I got some mail from a guy about the subject of cleaning tools, so I thought I'd put down some few words on that subject.
Taking this as though the reader hasn't done this stuff before, you will first need a cleaning rod. This can be an inexpensive takedown rod-usually with some different rod tips- from Wally-World, or one of the truly fine tools at this link. Generally, for use at home you're better off with a 1-piece rod, but a takedown is very handy to have along at the range, just in case.
If the kit you pick up doesn't have one, or you just buy the rod, get a cleaning jag and brushes, too. They'll probably have them where you get the rod, and you'll probably need both. And some good bore cleaner and/or a CLP type lubricant(cleaner-lubricant-protectant). And some patches, though you can cut up an old t-shirt for those(that's what I do). The jags can be had in plastic or brass, I prefer brass. Brushes come in nylon, brass or bronze, and stainless steel. I use either plastic or bronze; I've heard both good and bad about the stainless ones, but I don't like the idea of putting a steel brush through a bore.
If your firearm is a type that has to be cleaned from the muzzle, or if you'll be doing something that requires running a patch down from the front, get a muzzle guard; it'll keep the rod from dinging the rifling at the crown, which is a Bad Thing for accuracy.
Over time you'll need screwdrivers, and it the long run it pays to get good ones. They only cost a little more, and they'll work better & last longer. I've got one of the Chapman kits; it has a handle, and extension, a ratchet you can put on the bit or extension for extra torque, and a good selection of bits, worth every penny.
If you decide to go beyond cleaning to real work on guns, two things you'll need will be a good set of punches and a hammer. A small 4-ounce ball peen hammer will work fine, though I've got a 2-ounce I found at a flea market that's wonderfully handy. The punch set I have now is eight pieces, half bras and half steel, from 1/16" diameter up, and it cost about $4 at a hardware store. For most things I've done, they work great.
A couple of utility cleaning brushes are handy. These, like the bore brushes, can be had in nylon, brass and steel bristles; I only use the nylon or brass on firearms, but if you had some really caked-on crud on a piece, the steel might be better to get it off; it is more likely to scratch, though.
If you really get into it, you can add all sorts of stuff to this list; a pad for the tabletop, maybe a fold-up table just for cleaning("No, I'm not cleaning guns on the dining table!"),one of the Outers FoulOut cleaners I mentioned before, and so forth.
Where to get them? Midway(see the links above) and Brownells are both good places to order from. Local hardare and sporting goods stores will carry much if not all of this stuff, and there's always the gun shows. I've gone to shows specifically for some of this stuff a few times. Corrosion-X and Eezox, if you want them, you'll probably have to order, though they can sometimes be found at a show; Break Free is found all over the place. Note: Eezox is excellent for lubing a folding knife; clean the pivot area thoroughly and then use a drop or two. The carrier evaporates and leaves a dry lube behind, that doesn't pick up dust.
Next post I'll cover my general cleaning methods.
Saturday, May 07, 2005
"Hold still, you little bastard..."
Am I the only one who thought Tigger was an annoying little twerp?
Stolen without compunction from this guy; God knows where he got it.
Friday, May 06, 2005
Carnival of Cordite #11 is up!
At Pajama Pundits, who for some reason I'd never seen before. Go see.
In particular is a piece on Gerald Nunziato. Never heard of him? He used to be the head of BATF National Tracing Center, now he's basically saying that all gun owners are criminals, and the only people being supported by NRA are criminals and terrorists. Go, read, marvel at the bigotry and stupidity of a former federal official who had the power to help screw peoples lives up forever. As someone points out, if ATF brass didn't have a history of saying crap like this, gun owners wouldn't be so prone to see ATF as a bunch of assholes out to stomp on citazens for exercising their rights. And there's been far too many statements and actions by ATF in the past to pass this off as an abberation; including agents, current & retired, saying that if you showed sympathy for the idea of an individual right to arms, your chances of promotion went down the toilet.
Another one I'd never seen before is EuroHacker. Some interesting stuff there, worth checking back on later. And see if I can find the earlier issues.
By the way, have you ever noticed the problem with the riches we have here? I have no idea how many times I've found a site with something really interesting and thought "I should write about/send this to somebody/bookmark this place", click a link there to something, and a while later not only can I not find the article I was thinking of, I can't find the #*)_!@ blog it was on!
Or is that just me?(I think I'll bookmark some things NOW)
In particular is a piece on Gerald Nunziato. Never heard of him? He used to be the head of BATF National Tracing Center, now he's basically saying that all gun owners are criminals, and the only people being supported by NRA are criminals and terrorists. Go, read, marvel at the bigotry and stupidity of a former federal official who had the power to help screw peoples lives up forever. As someone points out, if ATF brass didn't have a history of saying crap like this, gun owners wouldn't be so prone to see ATF as a bunch of assholes out to stomp on citazens for exercising their rights. And there's been far too many statements and actions by ATF in the past to pass this off as an abberation; including agents, current & retired, saying that if you showed sympathy for the idea of an individual right to arms, your chances of promotion went down the toilet.
Another one I'd never seen before is EuroHacker. Some interesting stuff there, worth checking back on later. And see if I can find the earlier issues.
By the way, have you ever noticed the problem with the riches we have here? I have no idea how many times I've found a site with something really interesting and thought "I should write about/send this to somebody/bookmark this place", click a link there to something, and a while later not only can I not find the article I was thinking of, I can't find the #*)_!@ blog it was on!
Or is that just me?(I think I'll bookmark some things NOW)
Thursday, May 05, 2005
Ref the question 'what happens if guns are banned?'
Over at American Drumslinger he has this. It's a fairly scary thing, largely because it fits exactly what a bunch of God-cursed bureaucrats would do. It's what they HAVE done in Britain and Australia and Canada.
Go read it, and think about it.
Go read it, and think about it.
Wednesday, May 04, 2005
Heat-treatment continued, part whatever
The temperature you use to temper is going to depend on the type of steel, and the intended use. Higher temperatures leave the steel not as hard but tougher, lower temps leave it harder and more liable to cracking/breaking under stress. Please note that 'stress' is a variable term; it can mean anything from hacking through a dry branch that feels hard as a rock to slicing thin layers off a piece of wood to slicing a roast where you might hit a bone.
As to type of steel, carbon adds wear-resistance, which is why good knives generally use high carbon. However, properly worked medium carbon can make fine blades, especially for big ones. Note that a medium carbon steel will need less heat to get it from fully-hardened to the working hardness you want, while high carbon will often need a bit higher temp to keep it from being brittle.
With O1 tool steel for a general-use knife, I'll start around 400F for the first heat. I don't have access to a Rockwell hardness tester, so I go by color and experience. If you've shined up the surface nicely before heating, when you take it out of the oven after 45-60 minutes, the blade will have a nice dark yellow/light bronze color, which seems to work out to about 50-60 Rockwell, just about what you want. If you decide to increase the temp, do it in 25 degree steps; up it 25, temper 45 minutes, let it cool, and then test it. If it's a little too hard, can up it another step. Please note, if you temper it softer than you wanted, you either live with it, or go back to the fire to harden it again and start over.
The basic test for edge hardness is very simple, and works quite well. I picked it up from an article by Wayne Goddard, and all you need is a piece of 1/4" brass rod and a vise. First, sharpen the knife as you normally would. In good light so you can see well, clamp the rod in the vise so one side is above the jaws of the vise. Take the sharpened blade and hold it at a shallow angle against the brass as if you were going to slice a layer off and push down gently, watching the edge where it contacts the rod. A properly hardened & tempered edge will flex visibly, and return to straight when you release the pressure. If it chips, it's too hard; if it flexes and stays bent, it's too soft. I've found it very accurate as a test.
Testing can get involved. The American Bladesmith Society tests blades for Journeyman and Master status harshly, sometimes to destruction. Heavy cutting, edge-holding ability, and the final is to clamp the point in a vise and flex it; if it cracks or breaks before flexing the right amount, it fails. What I generally do is a bit simpler. With big blades, 8" & up, I save up small(2" or so) limbs when pruning trees for the chopping test, which is chopping them into shorter pieces to make sure the blade will hold up, and stay sharp. For actual edge-holding, I take 1/4" manilla or sisal rope, set a board in a vise for a cutting surface, and start cutting rope. I try to make the cuts no more than 1/2" apart, and stop when it won't cut cleanly any more or I get tired, depending. I've had blades cut well over 100 pieces and still be useably sharp; they might not shave anymore, but they'll still cut cleanly.
One further test is for the smoothness of edge; take a magazine page or a piece of copy paper, hold it along one edge and see if the edge will slice it cleanly. When you finish sharpening this is a good check, because any rough spots will snag and tear the paper. After the cutting testing, this tells you if the edge is still fairly smooth, or if it picked up tiny nicks during the cutting.
One more thing; a new-made blade may not show it's best edge-holding right off. One of the things steel does, when it hits the critical temperature for hardening, is that it can lose carbon atoms into the atmosphere. So, depending on how long it was at heat, you may have a thin skin of decarburized steel on the piece(steel that is at a lower carbon content than that below that layer). This layer will not hold an edge as well, but as a time or two of sharpening wears past it, you get to the high-test stuff and it picks up performance. Usually the finish-grinding and polishing cleans it off, but if you sharpen and test before that, it's something to remember.
There's another step that some makers are using on blades, a sub-zero quench. Basically you take a hardened blade, clean it absolutely clean of all traces of oil or whatever, and lower it into a tank of liquid nitrogen. Leave it soaking long enough for the entire piece to have reached that temperature, then slowly remove it and hang it up to warm to room temp. After that, to the oven to temper normally. I've heard of using this both before and after tempering, but I haven't tried it myself. Reports indicate that it can make a serious improvement in the toughness/edge holding ability of some blades. Basically, when steel hits certain points, the structure of the metal changes. Freshly hardened steel contains a structure called 'martensite' cause by the structure freezing when quenched. The sub-zero quench is supposed to cause a more complete transformation to martensite than would otherwise happen. Or so I'm told. The problems with this are two: 1. liquid nitrogen doesn't last too long, even when kept in the proper container it evaporates and 2. the stuff is at about 250 below zero, and if you splash it on yourself, instant burn. It will literally kill tissue on contact, so if you decide to mess with the stuff BE CAREFUL!
That about covers it, at least for now. If you try making blades and doing your own heat-treatment, you'll be doing some experimenting to see what seems to work best, and expect to screw things up a few times; there's no way around it. And you'll keep learning as you go.
As to type of steel, carbon adds wear-resistance, which is why good knives generally use high carbon. However, properly worked medium carbon can make fine blades, especially for big ones. Note that a medium carbon steel will need less heat to get it from fully-hardened to the working hardness you want, while high carbon will often need a bit higher temp to keep it from being brittle.
With O1 tool steel for a general-use knife, I'll start around 400F for the first heat. I don't have access to a Rockwell hardness tester, so I go by color and experience. If you've shined up the surface nicely before heating, when you take it out of the oven after 45-60 minutes, the blade will have a nice dark yellow/light bronze color, which seems to work out to about 50-60 Rockwell, just about what you want. If you decide to increase the temp, do it in 25 degree steps; up it 25, temper 45 minutes, let it cool, and then test it. If it's a little too hard, can up it another step. Please note, if you temper it softer than you wanted, you either live with it, or go back to the fire to harden it again and start over.
The basic test for edge hardness is very simple, and works quite well. I picked it up from an article by Wayne Goddard, and all you need is a piece of 1/4" brass rod and a vise. First, sharpen the knife as you normally would. In good light so you can see well, clamp the rod in the vise so one side is above the jaws of the vise. Take the sharpened blade and hold it at a shallow angle against the brass as if you were going to slice a layer off and push down gently, watching the edge where it contacts the rod. A properly hardened & tempered edge will flex visibly, and return to straight when you release the pressure. If it chips, it's too hard; if it flexes and stays bent, it's too soft. I've found it very accurate as a test.
Testing can get involved. The American Bladesmith Society tests blades for Journeyman and Master status harshly, sometimes to destruction. Heavy cutting, edge-holding ability, and the final is to clamp the point in a vise and flex it; if it cracks or breaks before flexing the right amount, it fails. What I generally do is a bit simpler. With big blades, 8" & up, I save up small(2" or so) limbs when pruning trees for the chopping test, which is chopping them into shorter pieces to make sure the blade will hold up, and stay sharp. For actual edge-holding, I take 1/4" manilla or sisal rope, set a board in a vise for a cutting surface, and start cutting rope. I try to make the cuts no more than 1/2" apart, and stop when it won't cut cleanly any more or I get tired, depending. I've had blades cut well over 100 pieces and still be useably sharp; they might not shave anymore, but they'll still cut cleanly.
One further test is for the smoothness of edge; take a magazine page or a piece of copy paper, hold it along one edge and see if the edge will slice it cleanly. When you finish sharpening this is a good check, because any rough spots will snag and tear the paper. After the cutting testing, this tells you if the edge is still fairly smooth, or if it picked up tiny nicks during the cutting.
One more thing; a new-made blade may not show it's best edge-holding right off. One of the things steel does, when it hits the critical temperature for hardening, is that it can lose carbon atoms into the atmosphere. So, depending on how long it was at heat, you may have a thin skin of decarburized steel on the piece(steel that is at a lower carbon content than that below that layer). This layer will not hold an edge as well, but as a time or two of sharpening wears past it, you get to the high-test stuff and it picks up performance. Usually the finish-grinding and polishing cleans it off, but if you sharpen and test before that, it's something to remember.
There's another step that some makers are using on blades, a sub-zero quench. Basically you take a hardened blade, clean it absolutely clean of all traces of oil or whatever, and lower it into a tank of liquid nitrogen. Leave it soaking long enough for the entire piece to have reached that temperature, then slowly remove it and hang it up to warm to room temp. After that, to the oven to temper normally. I've heard of using this both before and after tempering, but I haven't tried it myself. Reports indicate that it can make a serious improvement in the toughness/edge holding ability of some blades. Basically, when steel hits certain points, the structure of the metal changes. Freshly hardened steel contains a structure called 'martensite' cause by the structure freezing when quenched. The sub-zero quench is supposed to cause a more complete transformation to martensite than would otherwise happen. Or so I'm told. The problems with this are two: 1. liquid nitrogen doesn't last too long, even when kept in the proper container it evaporates and 2. the stuff is at about 250 below zero, and if you splash it on yourself, instant burn. It will literally kill tissue on contact, so if you decide to mess with the stuff BE CAREFUL!
That about covers it, at least for now. If you try making blades and doing your own heat-treatment, you'll be doing some experimenting to see what seems to work best, and expect to screw things up a few times; there's no way around it. And you'll keep learning as you go.
The Postal Match
that Og set up, first deadline this weekend.
I shot both the .22 pistol and rifle the other day. Pistol I did worse than I expected, which I blame on trying to shoot both in one range visit. Not totally disgusting, but not too good, either.
The rifle, now I was rather happy with my score. Why, you ask?
HAVE YOU LOOKED AT THAT FREAKIN' TARGET? The bullseye's a half-inch across! Jeez, at 25 yards it was a blurry dot to me! The target I usually use for offhand at that range is a 2" diameter black circle, which made this think look like one of those spots that occasionally swims about before my eyes. That I got a high enough score not to be greatly embarrassed by makes me quite happy with my performance that day.
And anyone who says "The rings help you center the bull" is getting introduced to my hammer. The four-pound one.
I shot both the .22 pistol and rifle the other day. Pistol I did worse than I expected, which I blame on trying to shoot both in one range visit. Not totally disgusting, but not too good, either.
The rifle, now I was rather happy with my score. Why, you ask?
HAVE YOU LOOKED AT THAT FREAKIN' TARGET? The bullseye's a half-inch across! Jeez, at 25 yards it was a blurry dot to me! The target I usually use for offhand at that range is a 2" diameter black circle, which made this think look like one of those spots that occasionally swims about before my eyes. That I got a high enough score not to be greatly embarrassed by makes me quite happy with my performance that day.
And anyone who says "The rings help you center the bull" is getting introduced to my hammer. The four-pound one.
And to take the taste of Scheer out of your mouth,
Babalu Blog Banned In Cuba! Bearded Murderer In Terror of Blog!
Don't you just love it? The worst dictator in the western world(chavez is still his butt monkey) and he's scared to let the people of Cuba read Val's words.
Hey, fidel, the day's coming...
By the way, Val is now officially a 'fascist troglodyte with a bad attitude'. In Italy, no less!
Don't you just love it? The worst dictator in the western world(chavez is still his butt monkey) and he's scared to let the people of Cuba read Val's words.
Hey, fidel, the day's coming...
By the way, Val is now officially a 'fascist troglodyte with a bad attitude'. In Italy, no less!
It's better to lose?
Robert Scheer says so. He thinks things are just wonderful in Vietnam. I'm a little fuzzy on some things, but let's look at this.
"If then-President Ford had not possessed the courage and wisdom to order the end of the U.S. occupation of Vietnam, we probably would still be embroiled in combating a never-ending insurgency." As I recall, it was a Democrat-controlled Congress that cut off all aid to South Vietnam, condemning it to being conquered by the North. But hey, what's a few hundred thousand people dead and/or imprisoned to a 'never-ending insurgency"? That we weren't even fighting at that point?
"In defeat, the U.S. was able to economically exploit Vietnam without spending U.S. dollars and lives on a hopeless occupation." I wasn't aware that we were trying to 'occupy' it in the first place, but never mind that; we should have just gotten along with them at the time, right?
""Ironically, if you took away the still-ruling Communist Party and discounted the perilous decade after the war, the Vietnam of today is not much different from the country U.S. policymakers wanted to create in the 1960s," Lamb wrote." I just love that; "IF you took away the still-ruling Communist Party". You know, the one that doesn't allow freedom of speech, and kills Christians for the crime of worshipping, etc. No, no problem there.
I was going to go over this piece by piece, but I don't have the stomach for it. Basically, if we hadn't 'over-reacted' to the Red Menace back when, things would have evened out very nicely over time and we'd all be nice little friends. Not said but I bet he wishes is that the Soviet Union might even still be in business. Wouldn't that be ducky?
Oh, and sending troops to Afghanistan and Iraq just 'sounds familiar' to sending troops to Vietnam, etc. From what I've heard, Scheer is one of those assholes who can rarely find anything good about the U.S., and even the few good things would be better if we'd become sensible and turn into a nice socialist state.
I started to say "Over a lot of dead bodies", but that's a given. And I think this idiot might like that.
Update: over at Front Page Mag, Horowitz rips Scheer a big new anal orifice, with a lot more numbers of what happened. And more on that little murderer Ho Chi Minh.
"If then-President Ford had not possessed the courage and wisdom to order the end of the U.S. occupation of Vietnam, we probably would still be embroiled in combating a never-ending insurgency." As I recall, it was a Democrat-controlled Congress that cut off all aid to South Vietnam, condemning it to being conquered by the North. But hey, what's a few hundred thousand people dead and/or imprisoned to a 'never-ending insurgency"? That we weren't even fighting at that point?
"In defeat, the U.S. was able to economically exploit Vietnam without spending U.S. dollars and lives on a hopeless occupation." I wasn't aware that we were trying to 'occupy' it in the first place, but never mind that; we should have just gotten along with them at the time, right?
""Ironically, if you took away the still-ruling Communist Party and discounted the perilous decade after the war, the Vietnam of today is not much different from the country U.S. policymakers wanted to create in the 1960s," Lamb wrote." I just love that; "IF you took away the still-ruling Communist Party". You know, the one that doesn't allow freedom of speech, and kills Christians for the crime of worshipping, etc. No, no problem there.
I was going to go over this piece by piece, but I don't have the stomach for it. Basically, if we hadn't 'over-reacted' to the Red Menace back when, things would have evened out very nicely over time and we'd all be nice little friends. Not said but I bet he wishes is that the Soviet Union might even still be in business. Wouldn't that be ducky?
Oh, and sending troops to Afghanistan and Iraq just 'sounds familiar' to sending troops to Vietnam, etc. From what I've heard, Scheer is one of those assholes who can rarely find anything good about the U.S., and even the few good things would be better if we'd become sensible and turn into a nice socialist state.
I started to say "Over a lot of dead bodies", but that's a given. And I think this idiot might like that.
Update: over at Front Page Mag, Horowitz rips Scheer a big new anal orifice, with a lot more numbers of what happened. And more on that little murderer Ho Chi Minh.
Tuesday, May 03, 2005
Heat treatment continued
One of the misconceptions about hardening and tempering is the time factor. Generally, unless you're working with some alloy that demands being held at certain temperatures for certain times, it goes like this:
When you get a piece to hardening temperature, that's it. It doesn't have to be held there for a particular length of time, the critical factor is simply that the piece, or the sections of it needed, have reached the required temperature. Take it out of the fire and quench it in the appropriate medium, water, oil or air.
With the carbon steels I mostly use, I generally quench twice. Meaning bring it up to heat, quench. After it cools enough take it out of the oil, clean it off & let it cool to ambient temp. Repeat. For whatever reason, it often does seem to make stronger blade to harden it twice. And as I mentioned once before, some demand it: 52100 seems to get the best result by three quenches, spaced 24 hours apart. Why? I have no idea, but it does seem to work better.
Tempering is the next step. If you have the aforementioned heat-treating furnace you can use it. You can use the forge or a burner and move the piece back & forth over the heat and watch the color change, pulling the piece out and quenching it at the temp needed. What some smiths do is take a piece of heavy steel or iron pipe cut lengthwise, a foot long at most, and set it over the fire. Let it get good & hot, and while it's heating clean the oil off the blade and shine it up so you can see the color change. Then, for a single-edge blade, start working the spine back & forth along the pipe. The blade will soak up heat, and by moving it around you can keep it even; as before, quench when the color is right. Or, you can use a commonly available household device to do it.
Stick it in the oven.
Yes, that wonder of the modern age, the oven! Capable of turning out a loaf of bread with a crisp crust, turning turkey into dinner, and yes, even tempering knives! However, there are some warnings here, especially if you have a spouse or live-in significant other. First, CLEAN THE DAMN THING OFF! Quenching oil does NOT smell like food baking when it gets hot. In fact, it stinks. So if you leave it on the blade, you will a: piss off the housemate, b: stink up the place, and c: get orders to clean out the oven and/or "You expect me to cook DINNER in that? WIth that stink in it?!?" Possibly including threats to your health. So, after it cools down completely after the last quench, take it to the sink(watch the sensitivities of the spousal unit) and wash it with either a degreaser or dishwashing soap( I personally use Dawn). Get it good & clean, and then hit it lightly on at least one side to shine it up a bit. Then into the oven.
If you're not sure about what temp to use, the oven is very nice in that you can start low, say 375F, and go up from there. Once you know what temp will give the steel in question the hardness you want you can just set it there. Following a procedure I first read I can't remember where, I do it this way:
Set the heat at your desired temp, and set the knife in. I try to set it up so the blade is either edge up or down, not laying on the side. If the oven is already hot, start your timing here, if not give it time to get up to temperature and start then. Again, the critical factor is simply that the entire piece has to get up to the temperature. A thick piece will take longer than a thin one. You don't really gain anything by leaving a piece at temp for hours, though it won't hurt it either. For knives, I leave it in for 45 minutes, maybe an hour for a thick blade(just to be on the safe side). At that time I take it out and set it on a cooling rack(the one you use for cake will work fine as long as the primary cook doesn't get pissed). Leave it until it cools to room temp, then back into the oven for 45 minutes more. I temper three times, and unless the oven is needed after the last one I just turn off the heat and leave it there until cool.
That's it. Nothing magical, although the result can seem that way.
More to follow when time allows
When you get a piece to hardening temperature, that's it. It doesn't have to be held there for a particular length of time, the critical factor is simply that the piece, or the sections of it needed, have reached the required temperature. Take it out of the fire and quench it in the appropriate medium, water, oil or air.
With the carbon steels I mostly use, I generally quench twice. Meaning bring it up to heat, quench. After it cools enough take it out of the oil, clean it off & let it cool to ambient temp. Repeat. For whatever reason, it often does seem to make stronger blade to harden it twice. And as I mentioned once before, some demand it: 52100 seems to get the best result by three quenches, spaced 24 hours apart. Why? I have no idea, but it does seem to work better.
Tempering is the next step. If you have the aforementioned heat-treating furnace you can use it. You can use the forge or a burner and move the piece back & forth over the heat and watch the color change, pulling the piece out and quenching it at the temp needed. What some smiths do is take a piece of heavy steel or iron pipe cut lengthwise, a foot long at most, and set it over the fire. Let it get good & hot, and while it's heating clean the oil off the blade and shine it up so you can see the color change. Then, for a single-edge blade, start working the spine back & forth along the pipe. The blade will soak up heat, and by moving it around you can keep it even; as before, quench when the color is right. Or, you can use a commonly available household device to do it.
Stick it in the oven.
Yes, that wonder of the modern age, the oven! Capable of turning out a loaf of bread with a crisp crust, turning turkey into dinner, and yes, even tempering knives! However, there are some warnings here, especially if you have a spouse or live-in significant other. First, CLEAN THE DAMN THING OFF! Quenching oil does NOT smell like food baking when it gets hot. In fact, it stinks. So if you leave it on the blade, you will a: piss off the housemate, b: stink up the place, and c: get orders to clean out the oven and/or "You expect me to cook DINNER in that? WIth that stink in it?!?" Possibly including threats to your health. So, after it cools down completely after the last quench, take it to the sink(watch the sensitivities of the spousal unit) and wash it with either a degreaser or dishwashing soap( I personally use Dawn). Get it good & clean, and then hit it lightly on at least one side to shine it up a bit. Then into the oven.
If you're not sure about what temp to use, the oven is very nice in that you can start low, say 375F, and go up from there. Once you know what temp will give the steel in question the hardness you want you can just set it there. Following a procedure I first read I can't remember where, I do it this way:
Set the heat at your desired temp, and set the knife in. I try to set it up so the blade is either edge up or down, not laying on the side. If the oven is already hot, start your timing here, if not give it time to get up to temperature and start then. Again, the critical factor is simply that the entire piece has to get up to the temperature. A thick piece will take longer than a thin one. You don't really gain anything by leaving a piece at temp for hours, though it won't hurt it either. For knives, I leave it in for 45 minutes, maybe an hour for a thick blade(just to be on the safe side). At that time I take it out and set it on a cooling rack(the one you use for cake will work fine as long as the primary cook doesn't get pissed). Leave it until it cools to room temp, then back into the oven for 45 minutes more. I temper three times, and unless the oven is needed after the last one I just turn off the heat and leave it there until cool.
That's it. Nothing magical, although the result can seem that way.
More to follow when time allows
Monday, May 02, 2005
Heat treating, continuation
Og had a couple of questions/points I thought I'd address here on the subject of heat-treating knives.
I mentioned before it's a two-step process, hardening and tempering. Hardening is the real pain, in that you have to get the entire length of the blade up to temperature at the same time without over/underheating it in places. Several ways to do it:
1. Spend a couple of thousand on a heat-treating furnace. The good ones can be had with a compartment up to 36" long, the temperature can be set exactly, and if you get the computer controller you can even set how long to take to get to full heat, or bring it up in steps, etc. Or if you have a gas forge, many of them can be adjusted to give just the right heat. If you don't have the money or enough time/interest to invest in one of these,
2. For small/medium blades you can take some firebrick and stack them to create a long empty box in the center. Cut/drill a hole in one of the side bricks, a little off-center, and stick a torch tip into the hole. Adjust things right and the flame/heat will swirl around inside; by moving the piece back & forth you can get a nice, even heat. However, this only works well with short blades; long ones require a long chamber, and probably more than one torch. Or in the forge, you can
3. Set up something to make the fire longer & thinner. I use a piece of pipe cut in half lengthwise with a bunch of holes drilled in it. Set it right over the air hole at the bottom, build the fire over it and it works pretty good. You can make it better by getting a piece of sheet steel and cutting it to an hourglass shape, then bending it in the middle and sitting it in the air hole below the pipe. You want it to stick up a little above the hole but not touching the pipe. It forces the air to blow to the sides as well as straight up, and by spreading the air blast more evenly you get a lot more even heat over the length of the fire. Big blades you'll need to move back & forth, but you can, with care, get it done. Or you can
4. Build a firebox specifically for this. A rectangular box however long, with a smaller piece of square tubing welded to the bottom for the full length, and a lot of holes drilled through. Hook a blower up to one end of the tube, and make a plunger to insert from the other end; by moving it back & forth you can control how long an area gets air, and you can stack firebricks at that end to set the length of the fire. For most knives the box would only need to be 6" wide, and if you find something suitable that's too wide you can stack fire bricks along the sides to leave a narrower channel down the center.
To be continued
I mentioned before it's a two-step process, hardening and tempering. Hardening is the real pain, in that you have to get the entire length of the blade up to temperature at the same time without over/underheating it in places. Several ways to do it:
1. Spend a couple of thousand on a heat-treating furnace. The good ones can be had with a compartment up to 36" long, the temperature can be set exactly, and if you get the computer controller you can even set how long to take to get to full heat, or bring it up in steps, etc. Or if you have a gas forge, many of them can be adjusted to give just the right heat. If you don't have the money or enough time/interest to invest in one of these,
2. For small/medium blades you can take some firebrick and stack them to create a long empty box in the center. Cut/drill a hole in one of the side bricks, a little off-center, and stick a torch tip into the hole. Adjust things right and the flame/heat will swirl around inside; by moving the piece back & forth you can get a nice, even heat. However, this only works well with short blades; long ones require a long chamber, and probably more than one torch. Or in the forge, you can
3. Set up something to make the fire longer & thinner. I use a piece of pipe cut in half lengthwise with a bunch of holes drilled in it. Set it right over the air hole at the bottom, build the fire over it and it works pretty good. You can make it better by getting a piece of sheet steel and cutting it to an hourglass shape, then bending it in the middle and sitting it in the air hole below the pipe. You want it to stick up a little above the hole but not touching the pipe. It forces the air to blow to the sides as well as straight up, and by spreading the air blast more evenly you get a lot more even heat over the length of the fire. Big blades you'll need to move back & forth, but you can, with care, get it done. Or you can
4. Build a firebox specifically for this. A rectangular box however long, with a smaller piece of square tubing welded to the bottom for the full length, and a lot of holes drilled through. Hook a blower up to one end of the tube, and make a plunger to insert from the other end; by moving it back & forth you can control how long an area gets air, and you can stack firebricks at that end to set the length of the fire. For most knives the box would only need to be 6" wide, and if you find something suitable that's too wide you can stack fire bricks along the sides to leave a narrower channel down the center.
To be continued
Sunday, May 01, 2005
So what happens in Britain?
Mark Stein's column on this subject covers the possibles, none of them too attractive.
I've never understood a lot of the sighing over Tony Blair. I said before, I give him credit for understanding that the Islamists needed to be stomped on now, or it'd be ten times worse later on, and credit for getting it through his government. But...
Yeah, there's a but. In most everything else, Blair is my enemy. He wants the government controlling all aspects of life, wants all the peasants disarmed, wants all international decisions to be run past/through the U.N., he's a socialist politician of a type who brings to mind Misha's comment "Lamppost, rope, politician: some assembly required". I mean, even the French look to be voting against the European Union, and Blair has been trying to bulldoze Britain into it; even to the extent of not wanting to allow the people of Britain to vote on it. Yes, he put Britain into the war alongside us; he's also the bastard responsible for the British military being gutted, for troops being sent in harms way with maybe one magazine of ammo for their rifle, for not enough of anything. That the British soldiers came through magnificently does not change the fact that he should be hung for sending them to the sharp end with such conditions of equipment and supply.
Whoever wins the British elections, it'll be messy for us to some extent. And Blair and his party is responsible for that. No, the Brit 'conservative' party is no great winner, but at least they seem to think that giving the Queen's subjects permission to protect themselves is a good idea, which would be a step in the right direction.
(needing 'permission' for self-defense... Sucks, don't it?)
I've never understood a lot of the sighing over Tony Blair. I said before, I give him credit for understanding that the Islamists needed to be stomped on now, or it'd be ten times worse later on, and credit for getting it through his government. But...
Yeah, there's a but. In most everything else, Blair is my enemy. He wants the government controlling all aspects of life, wants all the peasants disarmed, wants all international decisions to be run past/through the U.N., he's a socialist politician of a type who brings to mind Misha's comment "Lamppost, rope, politician: some assembly required". I mean, even the French look to be voting against the European Union, and Blair has been trying to bulldoze Britain into it; even to the extent of not wanting to allow the people of Britain to vote on it. Yes, he put Britain into the war alongside us; he's also the bastard responsible for the British military being gutted, for troops being sent in harms way with maybe one magazine of ammo for their rifle, for not enough of anything. That the British soldiers came through magnificently does not change the fact that he should be hung for sending them to the sharp end with such conditions of equipment and supply.
Whoever wins the British elections, it'll be messy for us to some extent. And Blair and his party is responsible for that. No, the Brit 'conservative' party is no great winner, but at least they seem to think that giving the Queen's subjects permission to protect themselves is a good idea, which would be a step in the right direction.
(needing 'permission' for self-defense... Sucks, don't it?)
Warsaw Ghetto, 1943
I found this at Horsefeathers.
I can never read an account of this without feeling chills, and sometimes tears. A bunch of despised Jews, marked for death, deciding that they were not going to die as sheep in gas chambers, forcing the feared SS to bring in tanks and artillery to win a fight against a bunch of outnumbered, outgunned 'un-humans'.
Peter Capstick once wrote that if you don't respect the AmaZulu, then you don't know fighting men. If you can read the accounts of these people's courage and not feel something, maybe the presence of courage and greatness, then I'm very sorry for you.
I can never read an account of this without feeling chills, and sometimes tears. A bunch of despised Jews, marked for death, deciding that they were not going to die as sheep in gas chambers, forcing the feared SS to bring in tanks and artillery to win a fight against a bunch of outnumbered, outgunned 'un-humans'.
Peter Capstick once wrote that if you don't respect the AmaZulu, then you don't know fighting men. If you can read the accounts of these people's courage and not feel something, maybe the presence of courage and greatness, then I'm very sorry for you.
Further proof that California is in the hands of the idiots
Over at No Quarters is this post on the law being pushed there to require all ammunition to be serial numbered. And that if it passes, casting your own bullets will be illegal, as will buying surplus ammo, etc.
California is in the hands of the idiots and nannies, and they'll neuter everyone if they get a chance. Bleah.
California is in the hands of the idiots and nannies, and they'll neuter everyone if they get a chance. Bleah.
Saturday, April 30, 2005
Bad engineering, bad designers, or both
I got the doors put up on the shed today, after a fair amount of cursing and threats. Big problem is the sliders the doors hang from. They're nylon pieces that fit inside the track. There is a pin and a hole on each; the hole accepts the screw that holds the door in place and the pin fits into a hole in the door right next to where the screw goes.
Supposedly.
In fact, a: the pin is so short that if you tighten the screw down enough to pull it into place, the door won't move. Loosen it enough to move, and the pin falls out and the slider turns and jams the door.
!(#&#*&^***!
I had to drill a hole in the center of each pin and put in a screw to hold the damn sliders in alignment. This led to the next discovery. There are screws holding the track/front frame assembly together, on the top & bottom. The sliders have slots in them to slide over these.
Supposedly(again).
I'm going to have to put a grinding point in the Dremel and cut the screws down very close to the steel so they'll clear. And I'll take an old toothbrush and some paste wax and coat the inside of the track. Between them, the damn things should slide fairly smoothly.
It would have been a lot easier if they had a: made the sliders rectangular and a closer fit to the track, they could have cut the slots to clear the screws wider AND it would be more stable; b: made the bleepin' pins long enough to fit. Oh, I know why they didn't. They'd have to make two left and two right pieces, instead of four identical pieces that you turn to fit. Cheap bastards.
But the damn thing's up now.
Supposedly.
In fact, a: the pin is so short that if you tighten the screw down enough to pull it into place, the door won't move. Loosen it enough to move, and the pin falls out and the slider turns and jams the door.
!(#&#*&^***!
I had to drill a hole in the center of each pin and put in a screw to hold the damn sliders in alignment. This led to the next discovery. There are screws holding the track/front frame assembly together, on the top & bottom. The sliders have slots in them to slide over these.
Supposedly(again).
I'm going to have to put a grinding point in the Dremel and cut the screws down very close to the steel so they'll clear. And I'll take an old toothbrush and some paste wax and coat the inside of the track. Between them, the damn things should slide fairly smoothly.
It would have been a lot easier if they had a: made the sliders rectangular and a closer fit to the track, they could have cut the slots to clear the screws wider AND it would be more stable; b: made the bleepin' pins long enough to fit. Oh, I know why they didn't. They'd have to make two left and two right pieces, instead of four identical pieces that you turn to fit. Cheap bastards.
But the damn thing's up now.
I shall now pontificate on Safety
Yes, the with-a-capital-S Safety. That concept that is being taken to an extent that may do us all in eventually.
I realized I didn't know the actual dictionary definition of the word, so I looked it up and found
"the condition of being safe from undergoing or causing hurt, injury, or loss"
followed by
"a device (as on a weapon or a machine) designed to prevent inadvertent or hazardous operation".
Let's take the first one. It's a good idea to keep people 'safe'; the problem is with the extent it's being taken to. All too often it's not good enough to put a safety feature on a piece of machinery. You have to try to foresee every single thing, including the stupid and unthinking, that someone might possibly do that would allow someone to get hurt. Which is both damn near impossible, and can make it hard to actually use the equipment. This is related to the idiot warnings you find on just about everything. Some morons decide to pick up a running lawn mower and use it to trim the hedge; they slip and take various injuries and sue the lawnmower company for not having a sticker on the mower telling them that this is a bad idea. They can't figure out this is a bad idea on their own?!? But it doesn't matter that they got hurt by doing something self-evidently stupid; the company should have foreseen that they would and put a warning on the mower! Never mind that these idiots would have done it anyway, "You should have put a sticker on the mower deck" says the court while awarding the morons a pile of money. We've gotten away from the idea of "I will make a machine that will efficiently do a job, and I will use good materials and design; using it in a safe manner is in your hands". Instead, thanks to lawyers, idiots and judges we have "It doesn't matter how well it is designed and made, if someone does something dumb with it it's your fault for not somehow magically preventing harm from occurring. Which drives up the price- insurance and legal costs, you know- and leads to machinery being made in ways that either makes it a pain to use, or makes it harder to use. All in the name of 'Safety'.
Let's take that 'keep people safe' idea further. How 'safe'? and what exactly do you mean by that? I've seen proposals to ban or restrict ownership of or greatly modify everything from motor vehicles to bicycles to knives to guns to... the list goes on and on. All by people who care about 'safety'(and supposedly crime control in some cases; with some things they seem to go together in some minds) and have little concern for actually getting things done. Many tools are inherently dangerous: a knife of any kind without a sharp edge and/or point is useless; a saw made so 'safe' that you cannot cut yourself on it may not be useable, and so forth. Up until fairly recently it's been accepted that use of many things carries risk, and it's up to you to take care with it, but over the last while far too many people expect someone else to think for them and keep them 'safe'. This has basically resulted in people standing up in court and saying "I don't have any working brain cells and cannot think, so it was up to the X company to think for me and keep me from getting hurt". I personally would be too damn embarrassed to stand up in court and say "How was I to know that if I picked up a running mower, I might get hurt?", but get a lawyer and dollar signs in someone's mind, and lots of people do it. And it raises costs for everyone.
This hooks into the 'prevention principle' that's a big thing with the European Union; that you should prove something is completely safe before it can be sold/used. That is, without doubt, one of the most idiot ideas to come down the road. Everything has dangers. Every chemical, every tool, every method of conveyance. All of it. Chemicals that keep bugs out of our food, and help cure diseases, that help aches and pains; tools that build civilization; ideas themselves; ALL of them have dangers. Make yourself 'safe' from them, and you'll be back in a hovel with wolves prowling the edges of the fields, wondering if there isn't a better way to live. But there are a bunch of people, some simply well-meaning but some actively using this as a way of controlling people, who are pushing it. Hard.
How about the second part, "a device (as on a weapon or a machine) designed to prevent inadvertent or hazardous operation"? This has led to things like the 'safety button' on my circular saw that has to be depressed to turn it on. It used to be that you could, once you had it on, push a button that would lock it 'on' so you could move your hand around as needed, but that wasn't 'safe' enough. So if you shift your hand around the damn thing may turn off. Pain in the ass at times.
It's also leading the 'safe gun' concept that a bunch of people are pushing. I'll say this right off: I will not cooperate with this crap. I have no intention of being restricted to a firearm that will only operate for me, or only if I'm wearing my magic bracelet or whatever. Besides the idiocy of having a weapon that will not operate unless you go through a proper 'safe operating' sequence or wear the right devices, it's a direct threat to ownership of arms. If you are only allowed to have a gun that only you can fire, you can't take your kids to the range with it, because they can't fire it. At best, it would mean having some government minion 'approve' you adding your kid's information into the database on the firearm; at worst it means said minion says 'no', and you're screwed. And if you work around it, you've violated the law and they'll take your arms away if they find out, because you cannot be trusted to 'safely' use said arms- in their opinion. And since they control the law, their's is the opinion that counts, isn't it?
I'll point out a further thing I read somewhere: a gun with 'smart' tech built in needs a battery. So the government, for 'safety' and crime control, dictates what battery will be used. Which means they can control the supply, and if you can't get the battery, for whatever reason, you are screwed.
Not to mention that the simple fact that if you need a gun, it will often be under the worst circumstances, when you may not have your magic bracelet available. Or may have crud on your hand that would prevent the sensors from confirming you are the authorized user for the firearm, and so forth. Which is why all of the 'smart gun' legislation I've heard of exempts law enforcement from complying. It's not good enough for the minions of the state, but quite good enough to force on the peasants.
It all boils down to people being held responsible for their own actions, which is why I don't know if it'll get better or not. There's a lot of momentum toward people not being responsible for themselves, and halting or reversing it- even a little bit- is iffy. If it continues the way it has, we'll all be so damn safe that we can't do anything.
I realized I didn't know the actual dictionary definition of the word, so I looked it up and found
"the condition of being safe from undergoing or causing hurt, injury, or loss"
followed by
"a device (as on a weapon or a machine) designed to prevent inadvertent or hazardous operation".
Let's take the first one. It's a good idea to keep people 'safe'; the problem is with the extent it's being taken to. All too often it's not good enough to put a safety feature on a piece of machinery. You have to try to foresee every single thing, including the stupid and unthinking, that someone might possibly do that would allow someone to get hurt. Which is both damn near impossible, and can make it hard to actually use the equipment. This is related to the idiot warnings you find on just about everything. Some morons decide to pick up a running lawn mower and use it to trim the hedge; they slip and take various injuries and sue the lawnmower company for not having a sticker on the mower telling them that this is a bad idea. They can't figure out this is a bad idea on their own?!? But it doesn't matter that they got hurt by doing something self-evidently stupid; the company should have foreseen that they would and put a warning on the mower! Never mind that these idiots would have done it anyway, "You should have put a sticker on the mower deck" says the court while awarding the morons a pile of money. We've gotten away from the idea of "I will make a machine that will efficiently do a job, and I will use good materials and design; using it in a safe manner is in your hands". Instead, thanks to lawyers, idiots and judges we have "It doesn't matter how well it is designed and made, if someone does something dumb with it it's your fault for not somehow magically preventing harm from occurring. Which drives up the price- insurance and legal costs, you know- and leads to machinery being made in ways that either makes it a pain to use, or makes it harder to use. All in the name of 'Safety'.
Let's take that 'keep people safe' idea further. How 'safe'? and what exactly do you mean by that? I've seen proposals to ban or restrict ownership of or greatly modify everything from motor vehicles to bicycles to knives to guns to... the list goes on and on. All by people who care about 'safety'(and supposedly crime control in some cases; with some things they seem to go together in some minds) and have little concern for actually getting things done. Many tools are inherently dangerous: a knife of any kind without a sharp edge and/or point is useless; a saw made so 'safe' that you cannot cut yourself on it may not be useable, and so forth. Up until fairly recently it's been accepted that use of many things carries risk, and it's up to you to take care with it, but over the last while far too many people expect someone else to think for them and keep them 'safe'. This has basically resulted in people standing up in court and saying "I don't have any working brain cells and cannot think, so it was up to the X company to think for me and keep me from getting hurt". I personally would be too damn embarrassed to stand up in court and say "How was I to know that if I picked up a running mower, I might get hurt?", but get a lawyer and dollar signs in someone's mind, and lots of people do it. And it raises costs for everyone.
This hooks into the 'prevention principle' that's a big thing with the European Union; that you should prove something is completely safe before it can be sold/used. That is, without doubt, one of the most idiot ideas to come down the road. Everything has dangers. Every chemical, every tool, every method of conveyance. All of it. Chemicals that keep bugs out of our food, and help cure diseases, that help aches and pains; tools that build civilization; ideas themselves; ALL of them have dangers. Make yourself 'safe' from them, and you'll be back in a hovel with wolves prowling the edges of the fields, wondering if there isn't a better way to live. But there are a bunch of people, some simply well-meaning but some actively using this as a way of controlling people, who are pushing it. Hard.
How about the second part, "a device (as on a weapon or a machine) designed to prevent inadvertent or hazardous operation"? This has led to things like the 'safety button' on my circular saw that has to be depressed to turn it on. It used to be that you could, once you had it on, push a button that would lock it 'on' so you could move your hand around as needed, but that wasn't 'safe' enough. So if you shift your hand around the damn thing may turn off. Pain in the ass at times.
It's also leading the 'safe gun' concept that a bunch of people are pushing. I'll say this right off: I will not cooperate with this crap. I have no intention of being restricted to a firearm that will only operate for me, or only if I'm wearing my magic bracelet or whatever. Besides the idiocy of having a weapon that will not operate unless you go through a proper 'safe operating' sequence or wear the right devices, it's a direct threat to ownership of arms. If you are only allowed to have a gun that only you can fire, you can't take your kids to the range with it, because they can't fire it. At best, it would mean having some government minion 'approve' you adding your kid's information into the database on the firearm; at worst it means said minion says 'no', and you're screwed. And if you work around it, you've violated the law and they'll take your arms away if they find out, because you cannot be trusted to 'safely' use said arms- in their opinion. And since they control the law, their's is the opinion that counts, isn't it?
I'll point out a further thing I read somewhere: a gun with 'smart' tech built in needs a battery. So the government, for 'safety' and crime control, dictates what battery will be used. Which means they can control the supply, and if you can't get the battery, for whatever reason, you are screwed.
Not to mention that the simple fact that if you need a gun, it will often be under the worst circumstances, when you may not have your magic bracelet available. Or may have crud on your hand that would prevent the sensors from confirming you are the authorized user for the firearm, and so forth. Which is why all of the 'smart gun' legislation I've heard of exempts law enforcement from complying. It's not good enough for the minions of the state, but quite good enough to force on the peasants.
It all boils down to people being held responsible for their own actions, which is why I don't know if it'll get better or not. There's a lot of momentum toward people not being responsible for themselves, and halting or reversing it- even a little bit- is iffy. If it continues the way it has, we'll all be so damn safe that we can't do anything.
Crime and guns in Britain and Europe
Over at Smallest Minority(I know, I go there a lot; he has a lot to read) there's this about British crime figures. Basically, a retired cop talked about how many gun-related crimes are not officially reported so they're not listed in crime figures, so the situation is worse than the official number say. And the 'professional standards' unit sends people to talk to you. Because they want to know who talked to you. Screw the facts, we need to know who's not toeing the line and making us look bad. Just wonderful.
He also has this, on a man beaten to death in his business. An attack that took fifteen minutes, in an area that supposedly had a 'heightened police presence' in the time prior to the attack.
No Quarters has this on the theft of 'up to 150 Glock pistols' from a high security air base in the Netherlands. It took place over the weekend, and wasn't discovered 'till Monday. Sheesh. Maybe they need better 'safe storage' laws over there, huh? This reminds me of something from about ten years ago, I believe also in the Netherlands. A guy on guard duty was robbed- of his Uzi- by two guys with a crossbow, who held him until his relief came, and took his subgun too. Ain't it just wonderful over there?
I'm curious. Does anyone know anything about firearms laws in the 'new Europe' countries? I'm wondering if the citazens there have some right to arms, or if they're still going by the 'we will tell you peasants what you will be allowed to own' attitude.
By the way, No Quarters has some other good stuff, take a look around.
He also has this, on a man beaten to death in his business. An attack that took fifteen minutes, in an area that supposedly had a 'heightened police presence' in the time prior to the attack.
No Quarters has this on the theft of 'up to 150 Glock pistols' from a high security air base in the Netherlands. It took place over the weekend, and wasn't discovered 'till Monday. Sheesh. Maybe they need better 'safe storage' laws over there, huh? This reminds me of something from about ten years ago, I believe also in the Netherlands. A guy on guard duty was robbed- of his Uzi- by two guys with a crossbow, who held him until his relief came, and took his subgun too. Ain't it just wonderful over there?
I'm curious. Does anyone know anything about firearms laws in the 'new Europe' countries? I'm wondering if the citazens there have some right to arms, or if they're still going by the 'we will tell you peasants what you will be allowed to own' attitude.
By the way, No Quarters has some other good stuff, take a look around.
Friday, April 29, 2005
The Carnival of Cordite is up
over at Gullyborg.
Right now it's cloudy, cold and threatening rain, and I've got to be at work very late tonight. Or very early tomorrow, or whatever.
Later.
Right now it's cloudy, cold and threatening rain, and I've got to be at work very late tonight. Or very early tomorrow, or whatever.
Later.
Thursday, April 28, 2005
The shed is up!
And I'm done. In more ways than one.
All but the trim on the edges and the doors is complete, and I'll finish that tomorrow. I need another piece of plywood for the flooring, but that's no big deal.
Then I can move some stuff out of the garage and into it, which will free up some space. And get the mower out of the weather. The dog won't set foot in it so far, we'll see if that holds. And I may have to put some screening around the base to keep the squirrels and such out come fall, we'll have to see.
Damn, I'm glad this part is done.
All but the trim on the edges and the doors is complete, and I'll finish that tomorrow. I need another piece of plywood for the flooring, but that's no big deal.
Then I can move some stuff out of the garage and into it, which will free up some space. And get the mower out of the weather. The dog won't set foot in it so far, we'll see if that holds. And I may have to put some screening around the base to keep the squirrels and such out come fall, we'll have to see.
Damn, I'm glad this part is done.
Wednesday, April 27, 2005
Tool & material sources
Note: I started this the other night, and ran out of time. I'm too worn out tonight to dig around for more sources, so I'm going to post this and add to it later.
After some of the earlier posts, I thought I'd list a few of the places I get stuff from.
Enco Power tools, hand tools, sanding/grinding belts, steel & brass bar stock.
BrownellsPrimarily a gunsmith supply company, some steel stock. The big items here are polishing/finishing supplies such as buffing wheels, buffing compounds, blueing & browning compounds, etc. They also have some books called Gunsmith Kinks, tips on all kinds of stuff from customers. Some of it can be applied quite well to knives, etc. They also have some heavy-duty epoxy that will stick just about anything together. It ain't cheap, and you have to mix it properly, but it works.
Centaur Forge Blacksmith & farrier supply house, just about everything from forges and hand tools to machine tools, bar stock, books, etc. Can also order custom punches for marking pieces.
Harbor Freight Import company with lots of hand tools, sanding belts/cloth/paper, buffers, grinders, etc. Bad thing is a lot of their stuff is imported from the PRC, so I try to pick stuff made elsewhere.
Salvage yards Mostly mild steel bar & sheet, you can also find rebar(tent stakes, stands for bird feeders) and other stuff. Leaf and coil springs make good blades and punches and chisels, and can be found here. Don't think just car/truck springs, either; I've used overhead garage door springs of different sizes for all kinds of things.
Don't discount local hardware places, and check the phone book for industrial supply houses. They'll often have some buffing wheels and compounds, and may have buffers, or a grinder you can convert. And of course they'll have drill bits, files and so forth. Note: in drill bits, buy the best you can. They'll last longer, especially drilling high-carbon steel. Even if it is annealed, that stuff is hard. On the subject of drilling, use a cutting oil; the drilling will be easier and the bits will last longer. Brownells has a stuff called Do-Drill that works quite well, and the nice thing is that unless you do a LOT of drilling or machining, one can will last for years.
After some of the earlier posts, I thought I'd list a few of the places I get stuff from.
Enco Power tools, hand tools, sanding/grinding belts, steel & brass bar stock.
BrownellsPrimarily a gunsmith supply company, some steel stock. The big items here are polishing/finishing supplies such as buffing wheels, buffing compounds, blueing & browning compounds, etc. They also have some books called Gunsmith Kinks, tips on all kinds of stuff from customers. Some of it can be applied quite well to knives, etc. They also have some heavy-duty epoxy that will stick just about anything together. It ain't cheap, and you have to mix it properly, but it works.
Centaur Forge Blacksmith & farrier supply house, just about everything from forges and hand tools to machine tools, bar stock, books, etc. Can also order custom punches for marking pieces.
Harbor Freight Import company with lots of hand tools, sanding belts/cloth/paper, buffers, grinders, etc. Bad thing is a lot of their stuff is imported from the PRC, so I try to pick stuff made elsewhere.
Salvage yards Mostly mild steel bar & sheet, you can also find rebar(tent stakes, stands for bird feeders) and other stuff. Leaf and coil springs make good blades and punches and chisels, and can be found here. Don't think just car/truck springs, either; I've used overhead garage door springs of different sizes for all kinds of things.
Don't discount local hardware places, and check the phone book for industrial supply houses. They'll often have some buffing wheels and compounds, and may have buffers, or a grinder you can convert. And of course they'll have drill bits, files and so forth. Note: in drill bits, buy the best you can. They'll last longer, especially drilling high-carbon steel. Even if it is annealed, that stuff is hard. On the subject of drilling, use a cutting oil; the drilling will be easier and the bits will last longer. Brownells has a stuff called Do-Drill that works quite well, and the nice thing is that unless you do a LOT of drilling or machining, one can will last for years.
Various thoughts & information from others
on gun ownership, GFW's, and crime.
First, over at Smallest Minority, Kevin goes into the differences between 'good' and 'bad' gun cultures, and how the Good was destroyed in England.
Then, he goes over the crap out of the Violence Policy Center over the 'Assault Weapons Ban' and why a: they don't think it was a ban and b: why they pushed it anyway, and want it back. Lying little bastards.
Then over to Rivrdog, for this roundup of the wonders of gun control(more properly 'citazen disarmament') in various places. Including what's happening with the crime rates in Australia. As you might expect, following Britain's lead in making the ownership of arms and the right of self-defense crimes, their crime rates are shooting up. Literally.
I repeat what I said before, the only reason for the government to want to ban/restrict the ownership of arms is because a: the Lords of the Country don't think the peasants are trustworthy enough to own them, and/or b: they plan on doing things they know you won't like, and they don't want you to have the ultimate means of saying "no". I'll add that the only reasons some people want them banned are the two above and mental illness; as in 'I cannot be trusted with arms, so no one else can be, either'. Jeff Cooper calls in 'hoplophobia', for fear of weapons and the ownership of them. Anymore, I just call it being full of shit.
As an aside, this stuff is making my language go downhill. Sorry 'bout that.
First, over at Smallest Minority, Kevin goes into the differences between 'good' and 'bad' gun cultures, and how the Good was destroyed in England.
Then, he goes over the crap out of the Violence Policy Center over the 'Assault Weapons Ban' and why a: they don't think it was a ban and b: why they pushed it anyway, and want it back. Lying little bastards.
Then over to Rivrdog, for this roundup of the wonders of gun control(more properly 'citazen disarmament') in various places. Including what's happening with the crime rates in Australia. As you might expect, following Britain's lead in making the ownership of arms and the right of self-defense crimes, their crime rates are shooting up. Literally.
I repeat what I said before, the only reason for the government to want to ban/restrict the ownership of arms is because a: the Lords of the Country don't think the peasants are trustworthy enough to own them, and/or b: they plan on doing things they know you won't like, and they don't want you to have the ultimate means of saying "no". I'll add that the only reasons some people want them banned are the two above and mental illness; as in 'I cannot be trusted with arms, so no one else can be, either'. Jeff Cooper calls in 'hoplophobia', for fear of weapons and the ownership of them. Anymore, I just call it being full of shit.
As an aside, this stuff is making my language go downhill. Sorry 'bout that.
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