General "what's happening in the world?"

Over at Captains Quarters there's this: "Did Spain Sell WMD To Hugo Chavez?". I know the new government of Spain is a bunch of terrorist-appeasing socialists, but how could they be stupid enough to sell this stuff to a castro-worshipping jackass like chavez?

Also at CQ, more on the meltdown in Canadian politics. I just love that the 'freedom loving' Canadians had a bunch of information on this mess restricted; the politicians could see it, the press could see it, but the peasants were not to be informed. Just wonderful.

Powerline covered some of John Kerry's latest whining. This was crap before, and it's shopworn crap now. I had a friend who insisted that lots of people were 'disenfranchised' in the 2000 election; pointing out that going to the wrong polling place, or not bothering to register, or not being elegible to vote did not 'disenfranchise' you didn't make a difference. Sick of all of it.

Kim du Toit has this on how Argentina is going down the toilet. Every time I see something like this I want to kick John McCain and that ass Feingold in the butt, because their actions on 'campaign finance reform' moved us a step closer to this kind of crap. I wish AZ would start that recall petition on McCain back up.

The man in Castle Beelzebub notes that there are officially 29 shootings a day in Britain. Wonderful how banning guns works, isnt it?

And Wizbang notes Brazilian whining because illegal immigrants are being picked up.

And at Dean's World, the question is why ISN'T the major media talking about Iran's plans for us?

And life goes on... And, to quote Kim, I'm off to the range. Soon as it opens, that is.

How do you decide your limits

in a situation like this?

Britain is worse, but there are plenty of cities here where if you threw their butts off the bus, you'd be the one arrested. This is one of the things that really worries me; when a lot of the squirrels in authority care more about protecting some thug from having his self-esteem harmed than about what harm they are doing. When, if you act to protect someone, you wind up with the jerk calling the police to get you for daring to interrupt their fun.

One of the standard problems today: how do you maintain a civil society when many of the people in authority seem determined to destroy it? And think that their efforts are 'enlightened' and 'progressive'? When do you decide that acting, and facing arrest & jail, is worth it despite the various costs?

And how did we get into such a situation? How the hell did we go from 'a man's home is his castle' to lawyers helping a criminal sue his victim for daring to harm him in self-defense? And judges who, instead of telling the bailiff to kick the attorney three times around the courtroom, actually hear the case?

Sometimes I do despair.

Trailside: The Story

I mentioned the Trailside pistol in my last post, so I thought I'd tell the whole story of the thing.

A few months after it came out, to great fanfare, I was looking one over at a local range. I'd read good things about it, the price was good, I had some spare cash, and I like .22's, so I bought it. They waived the range fee if I wanted to try it out, so to the firing line I went.

First, the good things. The sights were clear, the trigger was marvelous, it was very accurate. The bad thing? 8 or 9 times out of 10, the slide lock would not lock the slide after the last round was fired. In a pistol that the book specifically states will be damaged by dry-firing, this is not good. Well, maybe it just needed a good cleaning & oiling. I'd usually do this before firing a piece, but it had looked nice & clean, so I hadn't this time.

Field stripping is straightforward and easy, so I thoroughly cleaned it & oiled as directed. Next time at the range, same damn problem. So I called Sig, got an authorization to return it, and shipped it to them.

About two weeks later, call to check status, no word yet. Two weeks later, the lady who answered said had no information, but would I like to speak with the gunsmith? Yes, I would. So she connected me. He asked which problem I'd had, I described it, and he said, "Oh yeah, that one". Sounds of paper. "That was one of the problems we found." 'One' of the problems? But before I could ask what else they found, he said, "We decided that rather than try to fix this one, it would be better if we replaced it, if that would be ok with you". Well, yeah, that would be ok. He told me they didn't have any available in-country right now, but as soon as one became available, they'd send it. Which they did, close to a month later as I recall.

Happy ending, right? Not quite.

This one didn't have the slide lock problem, but after I'd fired about 100 rounds accuracy fell off. Badly. Problem was the bore was fouling. I had cleaned it thoroughly and lubed it with Break Free before shooting, so it wasn't that. I cleaned it again, and it was a bitch getting the lead out of the bore. Next time at the range, same thing. So I wrote to Sig, described the problem, and asked for any ideas what to do? No reply. The bore was shiny, no sign of roughness, and at this point I damn sure didn't want to ship this one back, too. At this point I remembered reading about Microlon Gun Juice, and decided to give it a try. I reviewed the stuff in a letter that Mad Ogre posted in his 'Weapons' section, so I'll not repeat it here other than to say it worked. No more problems mechanically.

However, by about the 500 rounds point, I noticed that the chrome on the crosspiece at the front of the slide was flaking a bit. Crap.

No, I didn't try to contact Sig again. Only a small part of the plating flaked off, so at least the whole damn slide isn't stripping. But I'm still pissed about it.

I've heard many good things about Sig from people, but I'm still leery of them after this mess. Yes, the Trailside is wonderfully accurate, and the trigger is marvelous, and maybe I just happened to be the one of few who had a problem. Doesn't change these facts, in my opinion:
1. The first one should never have left the factory if the slide lock didn't work.
2. It shouldn't have taken that long to resolve.
3. The replacement should not have had any damn problems, and it had two.

Sondra K bought one a short time ago, and she loves it. So maybe all the bugs got worked out. But they should damn well have been worked out before they put them on the market.

So that's my history with Sig.

One thing that pisses me off about some gun makers

I bought a Sig Trailside a few years ago, and overall it's a nice piece. However...

You ever tried to buy spare magazines for this thing?!? It's a molded polymer magazine, I can't imagine it being any big deal to make, but the pistol only comes with one. You want a spare? I found one at a gun show about a year after I bought it, for $22. It turned out to be mismarked, it should have been $32, but they sold it to me for the marked price.

I went to a show Saturday. That same damn magazine is now selling for almost $50! For a bloody molded polymer mag! You can buy a Wilson Combat or McCormick Powermag for a .45 for half that!

First, there's no excuse for a company being so damn cheap they only supply one mag with a gun. Second, there's no excuse for a mag like this costing so damn much.

It's enough to ruin your whole attitude.

Too much to summarize

Over at Smallest Minority, Keving had a busy day with posts on a serious social problem in Britain, Jane Fonda, the Joyce Foundation's tentacles into academia, fisking Josh Sugarmann... he's been busy.

The last includes some interesting info on multiple murders at schools in the People's Republic of China and Japan, using knives.

As I said, too much to summarize. Go start at the top and work your way down.

And, over at mASS BACKWARDS, there's this about piracy, and about mass killings in Rio. Let's see, didn't Brazil just enact a lot of restrictions on gun ownership to prevent crime?...

Fuel

Forge fuel, that is. You've got three choices, gas, coal or charcoal. They do make electric forges, but they cost a fortune to run very much.

Gas, natural or propane, has definate advantages. It costs no more than coal, you can do anything with it you can with coal, and if you're doing production work- lots of the same thing- you can adjust it to a certain temperature and it'll stay there. You do need a forge designed for gas, many build their own or you can buy one. The one real disadvantage from what I've heard is that once you light it, it has to stay lit, you can't just turn the blower off for a while.

Coal is the standard. Downside is it smokes, it's dirty to mess with, and if you don't get good coal you'll be constantly cleaning out the fire. A friend once gave me fifty pounds of coal that he'd never had a chance to use, and I wound up throwing it away; it was the nastiest-burning stuff I've ever used, and constantly clogged up the fire. Good things are it's easy to get in many areas, it'll keep forever as long as it has some shelter from rain & ice, it burns hot, and you can turn the blower off to take a break, and it'll still be burning when you get back.

Charcoal was the fuel of choice for many centuries. It burns clean and hot, and could be made anywhere there were trees to cut. Nowadays the problem is you need raw charcoal, and when you can find it it's damned expensive. Briquets will work, but the stuff they use as a binder to keep in in nice neat briquets produces a huge amount of ash and clogs things up. And you will use a lot more of it than coal to do the same amount of work. I read once that in Britain Elizabeth 1st issued an edict ordering the iron industry to switch from charcoal to coal: she had been informed that the forests of Britain were disappearing into the furnaces, and there would not be wood left to build ships at the rate things were going(takes a lot of trees to fuel a blast furnace).

If you're in a place where you'll be clearing land and can make charcoal from the timber, you're in good shape while it lasts. If you don't want to mess with coal and can't get raw charcoal in quantity, gas might be the way for you to go. Any of the three will work. I've used charcoal and coal, and prefer coal simply because it costs less than charcoal and I don't want to buy/build a gas unit. I will add that if you're just starting, or want to try it out, you can rig up a coal forge fairly easily, and do good work with it.

Welcome!

To those coming over from Kim's place. Have a look around, and tell your friends.
(assuming they're interested in 'Angry Bastard with Guns and Tools who Plays With Fire)

Blacksmithing books

I was asked this question a LOT over the weekend, and had a couple of question from people here(see Bane, I remembered), so I'm going to list some of the books I've read that have good info in them. I'll break it into general smithing, and bladesmithing.

General
Country Blacksmithing by Charles Mcraven. Pretty good on most things, especially making tools and decorative work. Also some on making a forge.

The Complete Modern Blacksmith by Alexander Weygers. Similar to the above.

The Art of Blacksmithing by Alex Bealer. An old book that's been reprinted. The style of writing can take a bit of going through at times, but lots of nuggets of good information.

Practical Blacksmithing and Metalworking by Percy Blandford. Much like 'Art of'.

There's a book I found, early 1900's British school book for metalworking, with lots of patterns for decorative stuff. I can't @#)$*!! find my copy, I'll add the title in when I do.

Of the above, I'd say the first two are probably the best for starting off.

Bladesmithing

The Complete Bladesmith, by Jim Hrisoulis. Excellent book. Covers just about everything from steel types, heat-treating, building a forge, materials.

Wayne Goddard's $50 Knife Shop by Wayne Goddard. Working with a group putting together the simplest, cheapest way to make good blades, he actually set up a shop for $50. Good book.

Ed Fowler's Knife Talk, by Ed Fowler. Lots of stories about his knifemaking. Good read, with some good information.

These are not the only works out there. However, I'd strongly recommend Hrisoulis' work, it's very in-depth. If you're wanting to just cobble some equipment together and give it a try, Goddard's book is one to go with. Hell, read both if you can. Information from two master knifemakers- make that three, Fowler's one too- available on paper for your edification.

Materials is a different category, but I'll throw it in.

Centaur Forge is a blacksmith & farrier supply company. I'd get their catalog simply to look at everything. Tools, materials, blanks, you name it, it's probably there. Including coal for the forge. If you can find a place a reasonable drive away you can probably get it for less, especially in quantity, but for a smaller amount to try out, they've got it.

Enco Tool Supply is a good place for general tools- including sanding belts- and materials. You can get tool steel bar stock, oil, air or water-hardening for good prices if nothing else.

Depending on what you're working on, scrounging can get lots of good stuff. Broken springs, bearings, old files & horseshoe rasps, found at salvage yards or flea markets. At flea markets, keep your eyes open for odd hammers, sometimes you can find a ball peen or straight peen without a handle for cheap; or you can find a double-face that you can modify to a straight peen. For that matter, sometimes you can find tongs, anvil tools, blowers, vises(not that kind, the mechanical kind) and other stuff. A new post vise with 4.5" jaws runs about $600 last time I looked; I found one last year at a flea market for $35. It needs a new mounting bracket, can you say big frickin' deal?

If I can find/remember other books, I'll add them to this list later on. But this stuff should get you started.

Another view

This shows the equipment a little better. Not visible in the background to the left is the bar stock and tool box. I take an assortment of stock, from 3/16" square up to 1/2" round & square, the trick being to try and guess which stuff I'll need more of so as to keep the weight to carry down.

One thing that helps in carrying and keeping organized is some thin-wall steel tubing about 3" diameter. You can put a lot of stuff into one, and carry it all at once. It keeps it together and out of the way, and makes it easier to clean up and load.

Also not visible is the sign on the table that says(in calligraphy) "You Bleed on It, You've Bought It". It gets the point across.

Medieval Fair

This is the setup I use when doing a demo. The forge is an old Champion portable, I think from nineteen-teens. The anvil's weighs 110 lbs, and the stump it sits on weighs about 80-90. I've got two wood buckets my father helped make, one for coal, one for water, and three rods set up to hold a rope to try and keep some idiot from sticking a hand in or a face over the fire. And yes, that's me hammering away on a long roasting fork.

I like to work on things that are small enough to allow people to watch from beginning to end, and this is one of the best for that. Take a piece of stock, flatten one end. Split that end and spread it apart, then draw each section out to make the tines. Heat the stock just behind the fork and put in a twist. Then go to the other end for a handle. Flatten the very end and curl around, then move in about 4" and bend over, then bend the curl down to touch the shaft. Only takes a few minutes, and people like to see it done. 'Course, it helps that I've made so many of these that I can damn near do it with my eyes closed.

Lots of little stuff you can make while people watch. Screwdrivers(an old pattern I found in an illustration), candleholders, strikers for flint & steel kits, tent stakes, etc. And it's fairly easy to rough out small knife blades, so between it all there's plenty to choose from.

One of the nice things about a fair like this is when someone shows up with "I need this right now, can you make/fix/duplicate it?" Interesting to make a piece, then announce that you have to deliver it, and it gets the point across to kids that this is not just show, you're actually making things people need.

Interesting piece on 'they think you're stupid'

Over at Head's Bunker, a piece on how it seems that so many of the gun-ban groups treat women as stupid.

I've gone through some of this arguing with people before, and I'm too worn out to reprise it myself. Anyway, Head does a marvelous job. Take a look.

Found it through Smallest Minority

Mostly recovered

From Medieval Fair, that is. It usually takes a few days. It usually goes like this:
Thursday, take the big stuff down to the site. That means the forge, stump, anvil, toolbox, coal and water buckets, and assorted steel barstock(I should have a picture of the setup, I'll post it when I can). Find my spot, get it all unloaded and secured, then go see people I haven't seen for a while and lend a hand if I can. After I head home, get some edibles and drinks together for the next day. I drink a lot of iced tea and water these days.

Friday, take the stuff I've got made and the ice chest and such and set up for the day. Friday is School Day, and usually has enough rug rats running loose to make me long for a taser. Most aren't too bad, but some are a genuine pain in the ass. I've got a couple of people who help me out; necessary, because there's no way I can run the forge and watch the table at the same time. So I spend a large part of the day heating and hammering and talking. End of the day, secure the tools and pack the small stuff into the truck.

Saturday & Sunday are busy. Estimates of the crowd for last year were about 300,000 over the three days, and at times I felt like I'd talked to at least 1/4 of them. End of the day Sunday means pack it all up, load it all up, clean up, and go home. As Sunday progressed it started clouding up, and I thought "Crap, if it's going to rain tonight I've got to unload the big stuff TONIGHT!" Happily, just clouds, and a friend helped me unload and put away the stuff Monday.

I love doing this fair. I always wind up sunburned and/or half-frozen, dead tired, and dirty enough to make think about hosing myself off before I go in to the shower. Some people annoy the hell out of me- not just kids- and I'm thirsty enough to drain a pitcher all by myself. But...

I really like demonstrating this stuff. I like showing how things were done, and in some cases still are. I like showing the kinds of things that can be done with fire and tools and metal. I like answering questions about it, and the history connected with it. And I really like it when Grandma or Granpa or the parents come by with the kids and say "I used to/your Grandpa used to/your uncle used to do this on the farm/ranch". I like seeing the eyes of the kids when they hear that, and-sometimes- the look when someone says 'those things are still out in/behind the barn'.

I like taking a piece of spring, turning it into a flint striker, and using a piece of flint to throw sparks as some kids watch. I like showing how someone can take a piece of rusty crap, put some work into it, and create a gleaming blade, or a new tool for the forge or something else.

Weather, for the first weekend of April can run anywhere from 80 degrees and blowing like hell, to 30's and blowing-and sometimes sleeting or snowing- to just beautiful. And sometimes it can go damn near from one extreme to the other in that three days. A couple of times I've spent the first day mostly turning out tent stakes- heavy ones- to keep tents from blowing away. I've had people come by with 'can you make this?' or 'can you fix this?' on all kinds of things. I've given 'how to get started' lectures to I have no idea how many people, everything from what books you can read to where to get coal and tools to how to find/put together a forge and anvil. And except for the occasional jerk, I enjoy all of it. To the point of dehydrating or blistering because I don't take rest breaks when I should("You need to rest." "I know, but I'm supposed to be demonstrating!" "Take a break and a drink, you idiot.")

I don't think I could do the full Fair-circuit, I like living in one place too much. But I can understand the attraction of it.

More on this nonsense later, I just noticed I need to put something on a burn.

Tired. Dirty. Sunburned. Blistered.

But home. Setup Thursday, Med-Fair Friday, work regular job Saturday early morning then to the fair for the day, all day today followed by packing up and helping someone else pack up.

Decent weather this year, saw some folks, but too damn worn to blog about it now.

Later, guys.

Not the most fun sight I've seen

At Medieval Fair today, hammering on a piece, and hear a 'thump' from the street. First thought: "Crap, some dog just got hit". Look around to street and,
past corner of tent, see car come to stop, with a guy in front of the front wheel.

Say "Oh sh**", turn to daughter and say "911 NOW!".

Happily, lots of emergency medical help close by, but damn, I could have lived quite happily without seeing that.

This stuff is heavy!

Let's see,
Anvil, 110lbs
Stump, about 80
Assorted bar stock, total about 80
Portable forge, 75-80
Toolbox, about 35
Assorted other stuff, ?

It all adds up fast. I think I need a drink.

Unconnected to anything else,

had a chance to watch 'Mythbusters' on Discovery Channel. That redhead/Torrie?/, DAMN, she is hot!

Items for the next Carnival of Cordite

If you know of a site with something interesting to add to the Carnival, send a link to GullyBorg at carnivalofcordite at hotmail point com.

Try to get it to him by Friday for this weeks, after Friday for next week.

I should have mentioned this place before

Babalu Blog, run by Val Prieto. Various and sundry good stuff, and something in particular; he calls fidel castro and his suckups on their lies and abuses. Just start at the top and scroll down.

Also, on the subject of murdering dictators and their suckups, over at Dean Esmay is this wonderful rundown of why Che Guevara should be remembered as the murdering cockroach he was, and why people who wear his image on shirts and idolize him are at best fools and at worst enablers of murder.

You know, for all the crap about communism being about the 'commoners' rising up, che was from a well-off family, and went to-and graduated from- medical school; not exactly a poor, oppressed campesino.

Bleah, thinking about people idolizing these pukes makes me need to wash my mouth out with something. Or go to the bathroom and express my opinion of them.

Followup to BAG purchase

Went back to the shop to look for a 12guage cleaning jag and while browsing around, what did I find? I found a Benelli magazine extension for it, and at a better price before the discount than I'd found anywhere else. So it came home with me.

No, I can't post a picture of the dressed-up scattergun. I don't have a digital camera, and won't be able to borrow the one I usually use for a while.

Dammit, I need a camera. A friend who works in a camera store showed me a Fuji that's really nice, but-especially after the Nova- out of reach for a while. I had a thought I might try to raise money like Sondra K, selling advertising on my butt. However...

I don't own a thong, I wouldn't admit it if I did, and all a picture of that would do is cause people to never come back. Hmmm... Hey! How about "If you send me money for a camera, I WILL NOT post a picture of my butt in a thong!" Would that work?

Hell no. Again, all my readers(all five of you) would speak words of upset and never come back. Dammit.

Hey, Sondra?...

Mmmmmm, bread...

Ever had Irish soda bread? I have, and I'd always thought that it was one reason why the Irish are so ready to fight; if that dry crap was a bit part of your diet, you'd be in a bad mood too.

However, I was over at Is Full of Crap the other day, and in the comments of a post on buttermilk was a recipe for soda bread. It's nice & simple, and wouldn't take long, so after I finished baking a .22 pistol(different story), I mixed it up and threw it in the oven. Forty minutes later, oh, yeah! Good texture, good flavor, not dry enough to act as a dehumidifier. Dinner that night was slices of this with cheese and leftover roast. Oh, yeah.

And the rest of the site is good, too.

Postal match schedule up

Og over at Neanderpundit has posted a schedule for postal matches for the summer. If you've never shot one, you use the target specified, shoot by the rules listed, and e-mail your results in to Og.

Only had a chance to shoot one last year, should be able to try several this time.

More gun work

I'm going to say this up front, and hit the point again later. If you don't have the knowledge to mess with the trigger mechanism on a firearm, DON'T! I'm not telling you to work on one, and I take no responsibility for what you may do to any firearm. This is simply a rundown of some things I've learned that I'm passing along. As Kim says, no warranty and mileage may vary.

Trigger work is probably the most sensitive thing you can do with a firearm. If you mess up a magazine, it can be replaced, same for the stock. If you're crowning a barrel & mess up, you can generally trim a bit off the length and do it over. But if you mess up with a trigger, it may not show up until sometime later; say, when it fires the piece because it was jarred. VERY bad juju, guys. So if you don't know what you are going to do, and how to do it properly, then DON'T DO IT.

Assuming the trigger works properly, the usual problems are that it is too heavy(i.e., you have to press harder than you should for it to release or 'break'), or it's rough, or both. First step is to take the piece down and clean it thoroughly and oil it. If it's an old gun that hasn't been taken down in a long time, that may take care of the problem, and you'll have to do this in any case to see what needs to be done; you may find that it's too bad to mess with, or that something needs to be replaced. A lot of times treatment with a really good lubricant will do all you need. If that doesn't take care of it, then things get tricky and call for great care, because one or more engaging surfaces or bearing surfaces may need to be polished.

Warning again: if you don't know EXACTLY what you're trying to do and HOW to do it, put the stone down and step away from the workbench. No matter how fine the stone or compound you use may be, it doesn't change the fact that stoning or polishing the surface is REMOVING metal; if you take off too much, or cut the angle incorrectly, or change the angle of a surface, you're screwed. Metal taken off cannot be put back(yeah, I know it CAN be- IF you're a welder and have the RIGHT stuff to build it up the RIGHT amount and cut & polish it to the ORIGINAL shape & size and then HEAT-TREAT it), so don't take anything off you don't absolutely have to. Or you'll be finding a replacement part at best; at worst you may wind up with a hole somewhere you didn't want one.

Mauser-style triggers are one of the easiest because there's only three surfaces that may actually need anything, and they're flat surfaces. A good stone can be held flat against them and worked back & forth to polish them, just the minimum, please. Some you shouldn't mess with at all. Handguns can be tricky for a variety of reasons. A semi-auto taken to too light a pull weight can in effect go full-auto on you because the jarring of the action working causes the sear to slip and let the hammer fall, NOT a good thing. Revolvers generally don't have that problem, but you can still make the pull too damn light for safety. And if you take too much off other parts, you've got a different problem. Say a Smith & Wesson double-action revolver. Polishing the pin the hammer pivots on, the sideplates where it bears, the rebound slide and the frame surfaces it bears on are standard ways to smooth out the action, but if you take off too much, it makes things sloppy and you've made the action worse; and there's no easy way to fix this. And remember, if the piece is new, trying to do this stuff yourself will probably void the warranty, and you won't sneak this by them; the 'smiths at the company know exactly what they're looking at, and will know that you did something you shouldn't have. Besides which, if it's a new one, it needs to be used a while to break it in before you even think of touching it. Once a new guns parts wear in with each other, that may take care of everything, so have patience.

Say you've taken an old rifle down, and found that the engagement surface where the trigger holds the cocking piece is rough, and you decide that you can take care of this. First, make sure that if you cut the surface down enough to fix the problem, it won't create another problem by making the surface too small/too low, etc. You're sure? Then implant this in your cranium: NEVER, NEVER TRY TO DO IT FREEHAND! Set up some kind of jig or guide so that the angle is correct and stays that way. Companies like Brownells sell adjustable jigs for just this purpose. I've used a drill press vise, a roller and a level to set up a jig for a simple piece. However you do it, use something; trying to do this freehand is asking for trouble. It's nearly impossible to keep an angle exact, and if you do it won't be flat, it'll be slightly rounded at best; more trouble.

And you can't use that $1 pocket sharpening stone you picked up at the flea market, either. You need something small enough for easy control, with truly flat surfaces and known abrasive level. A coarse stone will cut too fast and leave a rough surface. A fine stone, no coarser than 240 grit, cuts slower and leaves a better finish. A 400-grit is better, and if the surface just needs polishing you want much finer than that. Again, Brownells is a good place to look. These stones ain't cheap, but they can leave a surface like a mirror, and if you take care of them they'll last forever.

And yet another warning. Some triggers/sears/etc. are not made of a medium or high-carbon steel that's been heat-treated; they're made of soft mild steel that is case hardened or surface hardened. That means that there is a thin skin, say a couple of thousandths of an inch that's hardened steel; if you cut through that the hard surface is gone, and it will wear very quickly. Which means you have to buy a replacement.

I cannot stress this enough: find out EXACTLY what you're doing BEFORE you start. Find a good book that covers the work and study it. Brownells collected tips sent in to them by gunsmiths and published them in a book called 'Gunsmith Kinks'. There are four books in the series now, with a lot of good information. They'd be a good place to start.

One more thing; this stuff CANNOT be rushed. If you don't have a stable work surface, and the tools and knowledge, and plenty of time to work on it, then don't. From knifemaking and forging I've had many cuts and burns, and carry a couple of scars, that are the result of trying to rush something. Getting in a hurry is a good way to have to start all over, probably on a replacement part.

I'll finish this with my disclaimer, again: I have no control of what you decide to do, and take no responsibility for what you do. I write this to pass on some knowledge of just how tricky and precise this kind of work is, NOT to tell you to try it. If you decide to work on your own firearms, then a: understand WHAT you're going to do, b: understand HOW you're going to do it, c: HAVE the right tools, and d: take your time.

If Rob ever sees this, he'll never come back

This here is my watch cat.

She watches the birds, she watches the food bowl, she watches the litter box...etc.

BAG day came early

'Buy A Gun' day, April 15th, that is. I had thought of buying something appropriate, say an AK-47. However, the prices on the damn things never came down any after the AWB went away, and it's not worth that much to me.

I have been looking around for a 12 guage pump, something with a shorter barrel. Then, a couple of months ago, I saw a Benelli Nova Special Purpose. If you're not familiar with it, Benelli had an idea for the receiver/stock design: the steel part of the receiver is a shell that is molded into a polymer cover which is part of the stock. So the receiver is as rustproof as you'll get, and the stock is virtually unbreakable. There's a cavity inside the stock where you can add in a recoil absorber if you wish. The one I found has a wing-protected post front sight and a fully-adjustable ghost-ring rear, which is what first caught my eye. I picked it up, looked it over(hmmm), then picked out a light on the wall and shouldered it. No adjusting required, the sights just lined up. I tried it a few more times, same result; it just fit me perfectly. Slick action, 4-round magazine(more 'hmmm'). So I set it back in the rack, and kept it in mind.

A few days ago I went back to that shop and found out two things: the shop is closing(Damn!), and they had everything on sale, putting the Nova just within reach. Despite my intention to hold off 'till April, the next day I went back, took it off the rack and said, "I'll take it".

First thing was field-strip, clean and oil, which is a very simple process. Pull the magazine cap, release the slide, and the barrel pulls off. Use the tip of the cap to push loose two pins in the receiver, and the trigger unit comes out, the bolt lifts out, and the slide comes off. The bolt is a solid piece with a rotating head with two locking lugs that cam into the breech of the barrel. The barrel itself is 18.5" long and chrome-lined. It goes back together about as fast as it comes apart, too.

Next day I headed to the range. I didn't have time to go to the nearest outdoor range where I could have tried slugs at 50 & 100 yards, so 25 yards was it. (Last time I bought slugs or buckshot was a while back, one slug box- Winchester Super-X- was marked $1.49 with an Otasco sticker). I had one box each of Remington & Winchester slugs, a box each of 00 and No. 4 buck, and a box of Federal 7 1/2 birdshot.

I used a standard blue silhouette target(the range calls them 'smurfs'), and used slugs first at 25. The first two were on opposite sides of the center oval, about 2" apart, the third overlapped the first. Further shots gave the same results, which made me a very happy man.

Buckshot followed, with 00 putting 8 of 9 shot in the upper chest at about ten yards, one shot going over the shoulder. No. 4 buck gave similar results, definate goblin-stopper results at down the hall or across the yard ranges.

This thing handles fast, too. First shot, being off a rest, I hadn't intended to rack the action until I'd spotted the shot; instead I fired and racked it without thought. It unlocks and the slide just naturally comes back and goes forward again, and that is how it went again and again. Bang-clack-clack and you're back on target(very happy man, here).

After using all the slugs and most of the buck, I stoked it with birdshot and tried that at about ten yards. This is a cylinder-bore barrel, no choke, and I was surprised at how fast the birdshot spread at that range, a pattern a good 18-24" across. And again, fast repeat shots were no problem. Bang-clack-clack-bang, fast and smooth.

After I got it home I pulled the barrel to clean it. Not too dirty. I ran a brush with Corrosion-X back & forth a few times, let it sit a few minutes, then wrapped a 2x3" piece of t-shirt around the brush and pushed it through once. Held up to the light the bore gleamed. Wipe off the bolt face, and it's done. Fastest cleaning I've done in a while.

I'm very happy with this shotgun. Nicely balanced, fast handling, easy to clean. Benelli has a gel-type recoil pad I think I'll get eventually, and I may get the magazine extension. With the plug out you have four rounds of 2 3/4" ammo(it's chambered to take 2.75", 3" and 3.5") in the magazine; with the extension you get three more 2.75 or 3" from what I've read. And if you like the idea you can put a base on the receiver to mount a scope or red-dot sight. And a Sidesaddle to hold four rounds on the left side of the receiver. And you can get tritium sights that replace the factory ghost ring & post...

Dammit, this could get involved. And expensive.

Another one I forgot to mention

Jeff at Alphecca. As he puts it, the 'gay gun-nut in Vermont'. Lots of commentary and links, especially on firearms ownership matters. Good stuff

Blade steels

There are a lot of different alloy steels out there, many of them useful for blades(an 'alloy' basically being steel with other elements added). One thing to remember is that while you can make a blade out of anything, some work better than others, and some are better for some uses than others.

A word on alloys. Steel itself is an alloy made by adding carbon to iron. Additional alloys used are chromium, nickel, sulphur, molybdenum, and a whole lot of others. They add different qualities. For instance, adding molybdenum allows a steel to harden with a slower quench- oil instead of water- which lessens the thermal shock of quenching and thus reduces the chance of cracking or warping. Stainless and stain-resistant steels generally add chromium and nickel. Problem is, you can't add an element in and it only adds that quality to the mix; it reacts with everything else. This is one reason why the truly 'stainless' steels often don't hold an edge very well, you add enough chromium and nickel to the mix to make it stainless, it tends to reduce the wear-resistance, which means it dulls faster. Sulphur can make a steel easier to machine to shape, but if present in too-high amounts it weakens the piece.

Big blades
Swords, big dirks, bowie knives, etc. I've wound up using 5160 spring steel for these. This is the same stuff you find in leaf and coil springs in your car's suspension. It generally won't hold an edge as well as a higher carbon tool steel, but it's also tougher. In a blade that's made to hold up in heavy cutting and chopping, that's a very good thing. And in smaller blades, if it's shaped and heat-treated right, it'll hold an edge quite well. In carbon content, this steel is just about identical to they've found in swords that have been tested.

Smaller blades
I've mostly used W2 and O1 for these. W2 is commonly used in files, and O1 is an oil-hardening tool steel used in industry for all kinds of things. Both of these make fine blades. Old files have been ground or forged into everything from fighting knives to garden and kitchen knives, and O1, usually starting with either round or rectangular bar stock, the same. Fairly easy to work, simple to heat-treat, and can hold an edge very damn well. One thing to watch on files is many of the cheap ones were made with a high-sulphur content steel, easier to machine but not as strong. These do an interesting thing if you forge them; they literally crumble when you hammer them. I meant it when I said too much sulphur is bad(one old trick for punching a hole in heavy iron was to put a lump of sulphur on the spot, then heat the iron to red and hold it there a few minutes, the iron in that spot will be weakened and easier to punch through).
Addition: I forgot to bring up one other steel that's very good for small & medium size knives: 52100B. Sounds impressive, doesn't it? It's a high-quality bearing steel, used for many ball bearings, roller bearings and bearing races(the track the bearings run in). I haven't looked in a while, it may be possible now to find it in bar stock, but I've always had to start with a bearing and forge it out. This stuff can be forged about the same as O1, and heat-treats about the same; about 1500F temperature, and a warm oil quench, and uses about the same tempering temperatures. Odd thing about this stuff: I usually give the other stuff two quenches, meaning bring up to heat, quench, let cool to ambient temp, repeat, followed by three tempering heats. 52100 seems to work best with three quenches, with 24 hours between them. I first read of this oddity in an article by a maker named Ed Fowler, so I gave it a try, and it does seem to give a better blade. Don't ask me why. I say for small & medium blades, but one of my first with this stuff involved turning a 2" ball bearing into a dirk blade about 13" long that goes through wood like an axe. The friend carrying it says it's also very good for slicing through PVC pipe.

Axes
For those I use mild steel, closest I can get to wrought iron, as the body. Cut the proper shape from some strap, wrap the middle around a mandrel to form the eye, then weld the halves together. Leave the end open, shape a piece of medium or high-carbon stock to fit in and a little bit sticking out, and weld that in. Grind to shape and harden & temper the bit(every wonder where the term 'bit of the axe' came from?), fit a haft and you're in business. 5160 is very good here, also; hard enough to hold an edge, tough enough not to chip or crack.

Stainless steels
I haven't messed with them much. Some are a flat bitch to forge; all of them require some special steps in heat-treatment, including higher temperatures, a controlled atmosphere and/or a sub-zero quench to properly harden them; and some of them just don't hold an edge well. A lot of knifemakers, maybe most, who work with them don't do the heat treatment themselves, they send the finished blades off to someone with the equipment to do it right, and I like to do it all myself if I can.

440c stainless, for example. You can forge it to shape, but after the oil quench, you have to do a sub-zero quench for it to completely harden. Best would be with liquid nitrogen, but you can do it with dry ice and acetone. After all that, you have a blade that won't rust, but won't hold an edge very well either.

There are some stainless/stain-resistant steels that do make good blades: ATS-34, D2, 154CM for instance. But since they require the extra steps to treat, I don't mess with them much. The exception is D2. They make planer blades with it, and as long as you don't overheat it you can grind one to shape and not have to heat-treat it.

That's a quick and dirty rundown of the stuff I've used. One nice thing about all of them, they're easy to get for good prices. 5160 can be had either as new bar stock, or you can straighten & flatten a section of coil spring, or just use a section of leaf spring. O1 and all the other tool steels can be bought as bar stock from a number of industrial supply houses(Enco, for instance) for good prices. Considering what our ancestors had to do or pay to get decent steel, the price of the stuff is rediculously cheap. Which is good, because when you screw up a piece and have to start over, you haven't ruined stock that you can't replace.

Some things really have gotten better over the years.

It's about damn time

Wizbang links to an article on how Kofi Annan is depressed and thinking of resigning. As I said above, it's about damn time.

Even discounting the evidence of corruption, he's failed repeatedly in the job. There are 'peacekeepers' raping children and running prostitution rings, he- and the U.N. bureaucracy- have done everything they can to ignore Darfur, they've basically contributed to famines and mass murder in multiple places. And the whole time, they bitch at the U.S. that everything is basically OUR fault, if we'd just sign everything over to them, why, everything would be just WONDERFUL, don't you know?

I still think that any politician who advocates turning control of this country over to the U.N. has violated their oath of office and should be thrown out.
That any of them can look at what the U.N. has done(Cuba and Libya running the Human Rights Council?) and still bow down to worship at the U.N. altar baffles me.

Kofi has caused, and aided and abetted in, so much damage and harm, the only real problem is that he can't be actually prosecuted and jailed. Instead of 'resigning his position'.

How NOT to rob a store

Found this over at Random Nuclear Strikes, a very good listing of what has to be one of the most truly stupid people to ever draw breath. Short version: deciding to rob a gun shop, with a police car out front and the officer inside = dead idiot.

A friend down in Texas told me about a case he knew of a few years ago. A lady who worked at a sporting goods store was going through a very messy divorce from an abusive husband. Said jackass one day walked into the store, walked up to her at the counter, pulled a large knife and told her what he was going to do to her. He was interrupted by several metallic clicks, and looked around to see the owner, the manager, and basically every employee in the store aiming at him. Being restrained sorts they did not deliver multiple perforations to his anatomy, but they still had to mop up a bit; urine on the floor does not smell of violets and roses.

The only thing I'll post about Terri Schiavo

What's the longest you've ever gone without food?

About 15 years ago I caught a stomach virus. The effect of this one on me was simple: I couldn't eat. Rather, I could eat, but 45 minutes later(damn near by the clock) it would come back up, rather violently. Soup, bread, crackers, whatever, a couple of attempts the first day showed me not to try again. I could drink water, as long as it was in small sips, but no food. For three days.

Let's just say that it was very unpleasant. No fever, no aches, I just couldn't eat. By the third day my breath smelled like acetone as my system started to consume itself for nutrition. The fourth day I found I could nibble a bit and keep it down, and after that recovery was rampant.

About five years or so before that, I found myself one day with some friends in a rocky section of the boonies with no water. In August, in Oklahoma. It was about half a day before we could get back to where there was anything to drink, and it convinced me I never, ever wanted to be that thirsty again. It wasn't just feeling thirsty, your body was telling you in very strong terms that you'd better find water or else.

Being without water for half of a hot day was fairly nasty. Not being able to eat for three days was bleepin' miserable. I can't imagine what no food and no water for days would be like.

I sincerely hope that this woman can't feel anything, because if she can, she's been condemned to an absolutely miserable death.

Carnival of Cordite #6 is up

Over at Gullyborg, take a look. Lots of good stuff

Makarov tryout

I've had a chance to try out this little pistol. As I understand it, a Russian officer named Makarov(surprise!) took the Walther PPK design, simplified it, and designed the 9x18mm cartridge for it. Why that cartridge? Supposedly they wanted the simplicity of a blowback design, which pretty much prevented use of the 9mm Luger(9x19) cartridge, and you can't fire the 9x17mm(.380 to us) in this. For those who are not gun geeks, straight blowback is how all .22 autos work; the recoil spring and weight of the bolt or slide hold the action closed until pressure has dropped to a safe level, at which time the recoil energy pushes the bolt/slide back to eject the empty case and strip the next cartridge out of the magazine. It means that the design can be simple, no toggle or link or delay mechanism needed, but it also puts strict limits on how powerful a cartridge you can use; you could make a 9x19 in this action, but it would have a damn heavy recoil spring, making the action hard to cycle by hand.

The piece is about 6.5" long, 5" tall and 1" thick and weighs 1.8 lbs loaded. The magazine holds 8 rounds. It is a double-action: trigger for the first shot is heavy as you are cocking the hammer, followup shots are much lighter as the hammer stays cocked. The safety lever is located on the left; down to fire, up to safe. When you safe it, it both locks the firing pin and drops the hammer so you cannot carry cocked and locked. The sights(those little bumps on the slide?) are small and hard to pick up in low light conditions. I put a little International Orange paint on the front sight, and that helps a lot. They were made in a number of Warsaw Pact countries as well as Russia, this one being from Bulgaria. Some have been available chambered in .380, and some with adjustable target sights. The magazine release is like the Ruger MKII pistols, at the bottom rear of the butt; push back to release. I mentioned the trigger earlier, if you're looking at buying one, try several as the trigger action can vary drastically from one to the next. The dealer who supplied this one had two; one's trigger was heavy and gritty, this one was noticably lighter and cleaner.

I've put about 800 rounds through this one, mostly Wolf 100grain ball. I've found it to be quite accurate, better than I expected. It's a fixed-barrel design: the barrel is set into the frame, and the slide does all the moving, which means the barrel is always in the same position. I'm told that helps account for accuracy; in any case the thing does quite well. Recoil is sharp, but not hard, control in fast repeat shots isn't a problem. The other ammo I've used is the Hornady which uses a 95grain XTP hollow point. With deliberate slow aimed fire and going from low-ready to fire, in all this ammo there have been no malfunctions. None. No fails to feed, no jams, no nothing.

Stripping for cleaning couldn't get much simpler. Drop the magazine and make sure the chamber is empty; cock the hammer; pull the trigger guard down and to one side(it pivots at the rear); push the slide all the way back, tilt up at the rear and carefully slide forward off the barrel/receiver, and that's it.

I'd put a Hogue grip sleeve on one myself, the grip is a bit slick for my taste. There are lots of parts and accessories on the market, one good place to look being Makarov.Com. You can get replacement barrels, and you can change it to .380 just by putting in one so chambered, it'll use the same magazine.

Overall I like it. It's not too big, it's reliable, cheap ammo for practice is available, and the price is good. Last time I looked, around here they were running about $175. If you're looking for an inexpensive self-defense gun it would be one to look at, though it's at the bottom of what I'd like in power. For a fun gun for targets, it's great. The one real drawback is the sights. You can get a replacment rear sight, but the front would require having someone with the tools cut a dovetail in the slide to install a bigger one. It's probably been done, and I'd think it would be a simple operation for a gunsmith.

That's my opinion of it. Warranty not included, mileage may vary by user.

My own semi-official Jambalaya recipe

'Semi-official' because I got the base from Justin Wilson, and have fiddled with it since.

This was also the recipe that taught me you don't have to actually measure everything for a lot of stuff; you just throw something in, taste it, and add some more if need be. Or add something else.

Roughly, you use
1 bundle of green onion, chopped
1 onion, chopped
1 or 1/2 if you prefer, bell pepper, chopped. I like the red ones best.
3 or four cloves of garlic
tomato sauce, two of the small cans
3 cups rice
1 lb. smoked sausage, sliced thin
2 cups wine
2 or 3 stalks of celery, chopped thin

Heat some oil in the pot and dump in the onions and bell pepper, saute' till almost clear. Then throw in the garlic and tomato sauce, and let it get hot. Add the rice and sausage, then the wine, then add enough water to cover it all by about 1", stir regularly over low heat until the rice is tender.

Basically that's it. You can also add in shrimp, shred some leftover turkey or chicken and add it. You could use something like crumbled Italian sausage. I like to add in about a heaping tablespoon of my Dad's jalapeno relish. Just throw stuff in until you like the taste.

The first time I made it I found, partway in, I didn't have any wine. I did have part of a bottle of sherry. I thought it might be too strong, so I used a cup of it cut with a cup of water. It worked great. My son, who informed me that the sherry itself smelled like grass clippings fermenting in a trash bag, also informed me that the stuff just didn't taste right without it.

When your 12-year-old advises you not to forget the booze, you just know you've done something right.

The education system

I've been reading various news articles and comments on the situation in many universities, and it reminded me of something.

In 1978 I was taking classes at Cameron University in Lawton. In one history class the teacher was very insistent we learn the 'truth' about our history. Among other things the 'truth' included:
Ben Franklin was damn near senile, and woke up at the Congress & Convention just long enough to say something wise, then dropped off again.
Most of the founders though the rest of the country was made up of servants.
None of the founders actually liked the idea of everyone owning guns.
And so forth.

It was hugely frustrating because I knew a lot of it was crap, but I was a little worried about my grade if I made much noise about it. Also, I wasn't sure how to make the argument in a good way; being a teenager who tended to get loud in an argument has drawbacks. So I sat there, and got my grade, and kept my mouth shut.

Looking back on it, the thought strikes that if this was happening in a small college in Oklahoma, what the hell was being taught in large universities in big cities in other states?

Now I know.

Several years ago my daughter, in her senior year of high school, had a class on early American history. A few years before I'd told her the story about a rifleman killing a British officer at a critical part of the battle of Saratoga, possibly making one of, if not the, critical turns in the battle. So she brought it up, and the teacher basically said "Didn't happen, couldn't have mattered anyway". So she came to me asking for documentation. Happily, I'd saved my old copies of Muzzle Blasts, a magazine for people who shoot muzzleloaders and do recreation activities, and I found the article describing the incident, including names and footnotes. So she took it in to show the teacher.

I'd always thought a teacher should be happy to hear new information in their specialty. Instead, he basically said that he'd never heard of it before, so it didn't really count, and dropped it. He was also annoyed that she'd actually argued a point with him.

It's really discouraging at times.

The British are coming!

The lawyers, anyway, according to this found at the Captain's Quarters.

Basically, the British courts are taking the attitude that if someone reads something on the 'Net, say in a newpaper online site, and they feel they've been slandered, they can sue in British courts. Doesn't matter if the paper itself was never published over there, they claim jurisdiction to sue.

Read the article for the specifics. My own attitude is as follows:
We kicked your lobsterback arses out of here about 222 years ago. You lost any claim to authority here at that point. If you don't like it, you can kiss my ass. Need specifics? You can kiss my Irish/Scot/Cherokee/English ass, on Main street at high noon.

What are your useful skills?

Over at AnarchAngel he asks the question, so here goes.

I've mentioned my Dad used to be Highway Patrol. Well, the only way he could afford to practice for a long time was to handload. So I got started on that from him. I can do the usual stuff, and I can cast, size & lube bullets.

I can do some gunsmithing. I've never rebarreled, I have cleaned/polished/modified pieces, I've shortened and crowned barrels, mounted sights and scope bases, repaired magazines, and done some refinishing, mostly with cold blue but also with rust bluing and browning.

I'm a fair blacksmith, with an emphasis on blades. I've made candleholders, chandeliers, fireplace & campfire tools, flint & steel sets, display stands, various tools and gun springs. Also eating sets, brooches for kilt/cloak, and some jewelry.

I can do some work on engines. I've completely rebuilt lawn mowers, done partial rebuilds on motorcycles, and some work on cars and trucks(standard maintenance stuff, brakes, filters, hoses, etc.) I'm about to rebuild the clutch on my Vulcan, it's about that time.

I haven't done it in quite a while, but used to be a decent welder. When I was in grade school the town where we lived had a serious FFA program, and that's where I learned it. It's also where I started working on motors. One of these days, I need to get a welding rig and get back to it.

I can cook a bit. Generally nothing fancy, but I can turn out a good meal. I love baking bread(right now, there's fresh focaccia, olive oil & vinegar waiting for me). I could get fat if I had time enough to cook the things I'd like to.

I play guitar and sing a bit. I'm out of practice right now for various reasons, but I used to go to open-mike nights at a couple of places, and nobody ever threw anything at me.

I can do some masonry work.

It's not a skill I use anymore, but when I was dispatching I could have three phone calls and a couple of radio calls working at one time, and keep them all straight. THAT took a while, I will tell you. Side effect of that was I could listen to a voice drowned in static and understand it.

Some first-aid knowledge, bits and pieces picked up over time.

I know how to use an axe for woodcutting, and how to sharpen it and put on a new handle. Related to this, I can set and sharpen a saw.

Juggle a bit. No, not women(unfortunately).

Some leatherwork. I've made knife and sword sheaths, both leather and leather-covered wood, leather drinking mugs and shot glasses.

And I used to be pretty good at Scottish country dancing. My knees won't tolerate much of it anymore.

That I can think of, that about covers it. I've wound up knowing how to do lots of different stuff, while not really specializing in anything. Except the smithing.

How 'bout you?

The peasants are revolting!

With AK's, yet. And the bad guys are paying the price.

Two cases reported today. First from Wizbang, and from Ace of Spades(found through Michelle Malkin).

It's noted that in one of these cases, "But the gun battle today erupted in full view of half a dozen witnesses, including a Justice Ministry official who lives nearby. ". There have been other reports in the past, apparently this is being taken more seriously because of 'official' witnesses. Want to bet there have been more than we hear about, where the locals followed the 'shoot, shovel & shut up' method?

There have been more and more cases of locals reporting to the authorities, ours or Iraqi, when they see bad guys or hear where weapons are stored. There'll be more cases of locals taking on the terrs themselves, and it's good.

Note: the good guys are using AK's, which a lot of our 'progressive' leader wanted taken away from them. Screw that, with those clowns in the neighborhood.

Tornados begone!

Well, it worked for tonight. All the severe stuff moved off to the east. I'm hoping we get a little rain over the next couple of days, it'll soak in the chilis, tomatos, garlic and the rose bush I planted.

Tornados are truly awesome things, and can do very weird things. Last year, one followed almost exactly the path taken by one a few years back through Moore, damaging some of the same houses that had been repaired or rebuilt after the last one. There were interviews with a couple of families who said they were moving, and didn't care where to; they just couldn't take living there any longer. I can understand that.

Back when I was 14 or 15, we lived in a little town called Medford in northern OK. One summer night Ma Nature was putting on one of her 'you better not forget about me' shows: dark as a yard up a welldiggers arse, strong gusting winds, rain you couldn't see through and lots of severe thunderstorm and tornado warnings. Dad was out trying to keep from blowing off the road, and Mom and I were watching tv, which consisted of occasional snippets of shows between the weather alerts. Then one came on of radar indication of a possible tornado over Pond Creek, a town about twelve miles south of us. All of a sudden the wind rose to a roar outside, and we both dived into the hallway. About the time we hit the floor, it was gone, nothing but normal wind and rain outside. We waited a few minutes, then I decided to take a look outside. Mom was not happy with the idea, but since I put my helmet on and promised to stay on the porch, she ok'd it.

I had a flashlight, but it didn't much matter, the rain was so heavy and blowing so hard you couldn't see more than maybe twenty feet. It was hailing now, stones about 3/4 to 1" in diameter, coming down hard and fast. I could tell the house next door was still there, so I called it good and went back inside.

Morning came, clear blue skies, and now you could see all the tree limbs down, and anything loose that weighed less than about fifty pounds had moved. In the afternoon Dad called me out front and said, "Look at the porch". I looked, and something wasn't right. He finally said, "The posts are tilted". The tornado had, very happily, been off the ground when it went through; when the big gust in front of it hit the house, it hadn't been able to flow to the sides fast enough, and had lifted the porch roof hard enough to pull the heads of the screws through the holes in the wrought-iron posts, then set it back down just as the posts started to lean. Both of them at exactly the same angle and direction.

The warning for Pond Creek? Dad was told later that the weatherman had switched the radar to a longer range scan, and had either not set the range or misread it. So while he was warning Pond Creek, the damn thing was going through Medford.

It took me about two weeks to chop up and stack all the limbs. And I reflected numerous times that I was very damn glad the thing had been up in the air when it went through.

Booze war!

And lo, the sage Steve did write upon(about?) the liquors of the world, and their proper place in the pecking order of drinkables.

And this did cause Rob to wax wroth, and speak defaming words of the sage Steve. And umbrage was taken all the way around.

And thus do I speak: screw Rob(metaphorically, of course), for any who speak so of the Scottish Holy Water is all wet. And has been playing with acid and pigment too, too long.

Go ye, and read their words entire. For I am too lazy to summarize.

And so it begins.

The first day of spring? The first tornado watch of the year. Oh, joy.

I had thought about going to the rifle range today, but when I got off work, it was wet and looking like more rain. Now it's clear, windy and getting warm; just right for the sun to heat things up and destabilize the atmosphere(yes, I can use big words).

So a large part of the state is under a watch until sometime tonight. I'd better make sure things are put away/tied down outside.

Last year a lady lived across the street who was originally from New York, and scared blue of the very thought of tornados. So of course, one day in particular, a fairly strong cell moved right over the area. Several of us were standing in the street watching the clouds in the direction where the local weather 'experts' had seen circulation: nothing. Then I got that funny feeling and turned around and "Oh, THERE you are!". Everybody looked, and Candy asked what she was looking at. I said, "See those clouds moving in from that direction?" "Yes". "See THOSE clouds moving from the other direction?" "Yes". "See how they're moving toward one spot? That's not good". Let's just say she was not happy.

Oh, well. I'm out to make sure stuff is secured, just in case God's vacuum cleaner decides to show up.

Trespass? Get hurt? Get rich.

I've linked to various nonsense from Britain, including criminals filing claims against people they attacked. But this is a prize case.

"A teenage criminal who received £567,000 in compensation after falling through a roof while trespassing boasted about his wealth yesterday, saying that he was looking forward to buying "a few houses and a flash car"."


"I deserve this money and I don't care what anybody says about me," he said. "I'm going to buy a big house so I have a place to live with me mum when she gets out of jail. I might buy a few houses - I'll buy whatever I want." He added: "The papers just call me a yob and a thug because I've been done for robbery and assault but those were just silly stupid little things, like."

Ok, here's a hint. Jackass wants a nice place to live with "mum when she gets out of jail". Oh, and the robbery and assault? "Just silly stupid little things".

And why was mum in jail? "Murphy's mother Diane and her partner Kevin Parsons, both 36, were jailed for three years for dealing in crack cocaine and heroin from their council house in Bellini Close."

Proper compensation for this piece of crap would be to throw him and his mum and her 'partner' in prison and keep them there.

We've had a few cases here where some dirtbag filed suit against someone who hurt them during a robbery, and the jerk who hurt himself in a house he was burgling and sued the owner. One of the problems there is some lawyers who should be kicked off the bar for taking the cases, the other is judges who hear the case instead of throwing it out and telling the lawyers what crap they are. This, though, is a government program, tax money going into the pocket of this waste of oxygen.

Read the article, I'm out of words on this.

Lord, make a place for this man at the table,

he's damned well earned it.

This is definately courage 'above and beyond the call of duty'. And he's got a sense of humor about it. Someone asked him what was going through his mind the second time, and he said, "An RPG".

Found at Kim's

Yucca Mountain

I hadn't heard much about this lately. Then I read this over at Mean Mr. Mustard.

I've gotten used to the hysteria anytime the words 'radiation' or 'radioactive' are heard, which is one reason I didn't pay much attention when this started. It reminds me of the people who scream about nuclear weapons materials being transported: "There will be an accident and the whole area will be contaminated! The terrorists will steal the stuff!" and so forth.

I mentioned before that I once was a dispatcher for the Highway Patrol here. In one in-service school we had some background and response materials on the transport of nuclear weapons materials, how they were set up, security, respoinses if trouble, etc. The containers, whether rail or truck trailer, are designed and built to both prevent the release of any materials in any conceivable accident, and to deny access to anyone who might attack them. In the case of truck transport, the semi pulling the trailer is armored and driven by two federal marshalls, both armed. And they have two- minimum- escort vehicles with more marshalls and sufficient weapons to fight a small battle. I do not use that description lightly; their training and focus was to, in the event of an attempt to seize the truck, hold off what would amount to an infantry assault until help could arrive. Which would be pretty damn quick. I won't go over the alert call procedures, in any case I'm sure they've advanced quite a bit.

The containers themselves were shot, lifted off the ground by cranes and dropped, crashed into by other trucks, and sat across railroad tracks and hit by a locomotive moving 65mph. All with no leaks. And if someone managed to stop the truck and kill all the marshalls? The semi would be disabled, the cavalry would be coming(literally), and the trailers contained 'denial' features, tear gas being the only one they would tell us about. Plus, it took at least two people, doing the right things in the right sequence, to unlock and open the thing.

And with all this, people still screamed about how 'unsafe' and 'insufficiently tested' all this was. The problem with those statements being that for the people making them, there was no way that they could EVER be 'safe'. No tests mattered, no security would be good enough, it involved RADIATION! This included clowns from the Benedictine Peace House who had people watching the highways for the trucks; they liked to follow them as a 'protest' to the transport of those 'immoral' weapons materials, but also because there was RADIOACTIVE MATERIALS involved.

Connected is the screaming about destroying our stockpiles of chemical weapons. Everyone wants to get rid of them, so the Army built a specially-designed incinerator for the purpose. Secured area, storage areas, the incinerator itself, all for the specific purpose of destroying the stuff. And what happens? The same people who are screaming the loudest about getting rid of it don't want it destroyed there. "You'll have to transport it through places where people live! There will be accidents and people will die! Whole areas will be contaminated!" As if the people trying to get rid of the stuff are just going to load it in a semi and drive it through, hoping for the best. So, let's see: you want it moved away from where it is, BUT YOU CAN'T DRIVE IT AWAY! You want it destroyed, but YOU CAN'T TAKE IT TO THE PLACE WHERE IT CAN BE DESTROYED! You want it gone, but YOU CAN'T BURN IT HERE!

The obvious question is, "What do you suggest we do with it, then?" But you won't get an answer. It's far too important to scream and threaten and worry about 'the children' than to actually do something. Or allow the people who are trying to do something to do it.

It's enough to make your head hurt.

In the tradition of Dan Rather journalism,

I'll state that the information in this earlier post may be 'fake but true'.

Joe Huffman has this followup on the information. It may not be a real memo. He also has links to a number of the gun-ban groups and their aims. Boils down to, the particular memo in question may have been fake; the aims of these groups are real.

Ever had bugs in the house?

BIG ONES?

Acidman should get in on this

At the Carnival of Cordite, Technogypsy had a mention of Gretchen Ross taking off on a proposal in an area to declare it legal to shoot stray cats. And it has really set her off. In her response to one comment, there's this:
""Shooting them when sighted while hunting other species is a safe and cost effective way of controlling feral populations."

Safe and cost effective for YOU maybe, what about the cats? Oh yeah, I forgot, God put animals on the Earth for us to kill them...

There are other, more humane ways to control the cat population. People who want to shoot cats are pathetic. Having no real control over their own lives, they take a sick egotistical pleasure over controlling/ending the lives of others. It has nothing to do with saving the birds or farm animals from cats. If it were, there are other less sick ways to do it.

Write back when you grow a fucking soul."

Other people have written about the damage done by feral animals. And yeah, shooting them is a safe & cost-effective way to control them. It's not necessarily a nice thought, but it takes care of a problem.

As far as controlling a cat population, when you're dealing with a feral population in a suburb/rural area, it's about the only real way to handle it; trying to catch them and fix them doesn't work real well. Often it doesn't work too well in urban areas, either. In the city where my parents live there's been a terrible problem with strays/ferals. One group started a program where you could trap ferals and they would sterilize them for free, and turn the back loose! Yeah, they can't reproduce, but they're still running around, killing other animals and spreading disease and dying in nasty ways. Most of the problem has had to be dealt with by trapping and killing them.

I've got to say, her description of people who "want to shoot cats" is straight out of a PETA press release, and I'm not going to waste time on it.

Gretchen, I don't want to shoot cats. But if I lived in an area with feral cat problems, I would.

Oh, and I already have a soul.

Speaking of cartoons,

Check out Wapsi Square.

You'll just have to go there, it's a GIF file and I can't figure out how to post it.

The Fifth Carnival of Cordite is up!

Over at Technogypsy. Lots & lots of good stuff to check out.

No, I'm not out drinking

Not that I have an objection to going out and drinking. However, spending time trying to find a place to park, pushing into the bar, attempting to work through a crowd that's so damn loud you can barely hear(let alone enjoy) the band... no thank you.

Plus, having made it home from work after 0100 this morning, in bed about 0200, and waking up a little after 0800, I'm tired. Which also means, since alcohol hits me harder when I'm tired, I'm not going to have some beers- green or otherwise- and climb into two wheels or four to wend my way home.

Therefore I shall clean up, pour myself a drink of good scotch, lean back and relax. Speaking of scotch, last time I was down in Fort Worth to visit some folks my friend Brian showed me his birthday present from the mrs. Glenfiddich Solera Reserve, 15 years old. This is the guy who started me on Scottish holy water, and one thing I'd learned over time is that whether I like one partly depends on mood; if I'm not in the mood for the stuff, I can't even drink the stuff I like. Well, I wasn't really in the mood, but just to be polite I took the taste he poured me and gave it a try.

Oh.

Oh my.

That was the finest stuff I have ever poured down my throat. Fine flavor, smoothly slid down the throat and then made a little 'boom' inside you. No, I did not finish the bottle for him, but I did have another little taste. And, having received my tax refund, I invested in a bottle of it which I shall now enjoy. Only bad thing is the $42 price tag.

This bottle's going to have to last a while.

Kids and shooting

I was thinking earlier about how I taught my kids, thoughts triggered by an upcoming wedding. No, not mine. Friend of mine is getting hitched to a lady with a 7 year old. The lady has little liking for firearms, but has accepted that since her hubby-to-be is an owner and user, and since there will be firearms around, the kid needs to be trained. I trust my friend to do so well, and the kid is, let us say, greatly excited by it.

My daughter fired her first shot when she was about 2. It was a .54-caliber plains rifle, and yes, it was firmly rested on sandbags(beanbags actually, but who cares?). Between the noise and smoke she was delighted, and has stayed that way. My son was about 7 as I recall, and started with a .22, a leetle bit more appropriate, and he's still shooting too.

I've been going back over how they were taught. SERIOUS lectures about safety, and what would happen if they broke the rules. The water-bottle demonstration. Drawing the sights and how to line them up, breathing, trigger squeeze.

And it's been worth it. I have no idea how many thousand rounds of .22's they've put downrange. My son decided he loved a #4 Mk. 1 Enfield, and watching a kid weighing about 75 pounds shooting ball out of that was interesting(he stuck the rear sandbag between the butt and his shoulder), and my model 94 Winchester found favor with him also. My daughter mostly stuck with the .22 in rifles; with handguns she's become rather fond of my .45 Kimber(I told her no, she couldn't have it). First time she fired handguns above a .22 we started with .38 Special target loads, and moved up. She didn't care for the revolvers, but with the Kimber she placed her first five shots in a 2" group at about 5 yards, recoil not a bother. Shot about the same with a Sig P229 we borrowed.

One of the things that has stuck in my memory is when a man once handed my son a rifle to look over. First thing he did was cycle it to check for loaded with no prompting. Made me very glad, both that he did it right and that it proved something: sometimes he really did listen to me!(not a bad thing for a parent to learn)

Besides the general fun and utility, it's also given my daughter a chance to weird out her friends(the Kimber target is framed on her wall, that group just right of the X-ring of the silhouette gets their attention). And it made her a bit more active politically. Having it pointed out that if the weenies had their way, she'd never be allowed to shoot again ticked her off, and led to studying the facts. I think it also made her more picky about civil rights in general, to the point of having a copy of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights handy. It's interesting finding out one of your kids outdid a teacher in an argument on our rights. And pissed off a somewhat sorry excuse for a teacher when she brought up some facts about the Revolutionary War, in particular the Battle of Saratoga, that he didn't know and didn't want to acknowledge.

My son isn't quite as politically active, but I believe he does pay attention to the matters, at least partially for the same reasons. His favorite handgun is a Sig Trailside with a scope on top, just wonderful at breaking clay pigeons out to 50 yards.

Have I mentioned that clay pigeons are wonderful targets for kids? They do something when you hit them, and then you can break the pieces. Start off with paper to make sure they understand the basics, then go on to more interesting things.

It's been a wonderful thing to do with them. I think my friend will find the same in teaching his kid.

He said what?

On the radio a little bit ago, a news reader for ABC was reporting that the judge had agreed to give Scott Peterson the death penalty. So far, so good. Then he said that this was for the murder of "his wife and their unborn fetus".

?

"Unborn fetus"? There's a whole bunch of possible ways to take that description. And most of them make my head ache.

If anyone says it's "Only about gun safety",

show them this. Read it through. This has not a damn thing to do with 'gun safety'; this has to do with completely banning the ownership of firearms. Which would, I have no doubt, be followed by banning of anything else these clowns would consider a weapon.

"Ban on all semiautos which can fire more than 6 bullets without reloading". That means ALL semiautos, since ANY ONE can be made to fire more than six rounds simply by using a bigger magazine.

'Gun safety' my ass. These clowns think what's happening to people in Britain is a GOOD thing. Which means they're statist dictator wannabes who think everyone else is too damn stupid to be allowed free action- free action meaning anything these bastards don't approve of.

Pissed-off attitude courtesy of Kim.

This is also why a lot of these clowns want McCain-Feingold to regulate blogs. You think they wouldn't like to prevent people like Kim, or your obdnt. svnt, from putting stuff like this up? They'd much rather do this crap in secrecy.

Somebody keep sticking that fork in Britain

until they get the message; they're done.

Look at this crap. Guy kills someone; while in a 'secure hospital' kills another inmate; gets turned loose; kills someone else and is caught while eating some of that victim's brain. NOW, the judge gives him two life sentances. Considering how things seem to work, that may mean he'll have to suffer in custody for, oh, ten or fifteen years? I hope not, but the way things seem to go...

Mind you, if you are attacked in your home in the middle of the night and whack the attacker with a cricket bat- not kill them, just smack them- and you'll probably be in prison for years. But if you're a criminal who hurts people? Well, it may take a while, and some digested body parts, before they can decide that you need to be put away for a long time.

That's aside from the fact that if you so much as punch out an attacker, the attacker is liable to sue you. And the government will probably provide his attorney.

Blech.

I have no idea why I hadn't already added him

Smallest Minority is on the blogroll. I've mentioned him before. Essays on the right to and responsibility of arms, and other interesting stuff. Definately worth checking out.

Hopefully, the IRA is going down the toilet now

Powerline has a piece on how President Bush had basically told Gerry Adams a: you won't be raising money in the U.S. and b: your sorry ass ain't coming to the White House. I know there's still a lot of people who will make excuses for the IRA and try to support them; I hope all support to it is cut off. Whatever the IRA once was, it's become one more bunch of thugs, many of the either communist or 'progressives' who follow the same ideals. They extort, torture, rob and murder, and it's time they were stopped.

The IRA has, over the last few years, been shown to have been supporting terrorists around the world, including- currently- Chavez in Venezuela, who is the current "I wanna be fidel" jackass. So stomp on them, hard.

I had a big argument with a friend a few years ago about this group. He's a serious student of Irish history, and had lots of sympathy for the IRA. I finally put it this way:
"If you want to shoot at British troops, at least you're attacking someone who's armed and can shoot back. If you want to whack a politician, you're at least going after someone who knew their job might be dangerous(no, I'm not excusing these things). But when you put a bomb in a store or a car on a street to kill whoever happens to be around, when you blow up an entire building to try and kill one person and 'screw whoever else dies', when you leave a bomb in a pub just to kill some people and keep the rest scared, that's not 'resistance'; it's murder, and you're a sorry chickenshit".
He wasn't happy, but he didn't argue it either; he's stubborn, not stupid. Later, on a different occasion I pointed out the large parts of the IRA who are commies- which he despises- and he made comment as to how 'a group can't control all it's members'. Maybe, but a group that will kneecap someone for wearing the wrong clothes or going to the wrong church could kick out someone like that; IF they wanted to.

As Wizbang put it, the murder of Robert McCartney was one of three recent deaths caused by terrorists that have awakened a lot of people who were blind before, for whatever reason, to what these bastards are. May the true memorial to these three be the destruction of those who killed them.

Attitudes

In particular, those of a lot of folks who label themselves 'liberal' or 'progressive'. There's some of it on both sides, but the problem seems worse on theirs.

In particular the absolute hatred of George Bush. I'm not talking about those who disagree with him on points, and argue those points; I'm talking about those who 'know' he STOLE the 2000 election, and he's an IDIOT, and he's a DICTATOR, etc. And, in particular, those who would rather see this country fail than have him get credit for something he's done.

That's something that really bothers me. I did not like Bill Clinton, but when he did something that was good, I gave him credit. For instance, in Kosovo my big problem was not that he sent troops in, it was the way he did it; I knew he would give lots of deference to the U.N., and he was so scared of casualties on our side affecting public opinion that you had pilots dropping bombs under conditions that guaranteed misses and civilian casualties. But I do give him credit for actually doing something.(I wish he'd early on told various Europeans to either do something themselves or shut the hell up, but that's another matter). I know that he was pushed into some of the good things by the Republicans winning majorities in the House and Senate, but whether because he was calculating for his own future good or actually saw that it was good, they got done.

I give him credit for those things, just as I give him blame for the things I think were bad. But the nutcase L & P people absolutely refuse to see anything good coming from Bushs' actions, refuse to admit that he might not be a certifiable idiot, refuse to admit that he ever did anything that was good. Used to know a lady who would positively gloat on any news that might be bad for Bush, even if it would also be bad for the U.S. Nothing seemed to matter other than "Now he'll get what's coming to him!"(this is also where I first heard that Reagan did nothing to actually help bring down the Soviet Union; he just showed up at the right time to take credit. She also thought Jimmy Carter was one of the best presidents we ever had). When one country of the coalition announced that they were going to withdraw their troops(I can't remember who, and after you got through the headline it turned out it was pretty much on schedule) she smiled and said something along the lines of "Yes, that's a BIG coalition he has": she was happy at the idea of it falling apart. Mention some good things that had happened so far, mention that things are moving forward, and you'd hear about how it was actually nothing, that we were just being fed this news so we wouldn't see how 'everying is crumbling' and we DESERVE what's going to happen, etc. I failed to see how she thought the mainstream media was blindly 'feeding us' good propaganda from the administration, but apparently they were.

I've said this before: George Bush is not my ideal guy. He's done things that I think he should not have, he hasn't done things I think he should have. But the guy is not a fool, and he has done some good things. I can see someone pushing that they think he's wrong on something, no problem. It's the insistence that he cannot do ANYTHING that's good, or will have a good result, that gets me.

And it's usually connected with some idiot hoping for disaster; they'd rather see things fall apart bloodily than see success. And I just don't understand it.

Three things

First, at Coyote Blog, "You Know It's A Dictatorship When-"

Over at Anarchangel, "A Citazen or a Subject"

And the next Carnival of Cordite is being held at Kevin Menard's place. If you know a post that should be in it, send to info to 'carnival of cordite -at- hotmail point com'.

Oh, one more thing. My daughter sent me this; what happens when you wander into a Den of Evil while looking for a bathroom?...

More cleaning, greasy old guns this time

Old military guns in particular. If you've ever bought an old surplus rifle you'll know what I mean. Some aren't too bad, others are awful. Especially British and some U.S. rifles. Many stocks were oiled to help preserve them, and they soaked up oil from the metal. A lot of them soaked up so much that when the wood gets hot from either the sun or shooting, oil seeps out. And then, of course, there's Cosmoline.

Cosmoline is a grease that was designed for one thing: to protect metal from corrosion in long-term storage. And it works, very well. The bad thing about it? Getting it off. It is the stickiest stuff you've ever ruined your pants on, and the British in particular used a lot of it; the climate I would assume. When a rifle was sent back for service/storage they would dismantle it; anything needing work was repaired or replaced; then the bore was filled, the action & barrel greased thoroughly and replaced in the stock; and sometimes the wood was given a coat. When it was placed in the rack or crate, it could- did- sit there for years into decades, well protected from rust. Which means when you get it...

Did I mention that if it has sat long enough, the stuff can harden? Petrified Cosmoline is even worse to get out.

The metal's not that bad. Most any cleaning solvent, including hot water & soap(I've know of people taking one to a car wash and using the engine cleaner spray on it) will cut the grease off; my favorite is either low-odor mineral spirits or a can of carburetor cleaner. Either will cut the stuff and leave no residue behind(yes, use rubber gloves and ventilation). However, some of this stuff can harm the wood. There's several ways to clean this off, degreasers and such. My favorite, which does take some time, is the kitty-litter method.

Strip the stock to wood only and wipe off all the surface crud. Get some heavy plastic and make a bag wide enough to put the stock in and about a foot longer, make sure you seal it well enough to hold some weight. Put the stock in, and then fill the bag with either cheap unscented kitty litter or oil absorbent. Close the bag and lay it out in the sun all day. Next day, put it back out on the other side. Depending on temperature and how much oil/grease the thing had soaked up, a week to ten days should do it. The heat will cause the oil/grease to bleed to the surface and the litter will soak it up. When done take it out and go over it with a brush to make sure you get all the dust out of the holes and inletting. I've seen an old stock come out of this treatment looking almost like new wood. Don't throw the absorbent away, save it for when you spill oil on the driveway and such.

The other way to do this is much faster, but only works if the stock is short enough to fit in the oven. Prepare the wood as before. Take a roll of cheap paper towels and stuff the receiver area, barrel channel, etc. with them, then wrap the entire stock with at least two layers. Wrap the whole thing in aluminum foil, stick it in the oven and turn it to 'low'. Please make sure the stock is not touching the coil or right on the bottom above the burner, whichever. Leave it there for at least an hour, pull it out/yes, it will be rather warm/ and unwrap. Throw away the paper, which will be soaked, repack & wrap the stock and put it back in. It does the same thing as the litter treatment, it just does it faster. For smaller pieces you could probably either use a metal pan full of litter, or a length of metal tubing; put the wood in, cover with litter, seal the end of the tube a bake.

Another thing that works well on smaller pieces is to make a mix of one part ammonia to three parts water, get a soft brush and start brushing that over the piece. My understanding is the ammonia converts the oil/grease to a form of soap which the water can wash away. This works well on pistol handgrips, handguards & such. You may not want to use this on pieces that are very thin, as it can cause warping. The piece will then need to dry thoroughly before you can refinish it. I can attest that this will get crud out of a piece of wood that looks clean, used on an oily pistol grip or handguard it can be amazing how much stuff winds up in the bucket.

Theres a forum here that specializes in this subject(their home site has lots of interesting forums), there's a lot there on both cleaning and refinishing. Some of their methods I've never tried, spraying oven cleaner on a stock for instance; that sounds a bit, oh, harsh? If something's in bad enough shape it might be something to try. I keep using the kitty litter method because
A. I'm lazy
B. Once it's set up and heating, I can do something else
C. If there are, or you suspect there may be, markings of interest on the wood, this method will not damage the
surface as some others might. I have to stress might; people on the Milsurp forums swear by some of the other methods. You makes your choice and takes your chances.

Finishing up depends on whether you're trying to keep the finish historically accurate or just get a good-looking finish that will protect the wood. You can use boiled linseed oil, you can use shellac, you can use Birchwood Casey's gunstock finish, there are lots of possibilities. Do some research and give something a try.

A lot of these are worth cleaning not only to make it neater to handle & shoot, but- rather amazingly- some of these old rifles have absolutely beautiful wood; when you get all the old crud off the surface it's sometimes amazing what you find. And it's always nicer to shoot something that isn't depositing forty-year-old oil on your face.

Update: ref the kitty litter method, if you'll be cleaning a number of stocks, you might want to make a sturdier container. I recently bought a 5' section of 5" diameter stovepipe for one. Cut it to 50" long, then mashed it into an oval cross-section, then made two plugs out of 5/8" plywood. One's screwed and caulked into one end, the other uses two screws to hold it in place. I also drilled a hole in the removable plug and set an eyebolt in it to make it easier to pull out. Then I painted the whole thing flat black. To use, pour a couple of inches of litter in, set the stock in, then fill it up, insert the plug and lock in place, then lay it in the sun.

I know I've mentioned him before

but if you haven't looked in on the doings at Beelzebub Manor, you're missing something. Several somethings, in fact. Current happenings, British history, and childhood memories:
"We even wore caps and short pants until the age of 13. Apart from Terry Peach. Every year has a Terry Peach. Six foot six tall, size 12 feet and capable of growing a full beard before leaving primary school. Terry was a big lad in every way and Matron had to rush him into Emergency Long Trousers a year before the rest of us after his … err ... sliding tackle had alarmed a visiting French mistress."

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