice ones are $600 - that's six hundred American dollars.  So yeah, one hundred percent gonna make that piece when the time comes; it's just lathe work and bar stock.  Shame I can't heat treat it tho.