Daniel Jessup (1/14/2010)
Fellas, the work on Cactus' 312 crankshaft was done by none other than CarQuest Auto here in Winchester, VA. It may sound odd, but they do all of the machine work for White Post Restorations (the company made famous in Hemmings for their brake restoration work). Winchester is quite a few miles away from Baltimore, and to be honest, I really had to watch over the machine work. Some of the fellas who work there are old timers who really know a thing or two, and well, some of the young guns that are there don't really want to learn or don't care, so I had to stay on top of things as far as who did the work, etc.
Cactus - glad you like the crank. I may have another ground soon.
The local Carquest here does some good work too, but cant grind cranks. They are working on a set of my heads now. Too bad their head machine is busted for a month
. But unless it is somebody like Ted, John or Tim, I think it is important to be actively involved in the machine work, whoever a person is working with.
Probably the best of 6 machine shops in this little town is a guy that works totally alone. Problem is he doesnt have a lot of respect for our engines. So it isnt a lack of knowledge or skill, but determination to get everything as right as most of us want, because it is "just a y-block".