Robert Scheer says so. He thinks things are just wonderful in Vietnam. I'm a little fuzzy on some things, but let's look at this.
"If then-President Ford had not possessed the courage and wisdom to order the end of the U.S. occupation of Vietnam, we probably would still be embroiled in combating a never-ending insurgency." As I recall, it was a Democrat-controlled Congress that cut off all aid to South Vietnam, condemning it to being conquered by the North. But hey, what's a few hundred thousand people dead and/or imprisoned to a 'never-ending insurgency"? That we weren't even fighting at that point?
"In defeat, the U.S. was able to economically exploit Vietnam without spending U.S. dollars and lives on a hopeless occupation." I wasn't aware that we were trying to 'occupy' it in the first place, but never mind that; we should have just gotten along with them at the time, right?
""Ironically, if you took away the still-ruling Communist Party and discounted the perilous decade after the war, the Vietnam of today is not much different from the country U.S. policymakers wanted to create in the 1960s," Lamb wrote." I just love that; "IF you took away the still-ruling Communist Party". You know, the one that doesn't allow freedom of speech, and kills Christians for the crime of worshipping, etc. No, no problem there.
I was going to go over this piece by piece, but I don't have the stomach for it. Basically, if we hadn't 'over-reacted' to the Red Menace back when, things would have evened out very nicely over time and we'd all be nice little friends. Not said but I bet he wishes is that the Soviet Union might even still be in business. Wouldn't that be ducky?
Oh, and sending troops to Afghanistan and Iraq just 'sounds familiar' to sending troops to Vietnam, etc. From what I've heard, Scheer is one of those assholes who can rarely find anything good about the U.S., and even the few good things would be better if we'd become sensible and turn into a nice socialist state.
I started to say "Over a lot of dead bodies", but that's a given. And I think this idiot might like that.
Update: over at Front Page Mag, Horowitz rips Scheer a big new anal orifice, with a lot more numbers of what happened. And more on that little murderer Ho Chi Minh.
Wednesday, May 04, 2005
Tuesday, May 03, 2005
Heat treatment continued
One of the misconceptions about hardening and tempering is the time factor. Generally, unless you're working with some alloy that demands being held at certain temperatures for certain times, it goes like this:
When you get a piece to hardening temperature, that's it. It doesn't have to be held there for a particular length of time, the critical factor is simply that the piece, or the sections of it needed, have reached the required temperature. Take it out of the fire and quench it in the appropriate medium, water, oil or air.
With the carbon steels I mostly use, I generally quench twice. Meaning bring it up to heat, quench. After it cools enough take it out of the oil, clean it off & let it cool to ambient temp. Repeat. For whatever reason, it often does seem to make stronger blade to harden it twice. And as I mentioned once before, some demand it: 52100 seems to get the best result by three quenches, spaced 24 hours apart. Why? I have no idea, but it does seem to work better.
Tempering is the next step. If you have the aforementioned heat-treating furnace you can use it. You can use the forge or a burner and move the piece back & forth over the heat and watch the color change, pulling the piece out and quenching it at the temp needed. What some smiths do is take a piece of heavy steel or iron pipe cut lengthwise, a foot long at most, and set it over the fire. Let it get good & hot, and while it's heating clean the oil off the blade and shine it up so you can see the color change. Then, for a single-edge blade, start working the spine back & forth along the pipe. The blade will soak up heat, and by moving it around you can keep it even; as before, quench when the color is right. Or, you can use a commonly available household device to do it.
Stick it in the oven.
Yes, that wonder of the modern age, the oven! Capable of turning out a loaf of bread with a crisp crust, turning turkey into dinner, and yes, even tempering knives! However, there are some warnings here, especially if you have a spouse or live-in significant other. First, CLEAN THE DAMN THING OFF! Quenching oil does NOT smell like food baking when it gets hot. In fact, it stinks. So if you leave it on the blade, you will a: piss off the housemate, b: stink up the place, and c: get orders to clean out the oven and/or "You expect me to cook DINNER in that? WIth that stink in it?!?" Possibly including threats to your health. So, after it cools down completely after the last quench, take it to the sink(watch the sensitivities of the spousal unit) and wash it with either a degreaser or dishwashing soap( I personally use Dawn). Get it good & clean, and then hit it lightly on at least one side to shine it up a bit. Then into the oven.
If you're not sure about what temp to use, the oven is very nice in that you can start low, say 375F, and go up from there. Once you know what temp will give the steel in question the hardness you want you can just set it there. Following a procedure I first read I can't remember where, I do it this way:
Set the heat at your desired temp, and set the knife in. I try to set it up so the blade is either edge up or down, not laying on the side. If the oven is already hot, start your timing here, if not give it time to get up to temperature and start then. Again, the critical factor is simply that the entire piece has to get up to the temperature. A thick piece will take longer than a thin one. You don't really gain anything by leaving a piece at temp for hours, though it won't hurt it either. For knives, I leave it in for 45 minutes, maybe an hour for a thick blade(just to be on the safe side). At that time I take it out and set it on a cooling rack(the one you use for cake will work fine as long as the primary cook doesn't get pissed). Leave it until it cools to room temp, then back into the oven for 45 minutes more. I temper three times, and unless the oven is needed after the last one I just turn off the heat and leave it there until cool.
That's it. Nothing magical, although the result can seem that way.
More to follow when time allows
When you get a piece to hardening temperature, that's it. It doesn't have to be held there for a particular length of time, the critical factor is simply that the piece, or the sections of it needed, have reached the required temperature. Take it out of the fire and quench it in the appropriate medium, water, oil or air.
With the carbon steels I mostly use, I generally quench twice. Meaning bring it up to heat, quench. After it cools enough take it out of the oil, clean it off & let it cool to ambient temp. Repeat. For whatever reason, it often does seem to make stronger blade to harden it twice. And as I mentioned once before, some demand it: 52100 seems to get the best result by three quenches, spaced 24 hours apart. Why? I have no idea, but it does seem to work better.
Tempering is the next step. If you have the aforementioned heat-treating furnace you can use it. You can use the forge or a burner and move the piece back & forth over the heat and watch the color change, pulling the piece out and quenching it at the temp needed. What some smiths do is take a piece of heavy steel or iron pipe cut lengthwise, a foot long at most, and set it over the fire. Let it get good & hot, and while it's heating clean the oil off the blade and shine it up so you can see the color change. Then, for a single-edge blade, start working the spine back & forth along the pipe. The blade will soak up heat, and by moving it around you can keep it even; as before, quench when the color is right. Or, you can use a commonly available household device to do it.
Stick it in the oven.
Yes, that wonder of the modern age, the oven! Capable of turning out a loaf of bread with a crisp crust, turning turkey into dinner, and yes, even tempering knives! However, there are some warnings here, especially if you have a spouse or live-in significant other. First, CLEAN THE DAMN THING OFF! Quenching oil does NOT smell like food baking when it gets hot. In fact, it stinks. So if you leave it on the blade, you will a: piss off the housemate, b: stink up the place, and c: get orders to clean out the oven and/or "You expect me to cook DINNER in that? WIth that stink in it?!?" Possibly including threats to your health. So, after it cools down completely after the last quench, take it to the sink(watch the sensitivities of the spousal unit) and wash it with either a degreaser or dishwashing soap( I personally use Dawn). Get it good & clean, and then hit it lightly on at least one side to shine it up a bit. Then into the oven.
If you're not sure about what temp to use, the oven is very nice in that you can start low, say 375F, and go up from there. Once you know what temp will give the steel in question the hardness you want you can just set it there. Following a procedure I first read I can't remember where, I do it this way:
Set the heat at your desired temp, and set the knife in. I try to set it up so the blade is either edge up or down, not laying on the side. If the oven is already hot, start your timing here, if not give it time to get up to temperature and start then. Again, the critical factor is simply that the entire piece has to get up to the temperature. A thick piece will take longer than a thin one. You don't really gain anything by leaving a piece at temp for hours, though it won't hurt it either. For knives, I leave it in for 45 minutes, maybe an hour for a thick blade(just to be on the safe side). At that time I take it out and set it on a cooling rack(the one you use for cake will work fine as long as the primary cook doesn't get pissed). Leave it until it cools to room temp, then back into the oven for 45 minutes more. I temper three times, and unless the oven is needed after the last one I just turn off the heat and leave it there until cool.
That's it. Nothing magical, although the result can seem that way.
More to follow when time allows
Monday, May 02, 2005
Heat treating, continuation
Og had a couple of questions/points I thought I'd address here on the subject of heat-treating knives.
I mentioned before it's a two-step process, hardening and tempering. Hardening is the real pain, in that you have to get the entire length of the blade up to temperature at the same time without over/underheating it in places. Several ways to do it:
1. Spend a couple of thousand on a heat-treating furnace. The good ones can be had with a compartment up to 36" long, the temperature can be set exactly, and if you get the computer controller you can even set how long to take to get to full heat, or bring it up in steps, etc. Or if you have a gas forge, many of them can be adjusted to give just the right heat. If you don't have the money or enough time/interest to invest in one of these,
2. For small/medium blades you can take some firebrick and stack them to create a long empty box in the center. Cut/drill a hole in one of the side bricks, a little off-center, and stick a torch tip into the hole. Adjust things right and the flame/heat will swirl around inside; by moving the piece back & forth you can get a nice, even heat. However, this only works well with short blades; long ones require a long chamber, and probably more than one torch. Or in the forge, you can
3. Set up something to make the fire longer & thinner. I use a piece of pipe cut in half lengthwise with a bunch of holes drilled in it. Set it right over the air hole at the bottom, build the fire over it and it works pretty good. You can make it better by getting a piece of sheet steel and cutting it to an hourglass shape, then bending it in the middle and sitting it in the air hole below the pipe. You want it to stick up a little above the hole but not touching the pipe. It forces the air to blow to the sides as well as straight up, and by spreading the air blast more evenly you get a lot more even heat over the length of the fire. Big blades you'll need to move back & forth, but you can, with care, get it done. Or you can
4. Build a firebox specifically for this. A rectangular box however long, with a smaller piece of square tubing welded to the bottom for the full length, and a lot of holes drilled through. Hook a blower up to one end of the tube, and make a plunger to insert from the other end; by moving it back & forth you can control how long an area gets air, and you can stack firebricks at that end to set the length of the fire. For most knives the box would only need to be 6" wide, and if you find something suitable that's too wide you can stack fire bricks along the sides to leave a narrower channel down the center.
To be continued
I mentioned before it's a two-step process, hardening and tempering. Hardening is the real pain, in that you have to get the entire length of the blade up to temperature at the same time without over/underheating it in places. Several ways to do it:
1. Spend a couple of thousand on a heat-treating furnace. The good ones can be had with a compartment up to 36" long, the temperature can be set exactly, and if you get the computer controller you can even set how long to take to get to full heat, or bring it up in steps, etc. Or if you have a gas forge, many of them can be adjusted to give just the right heat. If you don't have the money or enough time/interest to invest in one of these,
2. For small/medium blades you can take some firebrick and stack them to create a long empty box in the center. Cut/drill a hole in one of the side bricks, a little off-center, and stick a torch tip into the hole. Adjust things right and the flame/heat will swirl around inside; by moving the piece back & forth you can get a nice, even heat. However, this only works well with short blades; long ones require a long chamber, and probably more than one torch. Or in the forge, you can
3. Set up something to make the fire longer & thinner. I use a piece of pipe cut in half lengthwise with a bunch of holes drilled in it. Set it right over the air hole at the bottom, build the fire over it and it works pretty good. You can make it better by getting a piece of sheet steel and cutting it to an hourglass shape, then bending it in the middle and sitting it in the air hole below the pipe. You want it to stick up a little above the hole but not touching the pipe. It forces the air to blow to the sides as well as straight up, and by spreading the air blast more evenly you get a lot more even heat over the length of the fire. Big blades you'll need to move back & forth, but you can, with care, get it done. Or you can
4. Build a firebox specifically for this. A rectangular box however long, with a smaller piece of square tubing welded to the bottom for the full length, and a lot of holes drilled through. Hook a blower up to one end of the tube, and make a plunger to insert from the other end; by moving it back & forth you can control how long an area gets air, and you can stack firebricks at that end to set the length of the fire. For most knives the box would only need to be 6" wide, and if you find something suitable that's too wide you can stack fire bricks along the sides to leave a narrower channel down the center.
To be continued
Sunday, May 01, 2005
So what happens in Britain?
Mark Stein's column on this subject covers the possibles, none of them too attractive.
I've never understood a lot of the sighing over Tony Blair. I said before, I give him credit for understanding that the Islamists needed to be stomped on now, or it'd be ten times worse later on, and credit for getting it through his government. But...
Yeah, there's a but. In most everything else, Blair is my enemy. He wants the government controlling all aspects of life, wants all the peasants disarmed, wants all international decisions to be run past/through the U.N., he's a socialist politician of a type who brings to mind Misha's comment "Lamppost, rope, politician: some assembly required". I mean, even the French look to be voting against the European Union, and Blair has been trying to bulldoze Britain into it; even to the extent of not wanting to allow the people of Britain to vote on it. Yes, he put Britain into the war alongside us; he's also the bastard responsible for the British military being gutted, for troops being sent in harms way with maybe one magazine of ammo for their rifle, for not enough of anything. That the British soldiers came through magnificently does not change the fact that he should be hung for sending them to the sharp end with such conditions of equipment and supply.
Whoever wins the British elections, it'll be messy for us to some extent. And Blair and his party is responsible for that. No, the Brit 'conservative' party is no great winner, but at least they seem to think that giving the Queen's subjects permission to protect themselves is a good idea, which would be a step in the right direction.
(needing 'permission' for self-defense... Sucks, don't it?)
I've never understood a lot of the sighing over Tony Blair. I said before, I give him credit for understanding that the Islamists needed to be stomped on now, or it'd be ten times worse later on, and credit for getting it through his government. But...
Yeah, there's a but. In most everything else, Blair is my enemy. He wants the government controlling all aspects of life, wants all the peasants disarmed, wants all international decisions to be run past/through the U.N., he's a socialist politician of a type who brings to mind Misha's comment "Lamppost, rope, politician: some assembly required". I mean, even the French look to be voting against the European Union, and Blair has been trying to bulldoze Britain into it; even to the extent of not wanting to allow the people of Britain to vote on it. Yes, he put Britain into the war alongside us; he's also the bastard responsible for the British military being gutted, for troops being sent in harms way with maybe one magazine of ammo for their rifle, for not enough of anything. That the British soldiers came through magnificently does not change the fact that he should be hung for sending them to the sharp end with such conditions of equipment and supply.
Whoever wins the British elections, it'll be messy for us to some extent. And Blair and his party is responsible for that. No, the Brit 'conservative' party is no great winner, but at least they seem to think that giving the Queen's subjects permission to protect themselves is a good idea, which would be a step in the right direction.
(needing 'permission' for self-defense... Sucks, don't it?)
Warsaw Ghetto, 1943
I found this at Horsefeathers.
I can never read an account of this without feeling chills, and sometimes tears. A bunch of despised Jews, marked for death, deciding that they were not going to die as sheep in gas chambers, forcing the feared SS to bring in tanks and artillery to win a fight against a bunch of outnumbered, outgunned 'un-humans'.
Peter Capstick once wrote that if you don't respect the AmaZulu, then you don't know fighting men. If you can read the accounts of these people's courage and not feel something, maybe the presence of courage and greatness, then I'm very sorry for you.
I can never read an account of this without feeling chills, and sometimes tears. A bunch of despised Jews, marked for death, deciding that they were not going to die as sheep in gas chambers, forcing the feared SS to bring in tanks and artillery to win a fight against a bunch of outnumbered, outgunned 'un-humans'.
Peter Capstick once wrote that if you don't respect the AmaZulu, then you don't know fighting men. If you can read the accounts of these people's courage and not feel something, maybe the presence of courage and greatness, then I'm very sorry for you.
Further proof that California is in the hands of the idiots
Over at No Quarters is this post on the law being pushed there to require all ammunition to be serial numbered. And that if it passes, casting your own bullets will be illegal, as will buying surplus ammo, etc.
California is in the hands of the idiots and nannies, and they'll neuter everyone if they get a chance. Bleah.
California is in the hands of the idiots and nannies, and they'll neuter everyone if they get a chance. Bleah.
Saturday, April 30, 2005
Bad engineering, bad designers, or both
I got the doors put up on the shed today, after a fair amount of cursing and threats. Big problem is the sliders the doors hang from. They're nylon pieces that fit inside the track. There is a pin and a hole on each; the hole accepts the screw that holds the door in place and the pin fits into a hole in the door right next to where the screw goes.
Supposedly.
In fact, a: the pin is so short that if you tighten the screw down enough to pull it into place, the door won't move. Loosen it enough to move, and the pin falls out and the slider turns and jams the door.
!(#&#*&^***!
I had to drill a hole in the center of each pin and put in a screw to hold the damn sliders in alignment. This led to the next discovery. There are screws holding the track/front frame assembly together, on the top & bottom. The sliders have slots in them to slide over these.
Supposedly(again).
I'm going to have to put a grinding point in the Dremel and cut the screws down very close to the steel so they'll clear. And I'll take an old toothbrush and some paste wax and coat the inside of the track. Between them, the damn things should slide fairly smoothly.
It would have been a lot easier if they had a: made the sliders rectangular and a closer fit to the track, they could have cut the slots to clear the screws wider AND it would be more stable; b: made the bleepin' pins long enough to fit. Oh, I know why they didn't. They'd have to make two left and two right pieces, instead of four identical pieces that you turn to fit. Cheap bastards.
But the damn thing's up now.
Supposedly.
In fact, a: the pin is so short that if you tighten the screw down enough to pull it into place, the door won't move. Loosen it enough to move, and the pin falls out and the slider turns and jams the door.
!(#&#*&^***!
I had to drill a hole in the center of each pin and put in a screw to hold the damn sliders in alignment. This led to the next discovery. There are screws holding the track/front frame assembly together, on the top & bottom. The sliders have slots in them to slide over these.
Supposedly(again).
I'm going to have to put a grinding point in the Dremel and cut the screws down very close to the steel so they'll clear. And I'll take an old toothbrush and some paste wax and coat the inside of the track. Between them, the damn things should slide fairly smoothly.
It would have been a lot easier if they had a: made the sliders rectangular and a closer fit to the track, they could have cut the slots to clear the screws wider AND it would be more stable; b: made the bleepin' pins long enough to fit. Oh, I know why they didn't. They'd have to make two left and two right pieces, instead of four identical pieces that you turn to fit. Cheap bastards.
But the damn thing's up now.
I shall now pontificate on Safety
Yes, the with-a-capital-S Safety. That concept that is being taken to an extent that may do us all in eventually.
I realized I didn't know the actual dictionary definition of the word, so I looked it up and found
"the condition of being safe from undergoing or causing hurt, injury, or loss"
followed by
"a device (as on a weapon or a machine) designed to prevent inadvertent or hazardous operation".
Let's take the first one. It's a good idea to keep people 'safe'; the problem is with the extent it's being taken to. All too often it's not good enough to put a safety feature on a piece of machinery. You have to try to foresee every single thing, including the stupid and unthinking, that someone might possibly do that would allow someone to get hurt. Which is both damn near impossible, and can make it hard to actually use the equipment. This is related to the idiot warnings you find on just about everything. Some morons decide to pick up a running lawn mower and use it to trim the hedge; they slip and take various injuries and sue the lawnmower company for not having a sticker on the mower telling them that this is a bad idea. They can't figure out this is a bad idea on their own?!? But it doesn't matter that they got hurt by doing something self-evidently stupid; the company should have foreseen that they would and put a warning on the mower! Never mind that these idiots would have done it anyway, "You should have put a sticker on the mower deck" says the court while awarding the morons a pile of money. We've gotten away from the idea of "I will make a machine that will efficiently do a job, and I will use good materials and design; using it in a safe manner is in your hands". Instead, thanks to lawyers, idiots and judges we have "It doesn't matter how well it is designed and made, if someone does something dumb with it it's your fault for not somehow magically preventing harm from occurring. Which drives up the price- insurance and legal costs, you know- and leads to machinery being made in ways that either makes it a pain to use, or makes it harder to use. All in the name of 'Safety'.
Let's take that 'keep people safe' idea further. How 'safe'? and what exactly do you mean by that? I've seen proposals to ban or restrict ownership of or greatly modify everything from motor vehicles to bicycles to knives to guns to... the list goes on and on. All by people who care about 'safety'(and supposedly crime control in some cases; with some things they seem to go together in some minds) and have little concern for actually getting things done. Many tools are inherently dangerous: a knife of any kind without a sharp edge and/or point is useless; a saw made so 'safe' that you cannot cut yourself on it may not be useable, and so forth. Up until fairly recently it's been accepted that use of many things carries risk, and it's up to you to take care with it, but over the last while far too many people expect someone else to think for them and keep them 'safe'. This has basically resulted in people standing up in court and saying "I don't have any working brain cells and cannot think, so it was up to the X company to think for me and keep me from getting hurt". I personally would be too damn embarrassed to stand up in court and say "How was I to know that if I picked up a running mower, I might get hurt?", but get a lawyer and dollar signs in someone's mind, and lots of people do it. And it raises costs for everyone.
This hooks into the 'prevention principle' that's a big thing with the European Union; that you should prove something is completely safe before it can be sold/used. That is, without doubt, one of the most idiot ideas to come down the road. Everything has dangers. Every chemical, every tool, every method of conveyance. All of it. Chemicals that keep bugs out of our food, and help cure diseases, that help aches and pains; tools that build civilization; ideas themselves; ALL of them have dangers. Make yourself 'safe' from them, and you'll be back in a hovel with wolves prowling the edges of the fields, wondering if there isn't a better way to live. But there are a bunch of people, some simply well-meaning but some actively using this as a way of controlling people, who are pushing it. Hard.
How about the second part, "a device (as on a weapon or a machine) designed to prevent inadvertent or hazardous operation"? This has led to things like the 'safety button' on my circular saw that has to be depressed to turn it on. It used to be that you could, once you had it on, push a button that would lock it 'on' so you could move your hand around as needed, but that wasn't 'safe' enough. So if you shift your hand around the damn thing may turn off. Pain in the ass at times.
It's also leading the 'safe gun' concept that a bunch of people are pushing. I'll say this right off: I will not cooperate with this crap. I have no intention of being restricted to a firearm that will only operate for me, or only if I'm wearing my magic bracelet or whatever. Besides the idiocy of having a weapon that will not operate unless you go through a proper 'safe operating' sequence or wear the right devices, it's a direct threat to ownership of arms. If you are only allowed to have a gun that only you can fire, you can't take your kids to the range with it, because they can't fire it. At best, it would mean having some government minion 'approve' you adding your kid's information into the database on the firearm; at worst it means said minion says 'no', and you're screwed. And if you work around it, you've violated the law and they'll take your arms away if they find out, because you cannot be trusted to 'safely' use said arms- in their opinion. And since they control the law, their's is the opinion that counts, isn't it?
I'll point out a further thing I read somewhere: a gun with 'smart' tech built in needs a battery. So the government, for 'safety' and crime control, dictates what battery will be used. Which means they can control the supply, and if you can't get the battery, for whatever reason, you are screwed.
Not to mention that the simple fact that if you need a gun, it will often be under the worst circumstances, when you may not have your magic bracelet available. Or may have crud on your hand that would prevent the sensors from confirming you are the authorized user for the firearm, and so forth. Which is why all of the 'smart gun' legislation I've heard of exempts law enforcement from complying. It's not good enough for the minions of the state, but quite good enough to force on the peasants.
It all boils down to people being held responsible for their own actions, which is why I don't know if it'll get better or not. There's a lot of momentum toward people not being responsible for themselves, and halting or reversing it- even a little bit- is iffy. If it continues the way it has, we'll all be so damn safe that we can't do anything.
I realized I didn't know the actual dictionary definition of the word, so I looked it up and found
"the condition of being safe from undergoing or causing hurt, injury, or loss"
followed by
"a device (as on a weapon or a machine) designed to prevent inadvertent or hazardous operation".
Let's take the first one. It's a good idea to keep people 'safe'; the problem is with the extent it's being taken to. All too often it's not good enough to put a safety feature on a piece of machinery. You have to try to foresee every single thing, including the stupid and unthinking, that someone might possibly do that would allow someone to get hurt. Which is both damn near impossible, and can make it hard to actually use the equipment. This is related to the idiot warnings you find on just about everything. Some morons decide to pick up a running lawn mower and use it to trim the hedge; they slip and take various injuries and sue the lawnmower company for not having a sticker on the mower telling them that this is a bad idea. They can't figure out this is a bad idea on their own?!? But it doesn't matter that they got hurt by doing something self-evidently stupid; the company should have foreseen that they would and put a warning on the mower! Never mind that these idiots would have done it anyway, "You should have put a sticker on the mower deck" says the court while awarding the morons a pile of money. We've gotten away from the idea of "I will make a machine that will efficiently do a job, and I will use good materials and design; using it in a safe manner is in your hands". Instead, thanks to lawyers, idiots and judges we have "It doesn't matter how well it is designed and made, if someone does something dumb with it it's your fault for not somehow magically preventing harm from occurring. Which drives up the price- insurance and legal costs, you know- and leads to machinery being made in ways that either makes it a pain to use, or makes it harder to use. All in the name of 'Safety'.
Let's take that 'keep people safe' idea further. How 'safe'? and what exactly do you mean by that? I've seen proposals to ban or restrict ownership of or greatly modify everything from motor vehicles to bicycles to knives to guns to... the list goes on and on. All by people who care about 'safety'(and supposedly crime control in some cases; with some things they seem to go together in some minds) and have little concern for actually getting things done. Many tools are inherently dangerous: a knife of any kind without a sharp edge and/or point is useless; a saw made so 'safe' that you cannot cut yourself on it may not be useable, and so forth. Up until fairly recently it's been accepted that use of many things carries risk, and it's up to you to take care with it, but over the last while far too many people expect someone else to think for them and keep them 'safe'. This has basically resulted in people standing up in court and saying "I don't have any working brain cells and cannot think, so it was up to the X company to think for me and keep me from getting hurt". I personally would be too damn embarrassed to stand up in court and say "How was I to know that if I picked up a running mower, I might get hurt?", but get a lawyer and dollar signs in someone's mind, and lots of people do it. And it raises costs for everyone.
This hooks into the 'prevention principle' that's a big thing with the European Union; that you should prove something is completely safe before it can be sold/used. That is, without doubt, one of the most idiot ideas to come down the road. Everything has dangers. Every chemical, every tool, every method of conveyance. All of it. Chemicals that keep bugs out of our food, and help cure diseases, that help aches and pains; tools that build civilization; ideas themselves; ALL of them have dangers. Make yourself 'safe' from them, and you'll be back in a hovel with wolves prowling the edges of the fields, wondering if there isn't a better way to live. But there are a bunch of people, some simply well-meaning but some actively using this as a way of controlling people, who are pushing it. Hard.
How about the second part, "a device (as on a weapon or a machine) designed to prevent inadvertent or hazardous operation"? This has led to things like the 'safety button' on my circular saw that has to be depressed to turn it on. It used to be that you could, once you had it on, push a button that would lock it 'on' so you could move your hand around as needed, but that wasn't 'safe' enough. So if you shift your hand around the damn thing may turn off. Pain in the ass at times.
It's also leading the 'safe gun' concept that a bunch of people are pushing. I'll say this right off: I will not cooperate with this crap. I have no intention of being restricted to a firearm that will only operate for me, or only if I'm wearing my magic bracelet or whatever. Besides the idiocy of having a weapon that will not operate unless you go through a proper 'safe operating' sequence or wear the right devices, it's a direct threat to ownership of arms. If you are only allowed to have a gun that only you can fire, you can't take your kids to the range with it, because they can't fire it. At best, it would mean having some government minion 'approve' you adding your kid's information into the database on the firearm; at worst it means said minion says 'no', and you're screwed. And if you work around it, you've violated the law and they'll take your arms away if they find out, because you cannot be trusted to 'safely' use said arms- in their opinion. And since they control the law, their's is the opinion that counts, isn't it?
I'll point out a further thing I read somewhere: a gun with 'smart' tech built in needs a battery. So the government, for 'safety' and crime control, dictates what battery will be used. Which means they can control the supply, and if you can't get the battery, for whatever reason, you are screwed.
Not to mention that the simple fact that if you need a gun, it will often be under the worst circumstances, when you may not have your magic bracelet available. Or may have crud on your hand that would prevent the sensors from confirming you are the authorized user for the firearm, and so forth. Which is why all of the 'smart gun' legislation I've heard of exempts law enforcement from complying. It's not good enough for the minions of the state, but quite good enough to force on the peasants.
It all boils down to people being held responsible for their own actions, which is why I don't know if it'll get better or not. There's a lot of momentum toward people not being responsible for themselves, and halting or reversing it- even a little bit- is iffy. If it continues the way it has, we'll all be so damn safe that we can't do anything.
Crime and guns in Britain and Europe
Over at Smallest Minority(I know, I go there a lot; he has a lot to read) there's this about British crime figures. Basically, a retired cop talked about how many gun-related crimes are not officially reported so they're not listed in crime figures, so the situation is worse than the official number say. And the 'professional standards' unit sends people to talk to you. Because they want to know who talked to you. Screw the facts, we need to know who's not toeing the line and making us look bad. Just wonderful.
He also has this, on a man beaten to death in his business. An attack that took fifteen minutes, in an area that supposedly had a 'heightened police presence' in the time prior to the attack.
No Quarters has this on the theft of 'up to 150 Glock pistols' from a high security air base in the Netherlands. It took place over the weekend, and wasn't discovered 'till Monday. Sheesh. Maybe they need better 'safe storage' laws over there, huh? This reminds me of something from about ten years ago, I believe also in the Netherlands. A guy on guard duty was robbed- of his Uzi- by two guys with a crossbow, who held him until his relief came, and took his subgun too. Ain't it just wonderful over there?
I'm curious. Does anyone know anything about firearms laws in the 'new Europe' countries? I'm wondering if the citazens there have some right to arms, or if they're still going by the 'we will tell you peasants what you will be allowed to own' attitude.
By the way, No Quarters has some other good stuff, take a look around.
He also has this, on a man beaten to death in his business. An attack that took fifteen minutes, in an area that supposedly had a 'heightened police presence' in the time prior to the attack.
No Quarters has this on the theft of 'up to 150 Glock pistols' from a high security air base in the Netherlands. It took place over the weekend, and wasn't discovered 'till Monday. Sheesh. Maybe they need better 'safe storage' laws over there, huh? This reminds me of something from about ten years ago, I believe also in the Netherlands. A guy on guard duty was robbed- of his Uzi- by two guys with a crossbow, who held him until his relief came, and took his subgun too. Ain't it just wonderful over there?
I'm curious. Does anyone know anything about firearms laws in the 'new Europe' countries? I'm wondering if the citazens there have some right to arms, or if they're still going by the 'we will tell you peasants what you will be allowed to own' attitude.
By the way, No Quarters has some other good stuff, take a look around.
Friday, April 29, 2005
The Carnival of Cordite is up
over at Gullyborg.
Right now it's cloudy, cold and threatening rain, and I've got to be at work very late tonight. Or very early tomorrow, or whatever.
Later.
Right now it's cloudy, cold and threatening rain, and I've got to be at work very late tonight. Or very early tomorrow, or whatever.
Later.
Thursday, April 28, 2005
The shed is up!
And I'm done. In more ways than one.
All but the trim on the edges and the doors is complete, and I'll finish that tomorrow. I need another piece of plywood for the flooring, but that's no big deal.
Then I can move some stuff out of the garage and into it, which will free up some space. And get the mower out of the weather. The dog won't set foot in it so far, we'll see if that holds. And I may have to put some screening around the base to keep the squirrels and such out come fall, we'll have to see.
Damn, I'm glad this part is done.
All but the trim on the edges and the doors is complete, and I'll finish that tomorrow. I need another piece of plywood for the flooring, but that's no big deal.
Then I can move some stuff out of the garage and into it, which will free up some space. And get the mower out of the weather. The dog won't set foot in it so far, we'll see if that holds. And I may have to put some screening around the base to keep the squirrels and such out come fall, we'll have to see.
Damn, I'm glad this part is done.
Wednesday, April 27, 2005
Tool & material sources
Note: I started this the other night, and ran out of time. I'm too worn out tonight to dig around for more sources, so I'm going to post this and add to it later.
After some of the earlier posts, I thought I'd list a few of the places I get stuff from.
Enco Power tools, hand tools, sanding/grinding belts, steel & brass bar stock.
BrownellsPrimarily a gunsmith supply company, some steel stock. The big items here are polishing/finishing supplies such as buffing wheels, buffing compounds, blueing & browning compounds, etc. They also have some books called Gunsmith Kinks, tips on all kinds of stuff from customers. Some of it can be applied quite well to knives, etc. They also have some heavy-duty epoxy that will stick just about anything together. It ain't cheap, and you have to mix it properly, but it works.
Centaur Forge Blacksmith & farrier supply house, just about everything from forges and hand tools to machine tools, bar stock, books, etc. Can also order custom punches for marking pieces.
Harbor Freight Import company with lots of hand tools, sanding belts/cloth/paper, buffers, grinders, etc. Bad thing is a lot of their stuff is imported from the PRC, so I try to pick stuff made elsewhere.
Salvage yards Mostly mild steel bar & sheet, you can also find rebar(tent stakes, stands for bird feeders) and other stuff. Leaf and coil springs make good blades and punches and chisels, and can be found here. Don't think just car/truck springs, either; I've used overhead garage door springs of different sizes for all kinds of things.
Don't discount local hardware places, and check the phone book for industrial supply houses. They'll often have some buffing wheels and compounds, and may have buffers, or a grinder you can convert. And of course they'll have drill bits, files and so forth. Note: in drill bits, buy the best you can. They'll last longer, especially drilling high-carbon steel. Even if it is annealed, that stuff is hard. On the subject of drilling, use a cutting oil; the drilling will be easier and the bits will last longer. Brownells has a stuff called Do-Drill that works quite well, and the nice thing is that unless you do a LOT of drilling or machining, one can will last for years.
After some of the earlier posts, I thought I'd list a few of the places I get stuff from.
Enco Power tools, hand tools, sanding/grinding belts, steel & brass bar stock.
BrownellsPrimarily a gunsmith supply company, some steel stock. The big items here are polishing/finishing supplies such as buffing wheels, buffing compounds, blueing & browning compounds, etc. They also have some books called Gunsmith Kinks, tips on all kinds of stuff from customers. Some of it can be applied quite well to knives, etc. They also have some heavy-duty epoxy that will stick just about anything together. It ain't cheap, and you have to mix it properly, but it works.
Centaur Forge Blacksmith & farrier supply house, just about everything from forges and hand tools to machine tools, bar stock, books, etc. Can also order custom punches for marking pieces.
Harbor Freight Import company with lots of hand tools, sanding belts/cloth/paper, buffers, grinders, etc. Bad thing is a lot of their stuff is imported from the PRC, so I try to pick stuff made elsewhere.
Salvage yards Mostly mild steel bar & sheet, you can also find rebar(tent stakes, stands for bird feeders) and other stuff. Leaf and coil springs make good blades and punches and chisels, and can be found here. Don't think just car/truck springs, either; I've used overhead garage door springs of different sizes for all kinds of things.
Don't discount local hardware places, and check the phone book for industrial supply houses. They'll often have some buffing wheels and compounds, and may have buffers, or a grinder you can convert. And of course they'll have drill bits, files and so forth. Note: in drill bits, buy the best you can. They'll last longer, especially drilling high-carbon steel. Even if it is annealed, that stuff is hard. On the subject of drilling, use a cutting oil; the drilling will be easier and the bits will last longer. Brownells has a stuff called Do-Drill that works quite well, and the nice thing is that unless you do a LOT of drilling or machining, one can will last for years.
Various thoughts & information from others
on gun ownership, GFW's, and crime.
First, over at Smallest Minority, Kevin goes into the differences between 'good' and 'bad' gun cultures, and how the Good was destroyed in England.
Then, he goes over the crap out of the Violence Policy Center over the 'Assault Weapons Ban' and why a: they don't think it was a ban and b: why they pushed it anyway, and want it back. Lying little bastards.
Then over to Rivrdog, for this roundup of the wonders of gun control(more properly 'citazen disarmament') in various places. Including what's happening with the crime rates in Australia. As you might expect, following Britain's lead in making the ownership of arms and the right of self-defense crimes, their crime rates are shooting up. Literally.
I repeat what I said before, the only reason for the government to want to ban/restrict the ownership of arms is because a: the Lords of the Country don't think the peasants are trustworthy enough to own them, and/or b: they plan on doing things they know you won't like, and they don't want you to have the ultimate means of saying "no". I'll add that the only reasons some people want them banned are the two above and mental illness; as in 'I cannot be trusted with arms, so no one else can be, either'. Jeff Cooper calls in 'hoplophobia', for fear of weapons and the ownership of them. Anymore, I just call it being full of shit.
As an aside, this stuff is making my language go downhill. Sorry 'bout that.
First, over at Smallest Minority, Kevin goes into the differences between 'good' and 'bad' gun cultures, and how the Good was destroyed in England.
Then, he goes over the crap out of the Violence Policy Center over the 'Assault Weapons Ban' and why a: they don't think it was a ban and b: why they pushed it anyway, and want it back. Lying little bastards.
Then over to Rivrdog, for this roundup of the wonders of gun control(more properly 'citazen disarmament') in various places. Including what's happening with the crime rates in Australia. As you might expect, following Britain's lead in making the ownership of arms and the right of self-defense crimes, their crime rates are shooting up. Literally.
I repeat what I said before, the only reason for the government to want to ban/restrict the ownership of arms is because a: the Lords of the Country don't think the peasants are trustworthy enough to own them, and/or b: they plan on doing things they know you won't like, and they don't want you to have the ultimate means of saying "no". I'll add that the only reasons some people want them banned are the two above and mental illness; as in 'I cannot be trusted with arms, so no one else can be, either'. Jeff Cooper calls in 'hoplophobia', for fear of weapons and the ownership of them. Anymore, I just call it being full of shit.
As an aside, this stuff is making my language go downhill. Sorry 'bout that.
Tuesday, April 26, 2005
Steel, back when
I mentioned before how much easier it is to get steel today. Click the mouse a few times or pick up the phone and place an order, or drive to a supply house or salvage yard and pick it up. But not that long ago...
Iron, after it was discovered how to refine it from ore, wasn't always rare but it was not something you wasted. Bits trimmed off a piece were saved, worn-out horseshoes went into the scrap pile for use later, any piece of iron was saved and re-used. Steel, on the other hand, was a whole 'nother matter.
In its' most basic form, steel is pure iron with a little carbon added. As little as 1/10 of one percent carbon changes the iron, makes it stronger. 1/2 of one percent makes a steel that can be hardened by quenching and is much more wear-resistant. More carbon adds more resistance to wear, and- generally- more use as a cutting tool. Back when, this was the steel available, when it was available, which in some areas wasn't often.
This, by the way, was one of the reasons the sword became the tool of a gentleman and other people higher up on the social scale. An axe can be made of iron with a small piece of steel for the cutting edge, a usable spear point can be made of iron; but a sword requires steel in large amounts and the knowledge, materials and time to work it.
For the smith in a village or many small cities, they might well have to make their own steel. They did this by a process called case-hardening. Basically, take a bar of iron, coat it with a paste made of charcoal and maybe bone meal and other stuff, coat it with clay to seal it and put it in the fire. They didn't know how it worked, but they knew it changed the iron to steel. What happens is that when you hit the magic temperature/critical temperature/ the structure of the metal opens up; when the piece is sealed in with carbon-bearing materials, the carbon can migrate into the metal, changing it from iron to steel. The longer you keep it at heat, the further it can migrate into the piece. If you had the resources you could make a clay chest, fill it with iron rods and the carbon source material, seal it and make a bunch of steel rods at once.
Now, this is a very uneven process. A bar can come out mostly steel on one end, far more iron core with a skin of steel on the other. So someone figured out that if you fold the bar over and weld it a few times, it evens out the quality and makes a superior product. And so it went for a long time in much of the world. You could also take a steel bar, laminate it with an iron bar, and weld & fold them for the same effect.
Done right, this can produce marvelous steel and tools, but it is time & resource intensive, so- of course- shortcuts were taken. An axe or spearpoint could be made of iron & case-hardened, producing a steel skin that could be hardened & tempered, for instance. Of course, if you sharpened the edge from both sides, you quickly wore through the skin and had a soft iron edge. Often the two materials were combined in truly wonderful ways(the Sutton Hoo sword, for instance). Japanese swords were made by a laminating process, and built up of separate pieces with different numbers of folds and welds. The number of folds influenced both the carbon content of the piece, and the hammerwork involved adds something to the pieces itself.
Note: some years back I read where some people sacrificed an old Japanese blade by cutting it up so the different sections could be analyzed as to content. Everyone had thought the edge would be a super-high carbon content, but it wasn't; it was only about .5 percent. It's cutting ability came from the refining hammerwork and very careful temperature control in the hardening process, the great strength from the softer pieces reinforcing it. Also noted was that this would explain the fact that there were definate no-no's involved in using one, as a powerful strike with the blade hitting at a bad angle could bend the blade; there wasn't enough carbon involved in the entire blade to make it more springy.
The laminating and welding process(pattern-welded steel) was often known in the west as Damascus. Not because any came from there, but because of a truly incredible steel that came through there on the trade routes from India(primarily) and a couple of other places. Pattern-welded blades, if washed with acid after polishing, show a pattern from the different layers; this stuff from the east had a pattern but it was in the steel itself, which was a single homogenous piece. More properly known as Wootz, it had(and has) an incredibly high carbon content for a steel, and would cut and hold an edge like nothing else on earth. Sometime in the 80's a smith named Al Pendray got together with a metallurgist and decided to make some. Lots of experimenting later, using only materials available back when, they succeeded. Pendray reported that it was a cast-iron bitch to forge(my words, he was quite a bit more polite); it was very hard to move under the hammer, and if a wind blew across it as you were working and cooled it just a bit too much, the next blow might crack it. But the end result was worth it: blades with a watered patterning on the surface, that would take an extremely fine edge and hold it in use.
Centuries later, an English clockmaker had a problem. He needed very precise springs for his work, but the best steel available wasn't quite good enough; some if it was a LOT not good enough. And he had an idea. He case-hardened some rods to make them into steel, broke them into pieces, sealed them in a crucible and melted them in a furnace. When cooled, he worked the steel out and wonderful! Steel of even quality throughout, that could be made into the springs he needed. This stayed his trade secret for years, and then it got out. I've heard that in years to come one of the ways this would be worked was to case-harden large bars, quench them, break off the steel skin and melt it to produce the superior product.
Starting in the late 1800's, they figured out how to use a blast furnace to purify iron and then add the alloying elements in to make steel, and now you can get all kinds. Water, oil and air hardening, shock-resistant, stainless, etc. For literally pennies a pound for stuff people a few centuries ago might have killed for.
Iron, after it was discovered how to refine it from ore, wasn't always rare but it was not something you wasted. Bits trimmed off a piece were saved, worn-out horseshoes went into the scrap pile for use later, any piece of iron was saved and re-used. Steel, on the other hand, was a whole 'nother matter.
In its' most basic form, steel is pure iron with a little carbon added. As little as 1/10 of one percent carbon changes the iron, makes it stronger. 1/2 of one percent makes a steel that can be hardened by quenching and is much more wear-resistant. More carbon adds more resistance to wear, and- generally- more use as a cutting tool. Back when, this was the steel available, when it was available, which in some areas wasn't often.
This, by the way, was one of the reasons the sword became the tool of a gentleman and other people higher up on the social scale. An axe can be made of iron with a small piece of steel for the cutting edge, a usable spear point can be made of iron; but a sword requires steel in large amounts and the knowledge, materials and time to work it.
For the smith in a village or many small cities, they might well have to make their own steel. They did this by a process called case-hardening. Basically, take a bar of iron, coat it with a paste made of charcoal and maybe bone meal and other stuff, coat it with clay to seal it and put it in the fire. They didn't know how it worked, but they knew it changed the iron to steel. What happens is that when you hit the magic temperature/critical temperature/ the structure of the metal opens up; when the piece is sealed in with carbon-bearing materials, the carbon can migrate into the metal, changing it from iron to steel. The longer you keep it at heat, the further it can migrate into the piece. If you had the resources you could make a clay chest, fill it with iron rods and the carbon source material, seal it and make a bunch of steel rods at once.
Now, this is a very uneven process. A bar can come out mostly steel on one end, far more iron core with a skin of steel on the other. So someone figured out that if you fold the bar over and weld it a few times, it evens out the quality and makes a superior product. And so it went for a long time in much of the world. You could also take a steel bar, laminate it with an iron bar, and weld & fold them for the same effect.
Done right, this can produce marvelous steel and tools, but it is time & resource intensive, so- of course- shortcuts were taken. An axe or spearpoint could be made of iron & case-hardened, producing a steel skin that could be hardened & tempered, for instance. Of course, if you sharpened the edge from both sides, you quickly wore through the skin and had a soft iron edge. Often the two materials were combined in truly wonderful ways(the Sutton Hoo sword, for instance). Japanese swords were made by a laminating process, and built up of separate pieces with different numbers of folds and welds. The number of folds influenced both the carbon content of the piece, and the hammerwork involved adds something to the pieces itself.
Note: some years back I read where some people sacrificed an old Japanese blade by cutting it up so the different sections could be analyzed as to content. Everyone had thought the edge would be a super-high carbon content, but it wasn't; it was only about .5 percent. It's cutting ability came from the refining hammerwork and very careful temperature control in the hardening process, the great strength from the softer pieces reinforcing it. Also noted was that this would explain the fact that there were definate no-no's involved in using one, as a powerful strike with the blade hitting at a bad angle could bend the blade; there wasn't enough carbon involved in the entire blade to make it more springy.
The laminating and welding process(pattern-welded steel) was often known in the west as Damascus. Not because any came from there, but because of a truly incredible steel that came through there on the trade routes from India(primarily) and a couple of other places. Pattern-welded blades, if washed with acid after polishing, show a pattern from the different layers; this stuff from the east had a pattern but it was in the steel itself, which was a single homogenous piece. More properly known as Wootz, it had(and has) an incredibly high carbon content for a steel, and would cut and hold an edge like nothing else on earth. Sometime in the 80's a smith named Al Pendray got together with a metallurgist and decided to make some. Lots of experimenting later, using only materials available back when, they succeeded. Pendray reported that it was a cast-iron bitch to forge(my words, he was quite a bit more polite); it was very hard to move under the hammer, and if a wind blew across it as you were working and cooled it just a bit too much, the next blow might crack it. But the end result was worth it: blades with a watered patterning on the surface, that would take an extremely fine edge and hold it in use.
Centuries later, an English clockmaker had a problem. He needed very precise springs for his work, but the best steel available wasn't quite good enough; some if it was a LOT not good enough. And he had an idea. He case-hardened some rods to make them into steel, broke them into pieces, sealed them in a crucible and melted them in a furnace. When cooled, he worked the steel out and wonderful! Steel of even quality throughout, that could be made into the springs he needed. This stayed his trade secret for years, and then it got out. I've heard that in years to come one of the ways this would be worked was to case-harden large bars, quench them, break off the steel skin and melt it to produce the superior product.
Starting in the late 1800's, they figured out how to use a blast furnace to purify iron and then add the alloying elements in to make steel, and now you can get all kinds. Water, oil and air hardening, shock-resistant, stainless, etc. For literally pennies a pound for stuff people a few centuries ago might have killed for.
Bill Mauldin
If you haven't heard of him, you've missed something. He travelled around Europe with U.S. forces writing for Stars and Stripes, and created Willie and Joe: two GI's in all their muddy, unshaven, hit-the-dirt glory. After the war he did political cartoons and several books.
During the first Gulf War, he went to Saudi to meet a lot of the troops and look around at how they were doing things. I've always regretted he didn't do a book about it; the cartoons would have been wonderful.
He died last year, after a long & bad illness. If you're not familiar with him, check out this: it has a few of his cartoons from the war.
Note: in Oklahoma City is the 45th Infantry Division Museum, and it has a lot of his original drawings, well worth seeing if you're in the area.
During the first Gulf War, he went to Saudi to meet a lot of the troops and look around at how they were doing things. I've always regretted he didn't do a book about it; the cartoons would have been wonderful.
He died last year, after a long & bad illness. If you're not familiar with him, check out this: it has a few of his cartoons from the war.
Note: in Oklahoma City is the 45th Infantry Division Museum, and it has a lot of his original drawings, well worth seeing if you're in the area.
If you're interested in a Martini
you might check here in the rifle section. It's where I got mine, and he seems to have gotten a bunch in recently.
If you find one, and you don't have a FFL, you'll have to have it shipped to a license holder of course, but it's one of the few places you'll find these rifles.
If you find one, and you don't have a FFL, you'll have to have it shipped to a license holder of course, but it's one of the few places you'll find these rifles.
Damn birds
Unlike Steve, I have none inside the house. I'm referring to the featherbrains outside. The channel I added to the carport to take care of a problem last year? At least one has built a nest in it, and since there may be eggs in it, I don't want to just rip it out. And in another section, I can hear baby birds cheeping, which means there's a nest built into that corner. Where it's at, they may survive the first real hard rain, but the ones in the channel I added probably won't. 'Probably' being the operative word, so I'll leave it there. It may still drain well enough that they'll be ok, in either case I'll clean it out in a month or so.
Good part? Also unlike Steve, they're not sitting behind me making comments, or crapping on me. Points for my side!
Good part? Also unlike Steve, they're not sitting behind me making comments, or crapping on me. Points for my side!
Monday, April 25, 2005
What makes a favorite?
A favorite anything. Gun, knife, guitar, bike, car, whatever. What is that often indefinable something that makes it your favorite? And how would you describe it?
You know what I'm talking about. You pick something up and, wow. It's like it was made to fit you, or knows what you're going to do and helps. A gun that seems to steady itself as you aim; a knife that slips into your hand and cuts like it had its' own guidance system. A guitar that lets your hands slip along without effort. A car that makes it seem you can feel the road and what's going to happen as you drive.
And what makes that one different? You can pick up two of the same thing: same model, same everything, and while one feels like it was meant for you the other feels like junk. Maybe not junk, maybe just not as good in some way you cannot describe.
I've got a Tacoma guitar that I thought about for nearly a month, and then drove a hundred miles to buy. I just couldn't forget how it felt to play it, the sound it produced, and I wanted it. Still have it. Unless something happens that I just cannot play it anymore and I give it to one of my kids, I'll have it 'till I die.
Any ideas?
You know what I'm talking about. You pick something up and, wow. It's like it was made to fit you, or knows what you're going to do and helps. A gun that seems to steady itself as you aim; a knife that slips into your hand and cuts like it had its' own guidance system. A guitar that lets your hands slip along without effort. A car that makes it seem you can feel the road and what's going to happen as you drive.
And what makes that one different? You can pick up two of the same thing: same model, same everything, and while one feels like it was meant for you the other feels like junk. Maybe not junk, maybe just not as good in some way you cannot describe.
I've got a Tacoma guitar that I thought about for nearly a month, and then drove a hundred miles to buy. I just couldn't forget how it felt to play it, the sound it produced, and I wanted it. Still have it. Unless something happens that I just cannot play it anymore and I give it to one of my kids, I'll have it 'till I die.
Any ideas?
Speaking of Luddites...
Sondrak had this posted. Two empty-headed acrtresses speaking in glowing tones of the wonders of no electricity, walls of dung, etc.
Of course, they get to leave and return to power, and computers and clean water and central heat & air. The 'lucky people' they so envy will still be living with no medicine other than herbal, and no power and no clean water and no sanitation. And will die sooner than they should because of it, and lose their teeth early and so forth.
If these two idiots think it's so wonderful, why don't they stay? They wouldn't be missed here.
Of course, they get to leave and return to power, and computers and clean water and central heat & air. The 'lucky people' they so envy will still be living with no medicine other than herbal, and no power and no clean water and no sanitation. And will die sooner than they should because of it, and lose their teeth early and so forth.
If these two idiots think it's so wonderful, why don't they stay? They wouldn't be missed here.
Sunday, April 24, 2005
More on Best Buy, and other general stuff
Remember the guy who got arrested for trying to pay a bill at Best Buy with $2 bills? Well, Geek with a .45 just had them refuse to sell him a radio-on one of their own gift cards- unless he gave them his phone number and address. I don't normally shop there, simply because I can usually find what I'm looking for at a better price elsewhere. But this goes far beyond that; they have no business demanding your personal information before they'll sell you something. Oh, they can demand it, and people can put down the merchandise, put up their money and walk out the door. After this last couple of pieces about them, I won't go there again. Ever.
Smallest Minority linked to a nice piece on how to build a tactical sling, for a lot less than you'd pay for one pre-made. Very nice.
The BBC has been a general pain in the ass for a long time, with even many of their defenders admitting that they slant the news(to say the least). Now they do this, and claim that it's a study of 'heckling'. You have to pay a fee in Britain to own a tv, even if you don't watch it, and they fine people for watching without their permit, and the money goes largely into funding the BBC. They ain't getting their moneys worth.
I really overdid it the day I got the shed kit. I'm still sore in the back & legs, mostly I think from the concrete blocks. I've got about 15 of them still to set in place for floor support, then that's done. Then all I'll need is someone with a day to spare helping, and a day without the wind trying to blow us away. But first, I get over the soreness.
I need a day at the range. I've got a good selection of slugs to try in the Benelli, and a sandbag to put between the butt and my shoulder. 12 guage slugs from a benchrest are not a lot of fun. And I want to see if I can shoot well enough to get into Og's postal match for May. My last practice wasn't so hot, but I think lack of sleep had something to do with it, so we'll see.
The first spring after I moved into the house, I planted a pecan tree. You're supposed to plant trees in the fall, so they have the fall & winter to set roots, but you cannot find trees to plant in the fall, at least not around here. So I planted this one in the spring. It grew a little over a foot between planting and winter, and it's leafed out nicely now with new branches growing. I planted a couple of mini-rose bushes in the area around it, and found a third yesterday. I think it'll look nice. And the Mr. Lincoln roses I built a bed for and planted last year? They're a good three feet high and have buds and blossoms all over them. I love the scent of these, and the roses are truly lovely. And the blackberry I planted in the back is growing nicely, too.
And so it goes.
Smallest Minority linked to a nice piece on how to build a tactical sling, for a lot less than you'd pay for one pre-made. Very nice.
The BBC has been a general pain in the ass for a long time, with even many of their defenders admitting that they slant the news(to say the least). Now they do this, and claim that it's a study of 'heckling'. You have to pay a fee in Britain to own a tv, even if you don't watch it, and they fine people for watching without their permit, and the money goes largely into funding the BBC. They ain't getting their moneys worth.
I really overdid it the day I got the shed kit. I'm still sore in the back & legs, mostly I think from the concrete blocks. I've got about 15 of them still to set in place for floor support, then that's done. Then all I'll need is someone with a day to spare helping, and a day without the wind trying to blow us away. But first, I get over the soreness.
I need a day at the range. I've got a good selection of slugs to try in the Benelli, and a sandbag to put between the butt and my shoulder. 12 guage slugs from a benchrest are not a lot of fun. And I want to see if I can shoot well enough to get into Og's postal match for May. My last practice wasn't so hot, but I think lack of sleep had something to do with it, so we'll see.
The first spring after I moved into the house, I planted a pecan tree. You're supposed to plant trees in the fall, so they have the fall & winter to set roots, but you cannot find trees to plant in the fall, at least not around here. So I planted this one in the spring. It grew a little over a foot between planting and winter, and it's leafed out nicely now with new branches growing. I planted a couple of mini-rose bushes in the area around it, and found a third yesterday. I think it'll look nice. And the Mr. Lincoln roses I built a bed for and planted last year? They're a good three feet high and have buds and blossoms all over them. I love the scent of these, and the roses are truly lovely. And the blackberry I planted in the back is growing nicely, too.
And so it goes.
Saturday, April 23, 2005
Remember the shed?
Between getting it into and out of the truck, and getting the cement blocks(loaded/unloaded), and digging and levelling, my ass would be dragging if it wasn't too sore to do so. From my back down to my ankles, I hurt.
But at least it's from accomplishing something. I got the site mostly done, the foundation assembled and the floor support kit in place, and most of the pieces that can be assembled before actually starting the building are done. Now I'll need some help and a day without the wind trying to turn anything not nailed down into a glider.
Ever tried to carry a 3x4' panel in strong & gusting winds? Wind load is not your friend in such cases. And like most buildings of this type, you can't leave it half-done & finish it tomorrow if there'll be any strong winds.
The rest of this is gonna be fun.
But at least it's from accomplishing something. I got the site mostly done, the foundation assembled and the floor support kit in place, and most of the pieces that can be assembled before actually starting the building are done. Now I'll need some help and a day without the wind trying to turn anything not nailed down into a glider.
Ever tried to carry a 3x4' panel in strong & gusting winds? Wind load is not your friend in such cases. And like most buildings of this type, you can't leave it half-done & finish it tomorrow if there'll be any strong winds.
The rest of this is gonna be fun.
Bad language warning: it's about France
Read this.
Let's see, back a dictatorship against a democracy? Chance to make money by selling to the dictatorship? Screw what happens to people because of it?
Fuck the French. Every damned one of the idiots involved in this, and in sucking up to Saddam, and in trying to screw us over. I'm sick of the frogs and their pretensions and their lies and their corruption. I'm sick of the bastards insisting that nothing can be done anywhere without their blessing- and their control of it and any money involved.
These are the assholes who lecture us about the sad state of things in the U.S. while Jews are being attacked and synagogues burned and massive race riots go on there. These are the bastards who call us names and refer to us as simpleminded; apparently because we just don't understand that selling out and taking bribes accommodating terrorists and dictators is always the best way.
Oh, yes, and we don't understand that stabbing 'allies' in the back is a good thing; it demonstrates that you understand 'nuance' in dealing with other countries.
And THESE are the conscienceless shits that we're supposed to get the blessing of before we do anything? Bullshit.
Let's see, back a dictatorship against a democracy? Chance to make money by selling to the dictatorship? Screw what happens to people because of it?
Fuck the French. Every damned one of the idiots involved in this, and in sucking up to Saddam, and in trying to screw us over. I'm sick of the frogs and their pretensions and their lies and their corruption. I'm sick of the bastards insisting that nothing can be done anywhere without their blessing- and their control of it and any money involved.
These are the assholes who lecture us about the sad state of things in the U.S. while Jews are being attacked and synagogues burned and massive race riots go on there. These are the bastards who call us names and refer to us as simpleminded; apparently because we just don't understand that selling out and taking bribes accommodating terrorists and dictators is always the best way.
Oh, yes, and we don't understand that stabbing 'allies' in the back is a good thing; it demonstrates that you understand 'nuance' in dealing with other countries.
And THESE are the conscienceless shits that we're supposed to get the blessing of before we do anything? Bullshit.
Friday, April 22, 2005
The fat police strike again
Tech Central Station has this piece on the newest bit of information from the Centers for Disease Control. In short, all their hysteria about obesity killing several hundred thousand people annually and wrecking the health care system is a crock of crap.
Surprise, surprise. This is the bunch of bureaucrats that came up with the 'body mass index' that does not take into account build, age, or condition, it just says 'if you are this tall and weigh this much it is bad/good/bad'. They've been using that crap as a club to beat on people with, even after a LOT of researchers pointed out that it was damn near useless. Now this.
Of course, the rest of the fat police are discounting the latest CDC admission; they have to, without it they're in bad shape in their crusade to tell everyone how/what/when to eat.
CDC may be a wonderful group when they're working on bacteria and viruses and other organisms that actually cause problems. But they're constantly getting into political crap- like this- and you always know which way they will lean. This is the group that was moaning about not having enough money to deal with research into some nasty viruses at the same time they were paying some jerk a couple of hundred thousand dollars to 'prove' how much more dangerous guns in the house were to you rather than to an intruder- another study shown to be a load of crap. So either they've got to clear out the idiots that want to waste money on stuff they shouldn't be doing, or they've got too much money, and need a cut.
Either one would help. If they'd actually do it.
Surprise, surprise. This is the bunch of bureaucrats that came up with the 'body mass index' that does not take into account build, age, or condition, it just says 'if you are this tall and weigh this much it is bad/good/bad'. They've been using that crap as a club to beat on people with, even after a LOT of researchers pointed out that it was damn near useless. Now this.
Of course, the rest of the fat police are discounting the latest CDC admission; they have to, without it they're in bad shape in their crusade to tell everyone how/what/when to eat.
CDC may be a wonderful group when they're working on bacteria and viruses and other organisms that actually cause problems. But they're constantly getting into political crap- like this- and you always know which way they will lean. This is the group that was moaning about not having enough money to deal with research into some nasty viruses at the same time they were paying some jerk a couple of hundred thousand dollars to 'prove' how much more dangerous guns in the house were to you rather than to an intruder- another study shown to be a load of crap. So either they've got to clear out the idiots that want to waste money on stuff they shouldn't be doing, or they've got too much money, and need a cut.
Either one would help. If they'd actually do it.
Thursday, April 21, 2005
Luddites are idiots
Luddites were people who, when someone figured out a way to automate some of the work in textile mills in England, considered that Evil because it put some people out of work; so they would break into the mills and factories and destroy the new equipment. It became the name for those who think advances in tech are Bad because someone is put out of work.
It used to be possible for someone to be functionally illiterate and still make a decent living. Physical labor was always in demand, and if you could use a shovel and axe and hammer, early on perhaps learn to drive one of those new trucks, you could get by nicely; even raise a family in a decent manner. Then Things, As Always, Changed. More jobs required being able to read and do basic math. More required more than a basic education. Machinery became more usable for many more jobs, and there was less use for a simple pick & shovel man. Lots of people had to change jobs, learn to do something else, and a lot of people- Luddites- think that's bad.
Luddites are assholes.
What brought all this to mind was that I bought a shed today to put up in the back yard. So a piece of ground needed to be levelled, and bought some concrete blocks to make a foundation that will keep the floor up off the ground so they had to be loaded, brought home, unloaded and carted around to the back.
Have you ever done serious, heavy digging work? If not, you ought to try it. Mark the rectangle, then take a mattock and break up the high spots in a section, then take a shovel and scoop up the loose stuff and put it aside. Do this again in the next section, then roughly level them. Then go on to the next, and the next. When the whole area is done, start seriously levelling it, cutting and scraping away the high points and moving that dirt to the pile. You get that done, you get to start setting blocks in place and checking level between them, which means more scraping and fitting. It will wear your ass out. I spent about four hours doing this today, and I'll need some of tomorrow to finish it. And the entire job of scraping the space level could have been done in about 15-30 minutes with a Bobcat.
I think that what I once heard was right: that any invention that frees people from doing this kind of work to make a living- a marginal one anymore- is good. Yeah, advances put people out of work in some jobs, and they have to learn something else. Question: do you actually believe that keeping people in a job like this, not allowing for them to move on to something better, or for their kids to become something else, is good?
If you are, you're a fool. I've rarely heard of coal miners wanting their kids to go into the work, they want their kids to do something better; who wouldn't? I once read a description of textile mills in England in the 19th century being places where women and children were coughing their lungs out in working conditions the average southern slave owner wouldn't have tolerated for his slaves, or his dogs. Men didn't do any better, but the Luddites thought that changing things was bad because someone lost that job and had to find something else. I understand the fear of losing a job, especially in that time & place where finding something else meant packing up and leaving the only place you may have ever known. But that change, in the long run, meant that people were not spitting up blood when they coughed anymore. It's always been the cycle; things change, some people are hurt, and in the long run everyone is better off.
One thing that really pissed me off over time about the pagan community is I ran into so many, in person or in writing, who had that attitude that damn near any progress was bad because it forced change. All too often it was someone who loved computers, or wargaming before that, who seemed to think that things were so much better before all this nasty progress 'took us away from the natural ways'. Ignoring that in their ultimate ideal, the 'natural ways' meant losing your teeth if you lived to be 40, dying of many diseases before that, and all too often in many places being eaten by something with fangs and claws.
Oh, those people also tended to hate firearms. Even a form of progress that might protect you from the fangs & claws was bad.
I repeat, Luddites are idiots.
It used to be possible for someone to be functionally illiterate and still make a decent living. Physical labor was always in demand, and if you could use a shovel and axe and hammer, early on perhaps learn to drive one of those new trucks, you could get by nicely; even raise a family in a decent manner. Then Things, As Always, Changed. More jobs required being able to read and do basic math. More required more than a basic education. Machinery became more usable for many more jobs, and there was less use for a simple pick & shovel man. Lots of people had to change jobs, learn to do something else, and a lot of people- Luddites- think that's bad.
Luddites are assholes.
What brought all this to mind was that I bought a shed today to put up in the back yard. So a piece of ground needed to be levelled, and bought some concrete blocks to make a foundation that will keep the floor up off the ground so they had to be loaded, brought home, unloaded and carted around to the back.
Have you ever done serious, heavy digging work? If not, you ought to try it. Mark the rectangle, then take a mattock and break up the high spots in a section, then take a shovel and scoop up the loose stuff and put it aside. Do this again in the next section, then roughly level them. Then go on to the next, and the next. When the whole area is done, start seriously levelling it, cutting and scraping away the high points and moving that dirt to the pile. You get that done, you get to start setting blocks in place and checking level between them, which means more scraping and fitting. It will wear your ass out. I spent about four hours doing this today, and I'll need some of tomorrow to finish it. And the entire job of scraping the space level could have been done in about 15-30 minutes with a Bobcat.
I think that what I once heard was right: that any invention that frees people from doing this kind of work to make a living- a marginal one anymore- is good. Yeah, advances put people out of work in some jobs, and they have to learn something else. Question: do you actually believe that keeping people in a job like this, not allowing for them to move on to something better, or for their kids to become something else, is good?
If you are, you're a fool. I've rarely heard of coal miners wanting their kids to go into the work, they want their kids to do something better; who wouldn't? I once read a description of textile mills in England in the 19th century being places where women and children were coughing their lungs out in working conditions the average southern slave owner wouldn't have tolerated for his slaves, or his dogs. Men didn't do any better, but the Luddites thought that changing things was bad because someone lost that job and had to find something else. I understand the fear of losing a job, especially in that time & place where finding something else meant packing up and leaving the only place you may have ever known. But that change, in the long run, meant that people were not spitting up blood when they coughed anymore. It's always been the cycle; things change, some people are hurt, and in the long run everyone is better off.
One thing that really pissed me off over time about the pagan community is I ran into so many, in person or in writing, who had that attitude that damn near any progress was bad because it forced change. All too often it was someone who loved computers, or wargaming before that, who seemed to think that things were so much better before all this nasty progress 'took us away from the natural ways'. Ignoring that in their ultimate ideal, the 'natural ways' meant losing your teeth if you lived to be 40, dying of many diseases before that, and all too often in many places being eaten by something with fangs and claws.
Oh, those people also tended to hate firearms. Even a form of progress that might protect you from the fangs & claws was bad.
I repeat, Luddites are idiots.
If this isn't true, it ought to be!
A friend just sent this to me:
In case you haven't seen this yet, here's a quote from an email that floated through here today. It's from a
Government employee who witnessed a recent interaction between an elderly woman and an antiwar protester
in a Metro station in DC:
"...there were protesters on the train platform handing out pamphlets on the evils of America. I politely declined
to take one. An elderly woman was behind me getting off the escalator and a young(20ish) female protester
offered her a pamphlet, which she politely declined. The young protester put her hand on the old woman's
shoulder as a gesture of friendship and in a very soft voice said, "Ma'am, don't you care about the children of
Iraq?" The old woman looked up at her and said, "Honey, my first husband died in France during World War II
so you could have the right to stand her and bad mouth your country. And if you touch me again, I'll stick this
umbrella up your ass and open it."
Sounds about right.
In case you haven't seen this yet, here's a quote from an email that floated through here today. It's from a
Government employee who witnessed a recent interaction between an elderly woman and an antiwar protester
in a Metro station in DC:
"...there were protesters on the train platform handing out pamphlets on the evils of America. I politely declined
to take one. An elderly woman was behind me getting off the escalator and a young(20ish) female protester
offered her a pamphlet, which she politely declined. The young protester put her hand on the old woman's
shoulder as a gesture of friendship and in a very soft voice said, "Ma'am, don't you care about the children of
Iraq?" The old woman looked up at her and said, "Honey, my first husband died in France during World War II
so you could have the right to stand her and bad mouth your country. And if you touch me again, I'll stick this
umbrella up your ass and open it."
Sounds about right.
If this isn't true, it ought to be!
A friend just sent this to me:
In case you haven't seen this yet, here's a quote from an email that floated through here today. It's from a Government employee who witnessed a recent interaction between an elderly woman and an antiwar protester in a Metro station in DC:
"... there were protesters on the train platform handing out pamphlets on the evils of America. I politely declined to take one. An elderly woman was behind me getting off the escalator and a young (20ish) female protester offered her a pamphlet, which she politely declined. The young protester put her hand on the old woman's shoulder as a gesture of friendship and in a very soft voice said, "Ma'am, don't you care about the children of Iraq?" The old woman looked up at her and said, "Honey, my first husband died in France during World War II so you could have the right to stand here and bad mouth your country. And if you touch me again, I'll stick this umbrella up your ass and open it."
In case you haven't seen this yet, here's a quote from an email that floated through here today. It's from a Government employee who witnessed a recent interaction between an elderly woman and an antiwar protester in a Metro station in DC:
"... there were protesters on the train platform handing out pamphlets on the evils of America. I politely declined to take one. An elderly woman was behind me getting off the escalator and a young (20ish) female protester offered her a pamphlet, which she politely declined. The young protester put her hand on the old woman's shoulder as a gesture of friendship and in a very soft voice said, "Ma'am, don't you care about the children of Iraq?" The old woman looked up at her and said, "Honey, my first husband died in France during World War II so you could have the right to stand here and bad mouth your country. And if you touch me again, I'll stick this umbrella up your ass and open it."
Wednesday, April 20, 2005
And buffing
Here's the next part on this set. Buffing is generally done with cloth wheels impregnated with some kind of fine abrasive. By going to finer & finer grits, you can go all the way to a mirror finish. Done right, so bright and clean that it actually is a mirror-smooth surface.
Warning note: In some ways, polishing on wheels can be more dangerous than grinding. A soft cloth wheel turning several thousand rpm can grab a piece out of your hands and throw it. I mean literally grab it and throw it. I've seen a wheel take a gold or silver ring out of a jeweler's hands and throw it hard enough to dent plywood. It can do the same thing with a blade. I've read one account of a maker who, trying to put that last little touch of brightness on a knife, had a wheel grab it, carry it through one rotation and throw it point-first into his thigh where it buried the six-inch blade all the way up to the guard. He damn near bled to death before help arrived.
Also, they throw out a lot of dust and abrasive particles and lint, so you'll need the lung protection here, too.
A buffer can be anything from a bench grinder with buffing instead of grinding wheels, to a dedicated buffer like the Baldor. A dedicated buffer can be expensive, but they're good. One of the good things about them is they generally have a much longer shaft on each side, which gives a lot more clearance around the motor; easier to work on long or odd-shaped pieces.
Two main types of buffing compound, greaseless and grease. Grease compounds are some type of grease or wax base with the abrasive mixed in. Greaseless are generally glue-based, something like hide glue, with the abrasive added. Grease-type compounds leave some traces on the surface, which will need to be cleaned off before going to the next step. Greaseless leave a cleaner surface behind. Most of the grease types will stay hard up till fairly hot temperatures, greaseless need to be kept refrigerated. Grease types you hold up against a spinning wheel and some rubs off, and often rubs off fairly quickly. Greaseless you hold against a wheel and the friction melts some; what adheres to the surface is given a minute or two to harden, and it often lasts longer. In my experience the greaseless are faster-cutting. Both are available in many grits, from coarse to extremely fine.
There are different kinds of wheels for this work. The most aggressive I know of are woven sisal fibers. They cut circles out of the fabric, stack several, put some fabric on each side and stitch them together. Good with coarse grease compounds for fast cutting.
The top of the line for wheels is felt. They come in soft to rock-hard firmness, and can be used with all types of compounds. The corners stay sharp and this makes them excellent for polishing right up to a line, say where the blade bevel meets the flat ricasso. These are also good for another thing, finishing an edge. If you need an edge finished as finely as possible, after sharpening use one of these wheels with a very fine compound to polish the edge; you may be amazed at the result.
All other wheels are some type of stitched cloth. For keeping a surface as flat as possible you'll have layers stacked up and glued together so you have a stiff wheel with a flat contact surface. A little softer type is layers stacked as thick, but instead of being glued they're stitched together; this gives a fairly stiff wheel with a softer surface, better for following a curved surface. Softest of all is stacked layers with only the center to middle sewn. This is the least aggressive type, primarily good for final polishing on softer surfaces: gold, silver, nickel silver, horn.
All the felt and hard cloth wheels can be shaped to give a rounded face, or angled, or whatever. If you don't have a lot of clearance around the buffer-grinder you're using, shaping to face of the wheel from full-size on the inside(closest to the buffer) to smaller on the outside means you can hold the piece being polished at an angle so a long piece will clear the motor.
If you have a belt grinder, there's another option. They make belts with no abrasive, just a surface to hold polishing compound. And I've heard of people turning a worn-out belt around and using the back surface to polish with. Haven't tried it myself, but from reports it works.
When you get started, you'll need several wheels, because you should only use one compound on a wheel. Using a coarse compound on one previously used with fine means you may never be able to use fine on it again; the surface will have the coarser compound worked into it. So keep that in mind.
The biggest thing here is to take your time. Getting in a rush with this means either screwing up or getting hurt(remember what I said about things being thrown?). There's one other hazard, too: heat. Buffing a finished(i.e., heat-treated) piece has to be watched. There's a lot of heat generated, enough to screw up the temper of a piece. Do that, and you may have to go back and heat-treat it all over again, which means the cleaning-polishing from scratch.
This is a very basic coverage of the subject and equipment. And on the subject of taking your time, remember: sometimes power tools simply give you the chance to screw something up at a much higher speed.
Warning note: In some ways, polishing on wheels can be more dangerous than grinding. A soft cloth wheel turning several thousand rpm can grab a piece out of your hands and throw it. I mean literally grab it and throw it. I've seen a wheel take a gold or silver ring out of a jeweler's hands and throw it hard enough to dent plywood. It can do the same thing with a blade. I've read one account of a maker who, trying to put that last little touch of brightness on a knife, had a wheel grab it, carry it through one rotation and throw it point-first into his thigh where it buried the six-inch blade all the way up to the guard. He damn near bled to death before help arrived.
Also, they throw out a lot of dust and abrasive particles and lint, so you'll need the lung protection here, too.
A buffer can be anything from a bench grinder with buffing instead of grinding wheels, to a dedicated buffer like the Baldor. A dedicated buffer can be expensive, but they're good. One of the good things about them is they generally have a much longer shaft on each side, which gives a lot more clearance around the motor; easier to work on long or odd-shaped pieces.
Two main types of buffing compound, greaseless and grease. Grease compounds are some type of grease or wax base with the abrasive mixed in. Greaseless are generally glue-based, something like hide glue, with the abrasive added. Grease-type compounds leave some traces on the surface, which will need to be cleaned off before going to the next step. Greaseless leave a cleaner surface behind. Most of the grease types will stay hard up till fairly hot temperatures, greaseless need to be kept refrigerated. Grease types you hold up against a spinning wheel and some rubs off, and often rubs off fairly quickly. Greaseless you hold against a wheel and the friction melts some; what adheres to the surface is given a minute or two to harden, and it often lasts longer. In my experience the greaseless are faster-cutting. Both are available in many grits, from coarse to extremely fine.
There are different kinds of wheels for this work. The most aggressive I know of are woven sisal fibers. They cut circles out of the fabric, stack several, put some fabric on each side and stitch them together. Good with coarse grease compounds for fast cutting.
The top of the line for wheels is felt. They come in soft to rock-hard firmness, and can be used with all types of compounds. The corners stay sharp and this makes them excellent for polishing right up to a line, say where the blade bevel meets the flat ricasso. These are also good for another thing, finishing an edge. If you need an edge finished as finely as possible, after sharpening use one of these wheels with a very fine compound to polish the edge; you may be amazed at the result.
All other wheels are some type of stitched cloth. For keeping a surface as flat as possible you'll have layers stacked up and glued together so you have a stiff wheel with a flat contact surface. A little softer type is layers stacked as thick, but instead of being glued they're stitched together; this gives a fairly stiff wheel with a softer surface, better for following a curved surface. Softest of all is stacked layers with only the center to middle sewn. This is the least aggressive type, primarily good for final polishing on softer surfaces: gold, silver, nickel silver, horn.
All the felt and hard cloth wheels can be shaped to give a rounded face, or angled, or whatever. If you don't have a lot of clearance around the buffer-grinder you're using, shaping to face of the wheel from full-size on the inside(closest to the buffer) to smaller on the outside means you can hold the piece being polished at an angle so a long piece will clear the motor.
If you have a belt grinder, there's another option. They make belts with no abrasive, just a surface to hold polishing compound. And I've heard of people turning a worn-out belt around and using the back surface to polish with. Haven't tried it myself, but from reports it works.
When you get started, you'll need several wheels, because you should only use one compound on a wheel. Using a coarse compound on one previously used with fine means you may never be able to use fine on it again; the surface will have the coarser compound worked into it. So keep that in mind.
The biggest thing here is to take your time. Getting in a rush with this means either screwing up or getting hurt(remember what I said about things being thrown?). There's one other hazard, too: heat. Buffing a finished(i.e., heat-treated) piece has to be watched. There's a lot of heat generated, enough to screw up the temper of a piece. Do that, and you may have to go back and heat-treat it all over again, which means the cleaning-polishing from scratch.
This is a very basic coverage of the subject and equipment. And on the subject of taking your time, remember: sometimes power tools simply give you the chance to screw something up at a much higher speed.
Ever glad you took care of something now?
instead of later?
Last fall, before it got cold I had my heater checked, and was informed that I needed- not 'might want', not 'might want to upgrade'- NEEDED a new furnace. Much better then than in the middle of winter, with a case of carbon monoxide poisoning.
Yesterday I called the folks who replaced the furnace to check the a/c. Before it got hot. And they discovered that the valves to the compressor had leaked all the coolant, and needed to be replaced. While they were at it, they asked if I wanted the coils in the outside unit cleaned? Having now seen the damn things, which were packed with old dust, dirt, and God knows what else, I said yes. What was interesting about that part was that they use a special acid. With the fan, etc., out of the way, they just poured the stuff all over the coils so it would flow down through them. It both dissolves a lot of crap, and as it reacts with stuff it foams up and the foam forces more out, and after a few minutes flush it out thoroughly with water, and the things gleamed. With, surprise surprise, much better air flow than before.
Happily, the same home warranty insurance that covered most of the cost of the furnace(and that I almost didn't renew) covered most of the cost of this. So, when it gets hot, I'll be able to cool things down.
God, I'm glad I found this now, instead of sometime in July.
Last fall, before it got cold I had my heater checked, and was informed that I needed- not 'might want', not 'might want to upgrade'- NEEDED a new furnace. Much better then than in the middle of winter, with a case of carbon monoxide poisoning.
Yesterday I called the folks who replaced the furnace to check the a/c. Before it got hot. And they discovered that the valves to the compressor had leaked all the coolant, and needed to be replaced. While they were at it, they asked if I wanted the coils in the outside unit cleaned? Having now seen the damn things, which were packed with old dust, dirt, and God knows what else, I said yes. What was interesting about that part was that they use a special acid. With the fan, etc., out of the way, they just poured the stuff all over the coils so it would flow down through them. It both dissolves a lot of crap, and as it reacts with stuff it foams up and the foam forces more out, and after a few minutes flush it out thoroughly with water, and the things gleamed. With, surprise surprise, much better air flow than before.
Happily, the same home warranty insurance that covered most of the cost of the furnace(and that I almost didn't renew) covered most of the cost of this. So, when it gets hot, I'll be able to cool things down.
God, I'm glad I found this now, instead of sometime in July.
And many see BATF as the enemy why?
Go here and read.
I'll limit my comments to this: if this is indeed how these clowns think, they're too stupid to be in positions to hurt other people. If they don't believe this crap, then they're liars, trying to use their background & current position to do harm.
Kim's Red Curtain of Blood, indeed.
I'll limit my comments to this: if this is indeed how these clowns think, they're too stupid to be in positions to hurt other people. If they don't believe this crap, then they're liars, trying to use their background & current position to do harm.
Kim's Red Curtain of Blood, indeed.
Two general comments on current news
First is the mess at a Columbus, OH school, covered by Michelle Malkin here. There is absolutely NO excuse for the administrators at this school. None. All involved in this mess should be fired, followed by the barbarians who committed the acts being jailed( or my personal preference, hanging them up by the short & curlies for, oh, a week or so). That the school system is only firing one, and trying to both a: cover up for the others with 'suspensions' and b: trying to use this as a lever for more money tells me that a lot of them ought to be thrown the hell out. When they care more for image and money than getting the job done- the job being educating kids- they need to go.
I will note that the girls' father has far more self-restraint than I; when that idiot assistant principal tried to keep him from calling the police, I think I'd have committed an atrocity. 'Atrocity' nowadays begin defined as 'belting officious jerks who try to control you'.
Second, there's a measure to kill the death tax, also covered by Michelle here. And all the usual bullshit arguments as to why it's 'needed'. Let me make my position clear: there is NO EXCUSE for the government taking a large chunk of what you earned in life just because you died. NONE. You were taxed on it when you earned it, if you invested it and made some more you payed taxes on that and now the bastards think that because you're dead, they should be able to take more. Screw 'em. I don't care if someone talks about 'the richest not paying their share' and all the other garbage; It Is Not Right. Doesn't matter if your estate is large or small, It Is Not Right.
I lean more and more to Misha's comment: "Lamppost, rope politician; some assembly required".
I will note that the girls' father has far more self-restraint than I; when that idiot assistant principal tried to keep him from calling the police, I think I'd have committed an atrocity. 'Atrocity' nowadays begin defined as 'belting officious jerks who try to control you'.
Second, there's a measure to kill the death tax, also covered by Michelle here. And all the usual bullshit arguments as to why it's 'needed'. Let me make my position clear: there is NO EXCUSE for the government taking a large chunk of what you earned in life just because you died. NONE. You were taxed on it when you earned it, if you invested it and made some more you payed taxes on that and now the bastards think that because you're dead, they should be able to take more. Screw 'em. I don't care if someone talks about 'the richest not paying their share' and all the other garbage; It Is Not Right. Doesn't matter if your estate is large or small, It Is Not Right.
I lean more and more to Misha's comment: "Lamppost, rope politician; some assembly required".
Tuesday, April 19, 2005
Arf!Arf!
Ok, it's a bad seal joke.
On the good side, I found something. At Home Depot of all places. Rubber seals for car/boat, 'D' cross-section and adhesive backed. Just about the right size. I fitted a length into a lid, overlapped the ends a bit, and it seems to do the job.
Now, on to my next challenge. Whatever that may be.
On the good side, I found something. At Home Depot of all places. Rubber seals for car/boat, 'D' cross-section and adhesive backed. Just about the right size. I fitted a length into a lid, overlapped the ends a bit, and it seems to do the job.
Now, on to my next challenge. Whatever that may be.
Monday, April 18, 2005
Ammo can seals?
Last weekend I lucked out at a flea market and found one of the WWII-era M1 ammo cans. I've found two of them before, and the seals are always shot.
Anyone know where might be able to find new seals? I've used silicone caulking to make a so-so seal, but I'd really like to find some real ones. Or some kind of stuff that'll work properly.
Anyone know where might be able to find new seals? I've used silicone caulking to make a so-so seal, but I'd really like to find some real ones. Or some kind of stuff that'll work properly.
Grinding
Knives, that is. I don't do skateboards.
I'm going to cover some basic stuff on this that I've picked up over time, and cover buffing later. I will tell you this right now; this part can be DANGEROUS, and I'm not joking. You just cannot take chances with this, the stuff will bite you. Badly.
The most basic is files, which come in all sizes and shapes and roughness of cut. A double-cut bastard file will take metal off faster than you might think, but it still takes a while. It can be done; a few years ago Knives Illustrated magazine had an article on a maker from the former East Germany who did everything with files. Rough-shaping, cutting the bevels to the edge, shaping the guard and pommel and grip. He polished by wrapping finer & finer sandpaper around a file to clean up the finish, and his work was beautiful. He had no choice in the matter, in East Germany there had been no other tools available, but his work shows that it can be done.
Next step up is a bench grinder. Basically an electric motor with a long shaft sticking out of each end onto which is held a grinding wheel. With a coarse wheel you can remove a lot of metal fast, with a finer wheel you can rough in the bevels, clean up the profile, etc. If you're careful, you can hollow-grind a blade on one. They're very useful, but you have to watch a few things.
First, you have to get a dressing tool. The wheels get uneven with wear, and the tool lets you even it up. You can also use it to round the corners or shape a wheel in different ways to do specific jobs.
Second, there are two hazards with these. First is the most obvious, that if you slip and push your hand into the wheel, it WILL HURT. Bad. There may be lots of bleeding and swearing, and people have permanently injured themselves with these. Second is the wheels, if damaged, can shatter. If you have the guards and covers in place, this will generally just scare hell out of you. If you've taken the guards and covers off to get better access to the sides of the wheel and different angles of grinding, this is damn near the equivalent of a grenade going off. The shaft of one of these is generally turning a couple of thousand rpm, which means that the edge of the wheel is turning a fast, and if a damaged or faulty wheel shatters, pieces fly at high speed. I've never had it happen; I know of people who have been badly hurt when it hit them.
I'll hit other general safety stuff at the end.
A step up is a belt sander. I bought a 6x48" belt sander, which also has a 9" disk sander on the side, years ago and I've used it for a all kinds of things. I normally flat-grind my blades, and this is great for that, especially long pieces. You've got a big work surface, you can get belts from 40 grit to 400 so you can do rough grinding all the way to finished. You can get a nice unit for a couple of hundred dollars new, and if you take care of it it'll last for years of hard use. To hold long pieces, some tool supply places sell magnetic holding tools that allow you to keep control of a long piece without burning yourself on it. It's a great all-around tool. Bad things are
First, you can only flat-grind. There's no good way to hollow grind on the pulleys, and no way to change them out to different sizes.
Second, it will hurt you if you slip. A belt can't shatter like a grinding wheel. It will tear you up just as bad if your hand or arm or elbow slips into it. The edge of a moving belt can slice you. And if you get your hand or finger pushed into the belt for more than a second, it not only eats skin and muscle and anything else not taken away fast enough, it can actually burn you while it does it. With this and the next item, people have been sent to the hospital for serious repair work.
The last is the belt grinder. There are a number of brands, and most use a 2x72" belt(there are smaller ones for lighter work). These are the Cadillac of grinders. They're made to grind metal, you can change the contact wheels to different sizes, you can profile a wheel to give a certain grind, you can use a platform to flat-grind, and you can get belts from very coarse to finer than 1000 grit. They're marvelous machines, very versitile. And they cost. Last time I looked at them, the good ones ran about a thousand for the basic setup. Start adding different contact wheels, etc., and it goes up fast. If you were going to go heavily into knifemaking they're worth the money. All cautions of the previous grinder apply.
Many makers will have all three of these. You can do the heavy work on stock with the bench grinder, use the 6x48" for flats, the 2x72" for finishing. Or some combination thereof. If you've got the money you can do all of it with a good belt sander, and the 2x72" units will do all kinds of stuff.
Warnings:
Especially with a bench grinder, some kind of eye protection. Sparks, dust, bits of wheel, all of it goes flying. Take some of that in the eye, you've got a problem. It's a good idea to wear it with any of these.
Lung protection. All three of these put out a lot of dust, and you don't want to inhale it. Metal is bad enough, but when sanding some woods, particularly some tropical hardwoods, it's worse: they're actually toxic. Ebony and cocobolo are two of the worst, they'll make your skin itch(especially if you're sweating), and they can do a job on your lungs; so will some synthetics like pakkawood. A dust mask or some kind of respirator is advised. Strongly. A lot of pros have a vacuum system set up with an inlet at each tool to suck up most of it, and they still wear a mask.
Fire. If you let a lot of dust accumulate, it's a definate fire hazard. Wood dust, metal dust, epoxy dust, leather, if it builds up it can be a problem. A shop vac is a very handy tool.
This is, again, a basic on this. If I remember something else about them, I'll add it in.
I'm going to cover some basic stuff on this that I've picked up over time, and cover buffing later. I will tell you this right now; this part can be DANGEROUS, and I'm not joking. You just cannot take chances with this, the stuff will bite you. Badly.
The most basic is files, which come in all sizes and shapes and roughness of cut. A double-cut bastard file will take metal off faster than you might think, but it still takes a while. It can be done; a few years ago Knives Illustrated magazine had an article on a maker from the former East Germany who did everything with files. Rough-shaping, cutting the bevels to the edge, shaping the guard and pommel and grip. He polished by wrapping finer & finer sandpaper around a file to clean up the finish, and his work was beautiful. He had no choice in the matter, in East Germany there had been no other tools available, but his work shows that it can be done.
Next step up is a bench grinder. Basically an electric motor with a long shaft sticking out of each end onto which is held a grinding wheel. With a coarse wheel you can remove a lot of metal fast, with a finer wheel you can rough in the bevels, clean up the profile, etc. If you're careful, you can hollow-grind a blade on one. They're very useful, but you have to watch a few things.
First, you have to get a dressing tool. The wheels get uneven with wear, and the tool lets you even it up. You can also use it to round the corners or shape a wheel in different ways to do specific jobs.
Second, there are two hazards with these. First is the most obvious, that if you slip and push your hand into the wheel, it WILL HURT. Bad. There may be lots of bleeding and swearing, and people have permanently injured themselves with these. Second is the wheels, if damaged, can shatter. If you have the guards and covers in place, this will generally just scare hell out of you. If you've taken the guards and covers off to get better access to the sides of the wheel and different angles of grinding, this is damn near the equivalent of a grenade going off. The shaft of one of these is generally turning a couple of thousand rpm, which means that the edge of the wheel is turning a fast, and if a damaged or faulty wheel shatters, pieces fly at high speed. I've never had it happen; I know of people who have been badly hurt when it hit them.
I'll hit other general safety stuff at the end.
A step up is a belt sander. I bought a 6x48" belt sander, which also has a 9" disk sander on the side, years ago and I've used it for a all kinds of things. I normally flat-grind my blades, and this is great for that, especially long pieces. You've got a big work surface, you can get belts from 40 grit to 400 so you can do rough grinding all the way to finished. You can get a nice unit for a couple of hundred dollars new, and if you take care of it it'll last for years of hard use. To hold long pieces, some tool supply places sell magnetic holding tools that allow you to keep control of a long piece without burning yourself on it. It's a great all-around tool. Bad things are
First, you can only flat-grind. There's no good way to hollow grind on the pulleys, and no way to change them out to different sizes.
Second, it will hurt you if you slip. A belt can't shatter like a grinding wheel. It will tear you up just as bad if your hand or arm or elbow slips into it. The edge of a moving belt can slice you. And if you get your hand or finger pushed into the belt for more than a second, it not only eats skin and muscle and anything else not taken away fast enough, it can actually burn you while it does it. With this and the next item, people have been sent to the hospital for serious repair work.
The last is the belt grinder. There are a number of brands, and most use a 2x72" belt(there are smaller ones for lighter work). These are the Cadillac of grinders. They're made to grind metal, you can change the contact wheels to different sizes, you can profile a wheel to give a certain grind, you can use a platform to flat-grind, and you can get belts from very coarse to finer than 1000 grit. They're marvelous machines, very versitile. And they cost. Last time I looked at them, the good ones ran about a thousand for the basic setup. Start adding different contact wheels, etc., and it goes up fast. If you were going to go heavily into knifemaking they're worth the money. All cautions of the previous grinder apply.
Many makers will have all three of these. You can do the heavy work on stock with the bench grinder, use the 6x48" for flats, the 2x72" for finishing. Or some combination thereof. If you've got the money you can do all of it with a good belt sander, and the 2x72" units will do all kinds of stuff.
Warnings:
Especially with a bench grinder, some kind of eye protection. Sparks, dust, bits of wheel, all of it goes flying. Take some of that in the eye, you've got a problem. It's a good idea to wear it with any of these.
Lung protection. All three of these put out a lot of dust, and you don't want to inhale it. Metal is bad enough, but when sanding some woods, particularly some tropical hardwoods, it's worse: they're actually toxic. Ebony and cocobolo are two of the worst, they'll make your skin itch(especially if you're sweating), and they can do a job on your lungs; so will some synthetics like pakkawood. A dust mask or some kind of respirator is advised. Strongly. A lot of pros have a vacuum system set up with an inlet at each tool to suck up most of it, and they still wear a mask.
Fire. If you let a lot of dust accumulate, it's a definate fire hazard. Wood dust, metal dust, epoxy dust, leather, if it builds up it can be a problem. A shop vac is a very handy tool.
This is, again, a basic on this. If I remember something else about them, I'll add it in.
Well, crap
I spent a large part of the day on a ladder cleaning out the last three drain channel sections on the carport. They were so solidly clogged that I had to cut another hole to do it. So out came the hole saw, whine went the drill, and went to work the the gutter blaster.
That got one channel clear, the other two I had to take a stiff wire with a hook on the end and start fishing crap out. Leaves, bits of plastic bag, small pieces of old shingle...
And bird nests. Two of them, with a total of four dead baby birds. Damn, damn, damn. If I'd know there were nests there, I'd have held off on those for a month or so until the little ones could get out. But I flat could not see any way they could have, so I went ahead. I hate it when something like that happens. It was a stupid damn place for a nest, because the first hard rain they'd have flooded and killed them, but I still hate it.
That got one channel clear, the other two I had to take a stiff wire with a hook on the end and start fishing crap out. Leaves, bits of plastic bag, small pieces of old shingle...
And bird nests. Two of them, with a total of four dead baby birds. Damn, damn, damn. If I'd know there were nests there, I'd have held off on those for a month or so until the little ones could get out. But I flat could not see any way they could have, so I went ahead. I hate it when something like that happens. It was a stupid damn place for a nest, because the first hard rain they'd have flooded and killed them, but I still hate it.
Sunday, April 17, 2005
The opinions of Europe, at least some of it
Varifrank has this piece on the opinions of many Europeans about the U.S. Go read it.
We've got two things here. First is the difference between their thoughts on us and ours on them. In many areas I'm sure it's different, but the main attitude of people I've been around is "You don't like us? Big deal, then leave us alone, we've got more important things to worry about". Their thoughts on us seem to be "You are simpleminded, and close to barbarians, and don't take what we tell you into proper account! You have to change as we say!" Which doesn't go over real well here. Mind you, I'm speaking of 'old Europe'; much of 'new Europe' seems to have a different take on things, from what I've read. In any case, it's the contrast between 'you have to change as we dictate' and 'go away, we're busy'. You may have noticed that nothing so irritates someone telling you how to change as being ignored, which would account for some of the noise from the EUnuchs(as Misha calls them).
In case you haven't figured it out, I really don't give a rat's butt what they think. Various things led me to this, but part was nicely summed up by a cartoon I saw back during the mess in the Balkans: a man(German, I think) was reading the headline in his morning paper(Mass Murder in Kosovo or something similar) and telling his wife "This is terrible! Why don't the Americans do something?". The obvious question was "This is in your damn backyard, why don't YOU do something about it?" And it was asked, and there was never a good answer. That mess wasn't the only thing, but it was a definite factor in my opinion.
The second thing that comes into consideration is the deference given by many here to the opinion of the Europeans, on everything. "We can't act without U.N. approval, we need to approval of our allies, we NEED to consult before we act"- with 'consult' meaning 'get their stamp of approval or we CAN'T act'- on any issue at hand. Had a nasty argument one night with an acquaintance on this, she insisting we had to have the approval of EVERYONE before we acted- everyone apparently meaning France, Germany and Russia in the case in question- otherwise it wasn't 'legitimate' action. It seemed to be of paramount importance to her to get the approval of the U.N., these countries in particular, before we should be allowed to act. And that 'allowed' part really set me off. In the aftermath of 9/11 we found out what the NATO pacts were worth now that the Soviet Union is gone; insisting that we had to have the approval of every sniffy premier, president, etc. before we could act pissed me off. And it still does. She probably wouldn't have approved of us taking the action we did after the tsunami disaster without the U.N. being in control; never mind that it was almost two weeks as I recall before the U.N. actually got someone there to look around and decide where to set up their HQ(luxury hotel with catering) and set up meetings about who should do what in what approved manner. She'd probably have agreed with Claire Short that only the U.N. had the 'moral authority' to act(bad words and screaming deleted). I flat refuse to agree that we have to have the approval of anyone to act in self-defense, this including in some cases whacking someone before they can do what they're planning.
Note: a D.A. once told me that if someone makes it plain that they intend to hurt you, you don't have to wait for them to strike you before you act. No, you can't shoot someone down the street for making threatening noises; if someone is telling you they're going to beat the crap out of you, you don't have to wait for them to start before you act. If this is true for an individual, why should we as a country have to wait for someone threatening to hurt us to do it before we act? If you're going to make snarky noises about stomping anyone we disagree with, save it; that's not what I'm saying and you know it.
One other thing Varifrank points out is that the europeans in question seem to think that we HAVE to have their good opinion and we HAVE to be their friends. And we don't HAVE to have either. We don't have to be their friends, and we don't HAVE to care about their opinions. I think, at some point in the future, this is going to be pointed out to them in some really loud way, and they won't like it. It's liable to be interesting.
We've got two things here. First is the difference between their thoughts on us and ours on them. In many areas I'm sure it's different, but the main attitude of people I've been around is "You don't like us? Big deal, then leave us alone, we've got more important things to worry about". Their thoughts on us seem to be "You are simpleminded, and close to barbarians, and don't take what we tell you into proper account! You have to change as we say!" Which doesn't go over real well here. Mind you, I'm speaking of 'old Europe'; much of 'new Europe' seems to have a different take on things, from what I've read. In any case, it's the contrast between 'you have to change as we dictate' and 'go away, we're busy'. You may have noticed that nothing so irritates someone telling you how to change as being ignored, which would account for some of the noise from the EUnuchs(as Misha calls them).
In case you haven't figured it out, I really don't give a rat's butt what they think. Various things led me to this, but part was nicely summed up by a cartoon I saw back during the mess in the Balkans: a man(German, I think) was reading the headline in his morning paper(Mass Murder in Kosovo or something similar) and telling his wife "This is terrible! Why don't the Americans do something?". The obvious question was "This is in your damn backyard, why don't YOU do something about it?" And it was asked, and there was never a good answer. That mess wasn't the only thing, but it was a definite factor in my opinion.
The second thing that comes into consideration is the deference given by many here to the opinion of the Europeans, on everything. "We can't act without U.N. approval, we need to approval of our allies, we NEED to consult before we act"- with 'consult' meaning 'get their stamp of approval or we CAN'T act'- on any issue at hand. Had a nasty argument one night with an acquaintance on this, she insisting we had to have the approval of EVERYONE before we acted- everyone apparently meaning France, Germany and Russia in the case in question- otherwise it wasn't 'legitimate' action. It seemed to be of paramount importance to her to get the approval of the U.N., these countries in particular, before we should be allowed to act. And that 'allowed' part really set me off. In the aftermath of 9/11 we found out what the NATO pacts were worth now that the Soviet Union is gone; insisting that we had to have the approval of every sniffy premier, president, etc. before we could act pissed me off. And it still does. She probably wouldn't have approved of us taking the action we did after the tsunami disaster without the U.N. being in control; never mind that it was almost two weeks as I recall before the U.N. actually got someone there to look around and decide where to set up their HQ(luxury hotel with catering) and set up meetings about who should do what in what approved manner. She'd probably have agreed with Claire Short that only the U.N. had the 'moral authority' to act(bad words and screaming deleted). I flat refuse to agree that we have to have the approval of anyone to act in self-defense, this including in some cases whacking someone before they can do what they're planning.
Note: a D.A. once told me that if someone makes it plain that they intend to hurt you, you don't have to wait for them to strike you before you act. No, you can't shoot someone down the street for making threatening noises; if someone is telling you they're going to beat the crap out of you, you don't have to wait for them to start before you act. If this is true for an individual, why should we as a country have to wait for someone threatening to hurt us to do it before we act? If you're going to make snarky noises about stomping anyone we disagree with, save it; that's not what I'm saying and you know it.
One other thing Varifrank points out is that the europeans in question seem to think that we HAVE to have their good opinion and we HAVE to be their friends. And we don't HAVE to have either. We don't have to be their friends, and we don't HAVE to care about their opinions. I think, at some point in the future, this is going to be pointed out to them in some really loud way, and they won't like it. It's liable to be interesting.
More on (some) cops and guns
Head's Bunker has a picture of a NYC cop. Take a look: obvious lifter so he takes conditioning seriously, body armor, AR-15... WITH THE SIGHT ON BACKWARDS! From the comments, it has been confirmed as a real picture, no photoshopping. So many questions...
The most basic is, how the hell do you take something like this out of the shop? Any time I've picked up something with an electronic sight, I turn the thing on and look through it; wouldn't you think someone taking a weapon out on duty would do the same, if only to make sure the battery is good?
It's enough to make your head hurt.
The most basic is, how the hell do you take something like this out of the shop? Any time I've picked up something with an electronic sight, I turn the thing on and look through it; wouldn't you think someone taking a weapon out on duty would do the same, if only to make sure the battery is good?
It's enough to make your head hurt.
Saturday, April 16, 2005
Friday, April 15, 2005
Range day, and the strangeness of .22 rifles
Finally had a chance to get hold of a friend and hit the outdoor range yesterday. Beautiful day, light winds from behind, clear skies, and warm. Friend had a .22 he'd repaired to test, a .32-20 Winchester model 92 to try out, and a pair(!) of .32-20 single-action army revolvers to try out- he's decided to get into the cowboy action shooting game, and tends to go all-out on things. I primarily wanted to test out some different brands in a .22 rifle, having decided to save the Benelli and slugs for next time.
About a year ago I lucked out and picked up a BSA Martini 12/15 match rifle(reviewed at Kim's place here) for what turned out to be a very good price, and I've been messing with it since. It's a marvel of simple, strong design and has a trigger that's downright wonderful. I both enjoy shooting it and have done some wonderful shooting with it. As to the strangeness...
I mentioned once before the lengths .22 shooters in search of the finest accuracy will go to. They will weigh each cartridge, and any outside the norm go in the practice pile. There's a guage made specifically to measure the thickness of the rim; since this cartridge headspaces on the rim a slight variation in rim thickness may affect accuracy, so those outside the chosen specs, to the practice pile. The serious top-of-the-line match ammo runs $8 or $10/box. There's a gadget made to use a light mallet blow to upset the bullet to an exact diameter, so it will perfectly fit the bore. And so on. I'm not that worried about it; I like fine accuracy, but unless I decide to start competing in matches, I'm not that worried if the rifle/pistol won't shoot ten through the same hole at whatever range. I have done the standard thing, which is to take a box of every brand/type of .22 ammo you can find and test them from a solid benchrest position. The first time I tried this, years ago, the rifle in question ran from groups damn near 10" across at 50 yards with one to a touch over an inch at the same distance with another brand, so I'm a believer in finding what works best.
The problem- sort of- with this rifle is that nothing shoots badly in it. Nothing. The worst groups it has given at 50 yards has been about 1.5", and the best? About 3/8" for a ten-shot group. Now, I know there are match rifles out there that will better that, but for me, with iron sights at that range, that's damn good. And the other interesting thing about this is the very best results have come from Federal Lightning 40grain ammo. The stuff I buy at Academy Sports for $7/brick. A couple of match ammos have shot as well as it does, but at $2.50 to $4/box vs. $.69/box? No contest there. The subsonic stuff is quieter, but that's not exactly a big deal with .22's, and gives no advantage that I'm willing to pay that much extra for. I have not tried the Lapua or other $7 & $10/box stuff; being chea- uh, financially responsible(shut up) I haven't been able to make my self pay that when the Federal stuff gives the result it does.
One of these days when I can make the time I'm going to set up targets at 100 yards and see what this rifle will do at that range. It's possible that at the longer distance one of the match ammos may work better, we'll see. But I'm not holding my breath. What I'd really like to do is make some kind of scope mount that I can clamp onto the barrel so I could use a scope to remove some of the aiming error-factor from the testing. I could get the barrel drilled & tapped for scope bases, but I really like shooting this thing with iron sights, and I'm not willing to do that right now.
My friend? The model 92 turned out to have an oversized or damaged chamber, accuracy was terrible. But the revolvers worked very well.
About a year ago I lucked out and picked up a BSA Martini 12/15 match rifle(reviewed at Kim's place here) for what turned out to be a very good price, and I've been messing with it since. It's a marvel of simple, strong design and has a trigger that's downright wonderful. I both enjoy shooting it and have done some wonderful shooting with it. As to the strangeness...
I mentioned once before the lengths .22 shooters in search of the finest accuracy will go to. They will weigh each cartridge, and any outside the norm go in the practice pile. There's a guage made specifically to measure the thickness of the rim; since this cartridge headspaces on the rim a slight variation in rim thickness may affect accuracy, so those outside the chosen specs, to the practice pile. The serious top-of-the-line match ammo runs $8 or $10/box. There's a gadget made to use a light mallet blow to upset the bullet to an exact diameter, so it will perfectly fit the bore. And so on. I'm not that worried about it; I like fine accuracy, but unless I decide to start competing in matches, I'm not that worried if the rifle/pistol won't shoot ten through the same hole at whatever range. I have done the standard thing, which is to take a box of every brand/type of .22 ammo you can find and test them from a solid benchrest position. The first time I tried this, years ago, the rifle in question ran from groups damn near 10" across at 50 yards with one to a touch over an inch at the same distance with another brand, so I'm a believer in finding what works best.
The problem- sort of- with this rifle is that nothing shoots badly in it. Nothing. The worst groups it has given at 50 yards has been about 1.5", and the best? About 3/8" for a ten-shot group. Now, I know there are match rifles out there that will better that, but for me, with iron sights at that range, that's damn good. And the other interesting thing about this is the very best results have come from Federal Lightning 40grain ammo. The stuff I buy at Academy Sports for $7/brick. A couple of match ammos have shot as well as it does, but at $2.50 to $4/box vs. $.69/box? No contest there. The subsonic stuff is quieter, but that's not exactly a big deal with .22's, and gives no advantage that I'm willing to pay that much extra for. I have not tried the Lapua or other $7 & $10/box stuff; being chea- uh, financially responsible(shut up) I haven't been able to make my self pay that when the Federal stuff gives the result it does.
One of these days when I can make the time I'm going to set up targets at 100 yards and see what this rifle will do at that range. It's possible that at the longer distance one of the match ammos may work better, we'll see. But I'm not holding my breath. What I'd really like to do is make some kind of scope mount that I can clamp onto the barrel so I could use a scope to remove some of the aiming error-factor from the testing. I could get the barrel drilled & tapped for scope bases, but I really like shooting this thing with iron sights, and I'm not willing to do that right now.
My friend? The model 92 turned out to have an oversized or damaged chamber, accuracy was terrible. But the revolvers worked very well.
There was a wedding
Last weekend, and yr. obdnt. svt. was the best man. For the first time in my life I wore a tuxedo and top hat- and yes, I did restrain myself from finding a tray and offering drinks to people.
The bride was in the standard bride-state prior to the ceremony, and at one time I seriously considered finding a bottle so as to deliver a medicinal shot or two; however, we made it through. The bride's kid from a previous marriage seems to get along pretty well with the groom/new dad, and carried his part of the ceremony off well.
What was funny was when we were being fitted for the tuxes, after the kid was measured mom pointed a finger and said "For the next month, you're not allowed to grow!". Telling an 8-year old that was pushing her luck, but if he did shoot up any it was within the error factor of the size. This was also when I advised the bride that if she didn't calm down, I'd just wear my kilt and "By God, we'll show them who the Best Man is!". She did laugh, but I think she stayed nervous until I actually showed up for the ceremony in the tux.
Seeing as how we had also torment-er, considered what armaments should be carried by the best man(bride: "You CANNOT bring a shotgun to the wedding!"), she not being in favor of me wearing my sword, discretion was called for. Actually, it would have been a bad place for someone to start something; Yours Truly had a .45 in a shoulder rig(which fit rather well under the tux jacket), the groom had a Sykes-Fairbairn dagger in his pocket("It's for cutting the cake, dear"), and the minister, just for the spirit of the thing, had a derringer in his vest pocket. The father of the bride, actually liking the groom, did not make any comment of scatterguns or varmint rifles being within reach in case of sudden departure, which as nervous as the groom was was probably a good thing.
As I say, all went well. The bride did indeed look beautiful, the couple- and son- marched down the aisle at the end, and the maid of honor said "Skip!" as we started down after them, so all were treated to a formally dressed couple skipping along behind the family. Hey, it made her happy.
Oh, and the groom presented me with something; a flask with my initials engraved, and to fill it a bottle of Glenlivit 15-year-old single-malt. Which don't taste bad at all.
The groom was informed by my parents that they needed copies of some of the pictures, as for once in my life they wanted to see me in truly formal dress.
It was fun.
The bride was in the standard bride-state prior to the ceremony, and at one time I seriously considered finding a bottle so as to deliver a medicinal shot or two; however, we made it through. The bride's kid from a previous marriage seems to get along pretty well with the groom/new dad, and carried his part of the ceremony off well.
What was funny was when we were being fitted for the tuxes, after the kid was measured mom pointed a finger and said "For the next month, you're not allowed to grow!". Telling an 8-year old that was pushing her luck, but if he did shoot up any it was within the error factor of the size. This was also when I advised the bride that if she didn't calm down, I'd just wear my kilt and "By God, we'll show them who the Best Man is!". She did laugh, but I think she stayed nervous until I actually showed up for the ceremony in the tux.
Seeing as how we had also torment-er, considered what armaments should be carried by the best man(bride: "You CANNOT bring a shotgun to the wedding!"), she not being in favor of me wearing my sword, discretion was called for. Actually, it would have been a bad place for someone to start something; Yours Truly had a .45 in a shoulder rig(which fit rather well under the tux jacket), the groom had a Sykes-Fairbairn dagger in his pocket("It's for cutting the cake, dear"), and the minister, just for the spirit of the thing, had a derringer in his vest pocket. The father of the bride, actually liking the groom, did not make any comment of scatterguns or varmint rifles being within reach in case of sudden departure, which as nervous as the groom was was probably a good thing.
As I say, all went well. The bride did indeed look beautiful, the couple- and son- marched down the aisle at the end, and the maid of honor said "Skip!" as we started down after them, so all were treated to a formally dressed couple skipping along behind the family. Hey, it made her happy.
Oh, and the groom presented me with something; a flask with my initials engraved, and to fill it a bottle of Glenlivit 15-year-old single-malt. Which don't taste bad at all.
The groom was informed by my parents that they needed copies of some of the pictures, as for once in my life they wanted to see me in truly formal dress.
It was fun.
Thursday, April 14, 2005
Two more on the blogroll
Added these today(this morning? Whatever).
American Drumslinger- loud rants and swearing, and things like his Politically Corrected Glossary of Terms
and Cowboy Blob. Guns and ferrets, Lord what a combination! Leading to things like "Quit peeing in my closet!"
American Drumslinger- loud rants and swearing, and things like his Politically Corrected Glossary of Terms
and Cowboy Blob. Guns and ferrets, Lord what a combination! Leading to things like "Quit peeing in my closet!"
The problem of sulphur in steel
I had a commenter in an earlier post ask what was the problem with sulphur and steel. In specific this was in reference to high-sulphur coal being used in forging. I mentioned before that sulphur is added to some steel in carefully controlled amounts to make it easier to machine, but some of these steels, if forged, can actually crumble under the hammer.
I should have mentioned one of the better examples of too much sulphur in steel: the Titanic.
One of the things they found out after testing samples of the hull steel was that it contained a LOT of sulphur; so much that when the steel became cold- say, from water in the North Atlantic- it became brittle. So when the ship scraped against the iceberg, instead of the steel deforming- denting- and maybe some seams springing, the steel itself cracked and split.
I remember reading about a test a few years back. They did a standard test using 'cigarettes', pieces of steel cut to an exact dimensions, one from standard steel used in ship hulls and one from recovered hull plating from the Titanic. They cut a notch of exact size in one side of the cigarette, lock it in a vise, and swing a weighted pendulum against it, then measuring how far it deforms(bends). They chilled them to the same temperature as the water in the North Atlantic at the time the Titanic went down and ran the test. The standard steel bent; the cigarette from the Titanic steel snapped.
So unless very carefully controlled in amount, and for certain uses, sulphur in steel tends to be a bad thing.
I should have mentioned one of the better examples of too much sulphur in steel: the Titanic.
One of the things they found out after testing samples of the hull steel was that it contained a LOT of sulphur; so much that when the steel became cold- say, from water in the North Atlantic- it became brittle. So when the ship scraped against the iceberg, instead of the steel deforming- denting- and maybe some seams springing, the steel itself cracked and split.
I remember reading about a test a few years back. They did a standard test using 'cigarettes', pieces of steel cut to an exact dimensions, one from standard steel used in ship hulls and one from recovered hull plating from the Titanic. They cut a notch of exact size in one side of the cigarette, lock it in a vise, and swing a weighted pendulum against it, then measuring how far it deforms(bends). They chilled them to the same temperature as the water in the North Atlantic at the time the Titanic went down and ran the test. The standard steel bent; the cigarette from the Titanic steel snapped.
So unless very carefully controlled in amount, and for certain uses, sulphur in steel tends to be a bad thing.
Wednesday, April 13, 2005
More on 'Why do you own a gun?'
One part of the problem with this question is the same as a lot of other things: "Why do you ride a motorcycle?" or "Why drive a truck?" or "Why do you want something that'll drive that fast?" and so forth. Sometimes, depending on who you're answering, nothing you say will make sense to them. Which is also where you run into "People shouldn't be allowed to (fill in blank) bacause it's dangerous/not needed/not right/etc.". Here's some further thoughts on this.
Early on, it was doing what Dad and Grandpa did, they went shooting and hunting and it looked interesting. So Dad started me off with a .22 rifle and it went from there. It was something that I enjoyed, and what more reason did I need?
It was a while before the idea of use for self-defense really meant anything to me. It was some things that happened with Dad's work that brought that home. Dad spent a lot of years in the highway patrol, and I once heard him mention to mom about some jerk threatening him. That makes you think, what if jerk showed up at the house while Dad was away? That took the idea of defensive use out of the realm of something in a book or movie and brought it home. It was still not the foremost reason I liked guns, but it was there.
When I started shooting handguns, Dad taught me their use the way he had learned it as a state trooper, based on his seeing handguns as good for a: target shooting and b: self-defense, and if I needed one for b, I should know how to use it correctly. Which was also a lot of fun to practice.
It was about this time that I became aware that there were a bunch of people out there who didn't think I should be allowed to own or shoot guns. According to them guns weren't 'needed' or 'safe', and since criminals used them they should be either banned or severely restricted. Which brought to mind what I still think: if I'm an honest citazen and not violating the law in my use of them, it's nobody's damn business what I own or how many. Or, in light of some people trying to control that, how much ammunition I own. And if banning guns would take them away from criminals, how was it that laws about robbery or murder didn't keep those same dirtbags from committing those crimes? Which also helped lead me into distrust of politicians who wanted to control some part of my life. Or some more parts of my life.
Years later, I wound up married, then with kids, and between time and money had very little chance to shoot. Then, about the time I started taking the kids fishing, I found a place to shoot. That helped to do two things: made me take them out when old enough to learn to shoot, and got me back to shooting on a regular basis. And I've kept that up since.
All this leads up to my personal why I own guns. I like shooting for a variety of reasons, I like working on/with firearms, I like owning the means of self-defense if needed, and I like to hunt on occasion. And I really like the knowledge that it makes a lot of politicians nervous to know that a lot of the peasants are armed.
Happily, the chance of my needing to use a gun for self-defense is fairly low where I live, so with luck I'll go my life without having to do so. But having the means to do so is a very good thing. When someone tells me the police will take care of that, I wonder how? Are they going to be in the parking lot when I'm walking through it? Are they going to be in my home if someone breaks in? They can't be, which means that if it happens, I'm on my own. So are you. I believe that knowing something of hand-to-hand fighting is a good thing, but given a choice I will not depend solely on that; why should I? Why should I rely on a method that requires me to let a bad guy get within reach before I can act? Pepper spray? Please. It's better than nothing, but it's been shown over and over that someone who'd determined can hurt you badly or kill you before it can stop them. Guns should be left to 'trained professionals' like the police? We're back to 'will they be there when the trouble happens?' at best, and the unpleasant fact is that many law officers are flat lousy shots.
And there's another problem with the 'rely on the police' idea. As has been pointed out in several court cases, the police have no responsibility to protect you; their responsibility is to society as a whole. Which means that if they don't protect you, well, too bad, if you survive maybe better luck next time. Connected into this is the 'there are no barbarians at the gate' attitude gone over here. There are several costs and consequences to giving up all responsibility for your own safety to the 'authorities', whoever they are. The costs are highs.
As to those who, 'for the public good', want to take arms away from me, screw you. They break down into several groups.
Those who honestly believe that people should not be allowed to own arms of any kind, it's "not nice" or "not needed".
Those who think that if they pass another law, this one the criminals will obey.
Those who think the government should control large parts of our lives, and it does not serve the government for people to have arms.
Those who actually believe that only 'racists and bigots' own guns and those people should be controlled.
And those who do not trust themselves to own arms, and don't think anyone else can be trusted, either.
Nobody 'needs' to own a motorcycle, or a boat, or a lot of other things. And some of these people would like to see them banned, too. I've actually seen a proposal to ban the ownership of any knife, including kitchen knives, over a certain blade length, and unless you were a 'licensed' chef, they would have to have a button welded to the tip. This lady was dead serious and truly believed this was a good idea. But damned if I'll allow her belief to control what knives I own.
If the criminals would obey the law, they wouldn't be criminals, would they?
I don't want the government controlling any more of my life, they interfere too much already. And I'm not supposed to live according to what will 'serve' the government, dammit, and I will not. In many cases the reason many politicians want the ownership of arms banned is bacause they won't feel free to dictate to us how we'll live as long as people have a concrete way to fight it. Voting is one way, but in many areas voting districts have been gerrymandered so that an incumbent has little chance of losing an election, and in any case, the founders made it plain, one of the reasons for armed citazens was specifically so the government would know that people had, in a final extreme, the means to force government to listen- or else.
And for those who don't trust themselves or others to own arms, screw you. I don't depend on your permission to own arms, whether it be gun or knife or sword or bow, and I consider your lack of trust in yourself or others to be your own mental problem- not something to be used as a reason to act against others. Kevin over at Smallest Minority has had several cases of this type of thinking, and I am in awe- and some fear- of someone who sees an inanimate object as something that could 'corrode' their mental state. Only if you're squirrely to start with, guy. So LEAVE ME ALONE.
This has been a bit wordy and roundabout, but it boils down to this: I enjoy owning and using firearms. I enjoy working on them. I like having an effective means of defense if needed, and I really enjoy knowing that it makes some politicians nervous to know that people have arms.
I don't want a speedbike, but I wouldn't try to ban them. I don't want a car that'll do 150, or costs $100k to buy, but if you have the money and that's what you want, knock yourself out. I think many vegetarians- vegans especially- are nuts, but if you don't want to eat meat, it doesn't bother me. You don't like guns? THEN DON'T OWN ONE, and leave me alone.
Early on, it was doing what Dad and Grandpa did, they went shooting and hunting and it looked interesting. So Dad started me off with a .22 rifle and it went from there. It was something that I enjoyed, and what more reason did I need?
It was a while before the idea of use for self-defense really meant anything to me. It was some things that happened with Dad's work that brought that home. Dad spent a lot of years in the highway patrol, and I once heard him mention to mom about some jerk threatening him. That makes you think, what if jerk showed up at the house while Dad was away? That took the idea of defensive use out of the realm of something in a book or movie and brought it home. It was still not the foremost reason I liked guns, but it was there.
When I started shooting handguns, Dad taught me their use the way he had learned it as a state trooper, based on his seeing handguns as good for a: target shooting and b: self-defense, and if I needed one for b, I should know how to use it correctly. Which was also a lot of fun to practice.
It was about this time that I became aware that there were a bunch of people out there who didn't think I should be allowed to own or shoot guns. According to them guns weren't 'needed' or 'safe', and since criminals used them they should be either banned or severely restricted. Which brought to mind what I still think: if I'm an honest citazen and not violating the law in my use of them, it's nobody's damn business what I own or how many. Or, in light of some people trying to control that, how much ammunition I own. And if banning guns would take them away from criminals, how was it that laws about robbery or murder didn't keep those same dirtbags from committing those crimes? Which also helped lead me into distrust of politicians who wanted to control some part of my life. Or some more parts of my life.
Years later, I wound up married, then with kids, and between time and money had very little chance to shoot. Then, about the time I started taking the kids fishing, I found a place to shoot. That helped to do two things: made me take them out when old enough to learn to shoot, and got me back to shooting on a regular basis. And I've kept that up since.
All this leads up to my personal why I own guns. I like shooting for a variety of reasons, I like working on/with firearms, I like owning the means of self-defense if needed, and I like to hunt on occasion. And I really like the knowledge that it makes a lot of politicians nervous to know that a lot of the peasants are armed.
Happily, the chance of my needing to use a gun for self-defense is fairly low where I live, so with luck I'll go my life without having to do so. But having the means to do so is a very good thing. When someone tells me the police will take care of that, I wonder how? Are they going to be in the parking lot when I'm walking through it? Are they going to be in my home if someone breaks in? They can't be, which means that if it happens, I'm on my own. So are you. I believe that knowing something of hand-to-hand fighting is a good thing, but given a choice I will not depend solely on that; why should I? Why should I rely on a method that requires me to let a bad guy get within reach before I can act? Pepper spray? Please. It's better than nothing, but it's been shown over and over that someone who'd determined can hurt you badly or kill you before it can stop them. Guns should be left to 'trained professionals' like the police? We're back to 'will they be there when the trouble happens?' at best, and the unpleasant fact is that many law officers are flat lousy shots.
And there's another problem with the 'rely on the police' idea. As has been pointed out in several court cases, the police have no responsibility to protect you; their responsibility is to society as a whole. Which means that if they don't protect you, well, too bad, if you survive maybe better luck next time. Connected into this is the 'there are no barbarians at the gate' attitude gone over here. There are several costs and consequences to giving up all responsibility for your own safety to the 'authorities', whoever they are. The costs are highs.
As to those who, 'for the public good', want to take arms away from me, screw you. They break down into several groups.
Those who honestly believe that people should not be allowed to own arms of any kind, it's "not nice" or "not needed".
Those who think that if they pass another law, this one the criminals will obey.
Those who think the government should control large parts of our lives, and it does not serve the government for people to have arms.
Those who actually believe that only 'racists and bigots' own guns and those people should be controlled.
And those who do not trust themselves to own arms, and don't think anyone else can be trusted, either.
Nobody 'needs' to own a motorcycle, or a boat, or a lot of other things. And some of these people would like to see them banned, too. I've actually seen a proposal to ban the ownership of any knife, including kitchen knives, over a certain blade length, and unless you were a 'licensed' chef, they would have to have a button welded to the tip. This lady was dead serious and truly believed this was a good idea. But damned if I'll allow her belief to control what knives I own.
If the criminals would obey the law, they wouldn't be criminals, would they?
I don't want the government controlling any more of my life, they interfere too much already. And I'm not supposed to live according to what will 'serve' the government, dammit, and I will not. In many cases the reason many politicians want the ownership of arms banned is bacause they won't feel free to dictate to us how we'll live as long as people have a concrete way to fight it. Voting is one way, but in many areas voting districts have been gerrymandered so that an incumbent has little chance of losing an election, and in any case, the founders made it plain, one of the reasons for armed citazens was specifically so the government would know that people had, in a final extreme, the means to force government to listen- or else.
And for those who don't trust themselves or others to own arms, screw you. I don't depend on your permission to own arms, whether it be gun or knife or sword or bow, and I consider your lack of trust in yourself or others to be your own mental problem- not something to be used as a reason to act against others. Kevin over at Smallest Minority has had several cases of this type of thinking, and I am in awe- and some fear- of someone who sees an inanimate object as something that could 'corrode' their mental state. Only if you're squirrely to start with, guy. So LEAVE ME ALONE.
This has been a bit wordy and roundabout, but it boils down to this: I enjoy owning and using firearms. I enjoy working on them. I like having an effective means of defense if needed, and I really enjoy knowing that it makes some politicians nervous to know that people have arms.
I don't want a speedbike, but I wouldn't try to ban them. I don't want a car that'll do 150, or costs $100k to buy, but if you have the money and that's what you want, knock yourself out. I think many vegetarians- vegans especially- are nuts, but if you don't want to eat meat, it doesn't bother me. You don't like guns? THEN DON'T OWN ONE, and leave me alone.
Range report: Benelli with slugs
Said to hell with everything this morning and went to the range. I wanted to 1: better sight-in the Benelli with slugs and try out the Aguila mini-shells, and 2: practice for Og's postal match for .22's for May.
Benelli first. With Speer Lawman rifled slugs, I didn't have to touch the sights. At 30 yards they were about 2" above point of aim with the holes about touching(note: whatever kind of wad they use with these, some of them hit the target too!). Distribution was horizontal, which makes me think the error was mine. In the near future I should be able to set up at 50 yards with a solid bench and eliminate any such error. Realistically, this is very good accuracy for a cylinder-bore shotgun, and I'm quite happy with it, and with these slugs(which, by the way, cost less than every other brand I've seen).
If you've not seen the Aguila mini-shells, they're 1.5" long, which means the Benelli with the magazine extension can hold 12 of them in the mag! According to the Aguila website, the idea was to provide law enforcement shells with less recoil and weight, so could both load more and carry more for the same weight. I also found this, this and this at the Shotgun World website. They come in boxes of 20, and are available in slug, buckshot and #7.5 birdshot. My impression of the slugs, 1: definately less recoil, and I believe less power, 2: accuracy seemed a bit uneven at 25 yards, with most hitting a little lower than the Speer. I want to get some of the buckshot and another box of slugs to test them further. So far, I wouldn't choose the slugs for hunting myself, but if you need/want a slug for short-range use, might work well, even at lower velocity that's a big projectile hitting. Again, I was getting tired by the time I shot them so some of the accuracy problem may have been me and I'll try them from a solid rest when I get a chance.
Ref postal match practice, I'll be able to give the 10-yard .22 pistol a try, but unless outdoor light makes a big difference, I'm out of the 25-yard .22 rifle with iron sights: I couldn't see the damn bullseye on those targets well enough to shoot them! I flat hate having to wear glasses in the first place, and needing new ones sucks even more. I'm hoping outside light and some more sleep will help(getting older sucks, too).
Benelli first. With Speer Lawman rifled slugs, I didn't have to touch the sights. At 30 yards they were about 2" above point of aim with the holes about touching(note: whatever kind of wad they use with these, some of them hit the target too!). Distribution was horizontal, which makes me think the error was mine. In the near future I should be able to set up at 50 yards with a solid bench and eliminate any such error. Realistically, this is very good accuracy for a cylinder-bore shotgun, and I'm quite happy with it, and with these slugs(which, by the way, cost less than every other brand I've seen).
If you've not seen the Aguila mini-shells, they're 1.5" long, which means the Benelli with the magazine extension can hold 12 of them in the mag! According to the Aguila website, the idea was to provide law enforcement shells with less recoil and weight, so could both load more and carry more for the same weight. I also found this, this and this at the Shotgun World website. They come in boxes of 20, and are available in slug, buckshot and #7.5 birdshot. My impression of the slugs, 1: definately less recoil, and I believe less power, 2: accuracy seemed a bit uneven at 25 yards, with most hitting a little lower than the Speer. I want to get some of the buckshot and another box of slugs to test them further. So far, I wouldn't choose the slugs for hunting myself, but if you need/want a slug for short-range use, might work well, even at lower velocity that's a big projectile hitting. Again, I was getting tired by the time I shot them so some of the accuracy problem may have been me and I'll try them from a solid rest when I get a chance.
Ref postal match practice, I'll be able to give the 10-yard .22 pistol a try, but unless outdoor light makes a big difference, I'm out of the 25-yard .22 rifle with iron sights: I couldn't see the damn bullseye on those targets well enough to shoot them! I flat hate having to wear glasses in the first place, and needing new ones sucks even more. I'm hoping outside light and some more sleep will help(getting older sucks, too).
Tuesday, April 12, 2005
Buy A Gun Day collection
Over at Aaron's cc:. Take a look.
I'm not sure he'll approve of my early purchase, but since the shop I bought it at ran out last week, I'll not worry 'bout that.
I'm not sure he'll approve of my early purchase, but since the shop I bought it at ran out last week, I'll not worry 'bout that.
Why do you own a gun?
is the question many ask, and a lot of us have trouble getting the other folks to understand.
Into this throw this piece, found linked over at Geek with a .45.
I once read the opinion that, man having overcome the basic survival situations in 'civilized' countries, what was really needed was a mankind that didn't have the fight-or-flight response, that didn't have those old survival urges that can lead to violence. The answer from someone was that those things kept civilization in operation; if we lose them, we'll be back to hiding from barbarians and leopards within a couple of generations.
I started to add that 'the only thing that would hold it back would be a government so all-powerful and oppressive that we would be slaves', but then I realized that that would be the barbarians in control; they just wouldn't call themselves that.
More thoughts later.
Into this throw this piece, found linked over at Geek with a .45.
I once read the opinion that, man having overcome the basic survival situations in 'civilized' countries, what was really needed was a mankind that didn't have the fight-or-flight response, that didn't have those old survival urges that can lead to violence. The answer from someone was that those things kept civilization in operation; if we lose them, we'll be back to hiding from barbarians and leopards within a couple of generations.
I started to add that 'the only thing that would hold it back would be a government so all-powerful and oppressive that we would be slaves', but then I realized that that would be the barbarians in control; they just wouldn't call themselves that.
More thoughts later.
Back at Castle Beelzebub,
Mr. B is noting the introduction of a new knife. The gentleman who's name is on it is noted as having "invested much time in designing" the item.
Oh, give me a damn break! It's a freakin' paring knife, for God's sake! How damn much time could he have spent 'designing' the thing?
This is one of two things that piss me off about so many new wonders of the cutlery world; taking some design that's been around since Christ was a corporal, and announcing it as a 'masterpiece of modern design', or some such crap. Or they remake it in cheap stainless steel and state what an 'improvement' it is over ANY PREVIOUS DESIGN! Oh yeah, it won't rust. It also gets dull cutting through a tomato, but who worries about that? IT'S RUSTLESS!
The other? The "New, designed by whoever VULTURE CLAW! Gleaming surgical stainless set off with genuine Chromium-Plated Guard and Pommel! Own the Spirit of the Vulture Warrior!" and other such bullshit. Put together a design for the most useless piece of crap ever held by the hand of man or monkey, shiny it up and give it a WARRIOR name of some kind, and it will sell. It will sell by the casefull, to people who often can't figure out how to sharpen the damn thing, but OOH! SHINY!!!
I like well-designed and built knives. I don't at all mind someone putting things together in a different or new way for whatever reason. And I very much understand the 'make it shiny and they will buy' idea. What bothers me is someone taking an ages-old design and putting up a line of crap about 'years in the making' as to why you should pay them a sizeable amount for one. Not "I think this is the most useful design" or something like that, or just "I think this steel is the best for this design", but "it took me YEARS to design this!".
Bleahh. It's too early in the morning to get ticked off about crap like this.
The other that really
Oh, give me a damn break! It's a freakin' paring knife, for God's sake! How damn much time could he have spent 'designing' the thing?
This is one of two things that piss me off about so many new wonders of the cutlery world; taking some design that's been around since Christ was a corporal, and announcing it as a 'masterpiece of modern design', or some such crap. Or they remake it in cheap stainless steel and state what an 'improvement' it is over ANY PREVIOUS DESIGN! Oh yeah, it won't rust. It also gets dull cutting through a tomato, but who worries about that? IT'S RUSTLESS!
The other? The "New, designed by whoever VULTURE CLAW! Gleaming surgical stainless set off with genuine Chromium-Plated Guard and Pommel! Own the Spirit of the Vulture Warrior!" and other such bullshit. Put together a design for the most useless piece of crap ever held by the hand of man or monkey, shiny it up and give it a WARRIOR name of some kind, and it will sell. It will sell by the casefull, to people who often can't figure out how to sharpen the damn thing, but OOH! SHINY!!!
I like well-designed and built knives. I don't at all mind someone putting things together in a different or new way for whatever reason. And I very much understand the 'make it shiny and they will buy' idea. What bothers me is someone taking an ages-old design and putting up a line of crap about 'years in the making' as to why you should pay them a sizeable amount for one. Not "I think this is the most useful design" or something like that, or just "I think this steel is the best for this design", but "it took me YEARS to design this!".
Bleahh. It's too early in the morning to get ticked off about crap like this.
The other that really
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