I hate being up on a ladder

Four or five feet is ok, but above that, especially with tools in hand doing something, I do not enjoy it. I mention this because of how I spent a big chunk of yesterday evening after work. A friend has a huge old maple in their backyard. Said tree has been damaged by wind and insects, and is going to have to come down. The problems are two.

First, it's not a single trunk, this thing split into five long ago. Second, a lot of it is long enough that if you just cut it at the trunk it'll fall on the house, the nieghbors' house, or the power line, so those have to be cut in sections; and the damn things are high enough I can't figure out how to do that in some way that does not involve bodily injury. In a more rural area(or if I knew someone with a silenced .22 rifle), it wouldn't be bad; get a solid rest and start putting .22's in a line across the branch a little back from the end and take a section off. Repeat as necessary. But that's out. Possibly a scissor-lift platform, but they're not cheap and money is a factor.

They checked with a couple of tree services, and prices ran from about $1200 to $2000 to take it down. I understand why, because even with the right equipment it'll be a bitch to take this all down, but they don't that much. So we spent the evening taking what I could reach for the day with a ladder and pruning pole(I've got one with a chain saw on the end). and reaching any of the stuff a section at a time involved being on the ladder and using the pole. Which meant, in some cases, worrying about either a: falling off the ladder or b: having a limb swing down other than how I expected and sweeping me off the thing.

If you've never done any of this, let me advise you of something; when you cut a four or five-foot section of 6" diameter limb off and hear it hit the ground, it is a powerful reminder of how much you do not want to be anywhere near it as it comes down. So I spent a bunch of time on a ladder with a long pole with a heavy end in my hands, cutting sections off one of the trunks.

We got most of one trunk down and sectioned and stacked, and when there's space there's another one, maybe two, that won't be much trouble. But the rest are going to be a real problem, and so far I can't figure out a good way to do it. Or I can figure out a way, but I'm not too sure how to go about it.

At least I wasn't on the Gulf coast, wondering about blowing/washing away.

Og has a bike

I found out about this a short time ago, and now he's posted about it. Looks like a nice bike, and with the price of gas might be handy to have around.

Of course, some wimpy types(cough/Kim/cough) are saying nasty things about bikes and those who ride. 'Course, coming from someone who, where he grew up, might have been pulled off one by a lion might have something to do with it...

In any case, two other things about them. Og mentioned the opinion of Mrs. Og; I told him to give her a ride. She might like it, and there's a reason there used to be a shirt that said 'Harley-Davidson, the world's first 700-lb vibrator'.

Second is, a lady who used to live nearby, who I occasionally gave rides to(on the bike, dirtbag) decided to move back to New York, so a couple of days before she moved I took her to dinner. I had to goose it a bit(the BIKE, dammit) getting into traffic, and as we ate she commented that she didn't know my bike would move like that.

Hehehe.

The on-ramp from Meridian to I-40 eastbound is a long, gently-sloped one, so I detoured on the way back, and was able to time it so we were stopped at the ramp until it was clear before us. About that time she yelled "There's a semi behind us!" as one pulled up. I said "Not for long" and punched it all the way up the ramp. I actually had to slow down to merge into traffic, and it only took a few minutes to get her home. I parked, got off and removed my helmet, and helped her take hers off. She sat there with a strange look on her face, half-giggling, and finally-in a quiet voice- said "I think I had an orgasm back there..."

Hey, what's a chance of severe bodily harm in exchange for moments like that?

Postal match targets

Because it would have taken for-freakin'-ever to send these to Mr. Completely, I'm just posting the damn things.

First, the model 36, offhand

and from a rest



Next, the Makarov, offhand

from a rest


Last, the Ruger MkII, offhand

and rested



I don't do much bullseye shooting with handguns, mostly do that with rifle. I think I need to put more holes in bullseyes with the short irons; I need the practice.

The postal match

Shot my entries yesterday. However, my connection is so bloody slow right now I'll try sending the pics tomorrow; perhaps the deities of the internet will smile upon things then.

I have to say, I've had worse days at the range, but it's been a while. Between rushing to get there and tired eyes...
I shot three. First, a S&W model 36, the old Chief's Special, 2" snubbie in .38Spl. I have absolute confidence that in a self-defense situation this piece will put all five rounds where needed; but between my eyes and those fine sights, that little bullseye was an elusive bastard. Also, by the time I finished 55 rounds(5 sighters and 50 for score), that little butt had beaten my hand up a bit. It's a good carry piece, but wasn't made for a lot of shooting at a time.

Second was a Makarov semi-auto, 9x18mm. Only problem I have with it is the sights; the front is a low, narrow post and the rear a low, narrow notch. And after the .38, my hand was a bit touchy, scores so-so.

Third a Ruger Mk II, .22 semi-auto. Light recoil and good, easy-to-see sights. I expected really good scores here, as I've always shot well with it, and this is where I really got ticked for two reasons. First, my hands were bothering me enough at this point to be a slight problem. And second, this pistol that has never missed a beat, was now giving light firing pin strikes, which caused- on average- every fourth round to misfire. Sometimes two in a row. And that crap will really throw you off your stride. So, though these scores were better than the other two, they were disappointing. Very.

No, I'm not making excuses for lousy shooting. I am bitching and whining about it, which is a whole 'nother thing.

And on top of that, Steve is currently without power due to the hurricane damage in the Holy City, and cannot regale us with tales of recipes and bird antics. And New Orleans, where my daughter would like to live, is evacuating and wondering if coffins will be floating down the river and streets again. Damn.

Sometimes I don't trust the Discovery Channel

Besides the "We're all gonna die!!!" crap with mega-volcanos and mega-tsunamis and so forth, it's little things.

A while back they were talking about subduction zone earthquakes and talking about the northwest coast of North America they said something like "in the 200 years Europeans have lived here". 'Europeans'? Oh, please, can you come up with a better example of politically correct wording? Not 'written history', not 'documented history', not even 'the 200 years whites have lived here'. No, it's 'Europeans'.

Maybe the idiots who made this don't realize it, but having ancestors from Europe does not make you a European. If it did, then there wouldn't be American Indians, there'd be 'Asians who lived here'. (no, I don't call the tribes 'Native Americans'; that covers everyone born here)

Why do these clowns have to crap things up like this?

Carnival of Cordite#28

is up over at Gullyborg. All kinds of tests and information, including the latest on that godawful mess in VA at the gun show.

This thing has gone on for 28 issues now, and still going strong. Don't you love it?

On that mess in VA, I first heard about it from Kim here; he had a followup here, which includes how the ATFE people probably got the personal information to make these 'residence checks'. Ravenwood has more here. There is NO excuse for this kind of nonsense, and I hope Showmasters goes the full legal mile.

And for anyone who speaks of the 'wonders of law enforcement in Britain',

give them this. Father and son grabbed, held, DNA samples taken, the whole bloody works. For plastic toy guns.

This is why we have to scream and yell and throw fits when something like the previous post happens; for our descendants and ourselves, we CANNOT let this happen here.

Major media slant and federal agency abuse

First, this story from Jack Kelly, on how an Army officer gave the New York Times some good news, and the Times(surprise!) spun it to look as bad as possible. Jackasses.

And Kim had something on this a couple of days ago, found this this morning on that mess at a VA gun show. Read it. There is no excuse for these actions, period. And like other abuses, it makes it that much harder for the officers/agents actually trying to do the job right to do so.

In the spirit of 'Step by Step', how to make a fork

Not just any fork, mind you, but the heavy-duty, solid steel Roasting Fork! Good for marshmallows, hot dogs, brats, large squirrels, small rabbits and (shudder) any odd chunks of vegetable you might wish to carbonize. And since I remembered to take the camera with me in time, here it is.

I use 3/16" square stock for most of these, you can use heavier if you need to make a sturdier one. I can usually work on three of these at a time, it's faster and easier than one at a time. I have done four when in a hurry. Cut a section 30" long, and put one end in the fire.


When at a nice red heat, flatten the last inch a bit


Back into the fire, heat, then use the hot cutter I pictured a while back to split the flattened section, then spread the two tines.

I can't remember if I said it before, but if you're cutting on the anvil face, use a piece of mild steel on the face; it protects the face from getting dinged and your chisel edge from being destroyed.

Heat one tine, then to the anvil to draw it out longer & thinner. Hit on one side, turn it 1/4 turn and hit, repeat back & forth till you have the length you desire.


Heat & draw out the other tine.


Now heat both, and use tongs, pliers, whatever to bend them to your chosen fork shape.


Now, just for decoration, I like to put a twist in the stock just behind the fork. I use this tool:

which has a slot cut & filed to just fit over the stock. Remember, when the stuff it hot it expands, so this'll be a bit loose on a cold piece. Heat the stock for a few inches behind the fork, clamp the shank in the vise, put your twisting tool on the stock, and twist. However much you like, clockwise or widdershins doesn't matter. When making these at a fair I'll sometimes use less/more or left/right in a set so someone's kids won't argue about which belongs to who.


Now it should look something like this:


Now for something to hold on to, flatten the other end


Curl it back. Get it hot, bend the very end over the anvil, then hold it on the face and tap with a hammer on the end; you can curl it right up.


Now heat a few inches back, set on the anvil, grab with tongs and bend back


To close it I heat the end, set the long side on the anvil and use a hold-down to brace it just before the closed-end curve, then use tongs to bend the open end closed.


And it comes out something like this


I'll wire-brush these to clean them off, then paint with linseed oil; let it sit a few minutes, wipe off the excess, then hang up in the garage to dry. It does a pretty good job of preventing rust, and gives the piece a nice look.

There, isn't that simple? Disregard that it was mid-80's and humidity in the mid-90's this morning(oh, how I suffer for my art!) and I thought I was going to drown in my own sweat, just express your appreciation appropriately. Cash, good whiskey or- never mind.

Animal rights people are insane

They can't convince/threaten a family into stopping their business of breeding guinea pigs for medical research, so they dig up and steal the body of a relative and refuse to return it until the family goes out of business. And one of the idiots in charge of this loose association of terrorists says it's a 'victory'.

Hey, stupid! I'm having chicken tonight!

Here's one for Acidman

Rob is, shall we say, not enamored of snakes. One of my neighbors was a medic in an infantry unit in Vietnam, also detests snakes, and told me this story:

His unit went out one day with strict orders to make no noise; basically, "Unless the enemy sees you and you have to shoot, do nothing to let them know you're there". So they went out into the jungle, and as they passed through an area the lieutenant suddenly said "Sergeant, don't move!" The sergeant, thinking it was a mine or boobytrap, froze, then looked down.

He was standing astride a python, and it had reared up in front of him- the lieutenant saw it just as it moved- and was poised with its' mouth open about 18" from the sergeants' crotch. Now, a python is not venomous, but they have lots of sharp teeth and can, to quote Capstick, bite the tax reform act out of you. The sergeant stayed very still, and the lieutenant slowly moved up- the snake making no effort to leave- then eased his rifle muzzle past the sergeants leg and almost into the snake's mouth, then pulled the trigger. Short burst, dead snake. So far, so good.

The captain now came on the radio for a contact report, and the lieutenant informed him no, no VC, just a BIG snake he had to shoot. This did not go over well, and the captain, probably thinking someone had a negligent discharge, ordered the snake brought back so he could see it.

Jim says this is where he really learned the value of keeping your mouth shut. The first thing he said after hearing they had to take it back was "I'm not carrying the sonofabitch", which was immediately followed by the officer pointing at him and saying "Get over here". So his load was spread around and he had to drape the damn thing over his shoulders and start walking. Think about this: with the head mostly blown off it dragged the ground on one side, went over his shoulders, then dragged on the other side. And that's a small python of the type. And he carried it for four kilometers back to base.

And just to make it really fun, every time they came out of shade into direct sunlight, the heat caused the nerves and muscles to react and it would start twisting around him. He says that after the first time he never noticed how heavy it was, because when in the sun it was moving on him, and when they got into shade it would calm down and he was so relieved that nothing else mattered.

They finally reached camp, and when the captain came out and asked where the blanking snake was, Jim walked up. The lieutenant grabbed the tail and told him to turn around, they unwound it and laid it out. The captain looked at it, and said "Well... Tomorrow, you head back out-" and that was all he said.

And yes, Jim STILL hates snakes.

Able Danger, and other cover-ups

Captain's Quarters has been, as Michelle Malkin puts it, 'on fire' with AD coverage, and also information on Gorelick and the 'wall' she put into place between law enforcement and intelligence. One of the things that strikes me about the Able Danger mess is the same that strikes me on the stuff coming out on the Oklahoma City Bombing: the coverup.

In both cases you've got people in government who had information about a serious threat, provided by intelligence work(both LE and military); either ignored it or mishandled it for various reasons; horrible events happened and people died; and the main concern of those in charge seems to be "Don't let anybody know we knew this!". Screw finding out exactly what went wrong, to hell with punishing people who didn't do their damn jobs, and making sure it doesn't happen again? Oh, really, how provincial! WE have to protect our agency/reputation/boss! That's FAR more important!

And that seems to be exactly what's happening on a number of fronts. Remember the FBI agent who wanted to get a warrant to search the suspect's laptop, and his boss refused to even request the warrant for fear of being seen as 'insensitive' or 'bigoted' or whatever? His career concerns mattered more than what might happen, and what did happen to him? Was he fired, disciplined, SOMETHING? Hell, no. The FBI agent who refused to wear a wire when talking to a suspect because 'a Muslim doesn't record another Muslim'? Fired, disciplined? Hell no, that would be seen as bigoted and/or insensitive, so he was PROMOTED and transferred somewhere else. In the FBI you have a culture that mimics other large bureaucracies like the Justice Department and State: the reputation of the organization is more important than anything else, and if we have to stonewall and coverup and, in all too many cases, flat-out lie to protect it, so be it.

And you KNOW there are a lot of people in all those agencies who are dying inside because of it. The FBI, as one example, has a lot of very good, very capable people. They joined to fight crime and catch bad guys and protect this country. A lot of them have attitude problems, but that doesn't change the fact that they are very, very good at what they do. And they get to sit there watching higher-ups turn down information and lose cases and endanger the very things these people value simply to protect/enhance the reputations of themselves and the Bureau. It has to be killing them inside to watch this, and yet they very rarely speak of it in public. I think there are three main reasons: hope, training and fear. Hope, in that they keep hoping things will get better and the job will get done right. Training because by the time you get through the FBI Academy, you've been taught that the Director sits at God's right hand and gives advice, and you're somewhat below that and don't make trouble for your 'betters'. And fear because they know what kind of trouble the Bureau can cause for someone who irritates the brass hats. Put it all together, it's a massive block to get through, and very few do. And in many cases they do accomplish good things, so they keep working at what they can, and push the pain of what's coming out into a corner. So I think.

All this isn't helped by Congress being so unwilling in so many cases to actually do something about wrongdoers. Because someone supports a political view or is in a favored agency or is just one of the 'good' or 'protected' people, they don't get whacked on the way they should when the do wrong. Remember the Keating Five? And McCain is still in office. Hell, Barney Frank had a boyfriend running a brothel out of Frank's house, and he basically got his hand slapped. Lightly. You've got a lot of people in office who'll protect, for instance, people in the State Department against almost anything because they have the 'right' point of view, and what's a little corruption or idiocy or treason compared to that?

Hmm? Oh, yes, I DO have an answer. Start holding these people accountable. Demote, fire, prosecute and so forth when they do wrong, no matter who they know and no matter what it does to the reputation of whatever agency/party. Unfortunately, not too likely to happen. I hope, but I also despair about this.

Putting an edge on it

Over the years I've used all kinds of things to sharpen knives and axes. Stones, sticks, sanding belts and so forth. They've all got their good and bad points. A good stone will put a fine edge on, but can take forever, and you really need at least two stones: a medium for setting up a good edge bevel on a new blade or repairing a badly dulled or damaged edge, and a fine for finishing the edge off. Mind you, this method has worked for several thousand years and still does the job quite well. One of the best types of stone I've found is the Norton Crystolon for fast cutting, and an India or Arkansas stone for finishing the edge. Side note, a hard Arkansas does a pretty nice job of putting a polish on trigger or other action parts, too.

There are some very nice ceramic sharpeners out there. Some are sticks, round or otherwise, some are flat rectangles. I've got some small ceramic stones, about 2x3" I found at a surplus store that are great for touching up an edge, pretty fast-cutting and clean up with water. There are round ones with handles called 'crock sticks' you use like a butchers steel. I've also used a Spyderco sharpener. It's a plastic base that holds two triangular ceramic sticks, corners are medium grit and flats are fine; you put the sticks in the base and draw the edge of the knife along the sticks, one side and then the other. Not a bad tool, if you're careful you can vary the angle of the edge to get different bevels.

Then there are some systems that use a fixture that holds the blade, and small stones you attach to guide rods. There are holes in the fixture the rods go through to set the angle, and you draw the stone along the edge- Lansky is a common one. These work very well, and if you have trouble keeping the edge at the same angle as you work, this is a good system.

I mentioned sanding belts. I use a fine belt, about 240 grit, to do the initial sharpening on blades I make, then either a fine stone or steel to finish it. It's fast, but if you're not damn careful you can overheat the edge in a spot, or take off too much. And if I want a really, really fine edge I take a hard felt buffing wheel, which will keep a nice flat surface, load it with a fine polishing compound and finish the edge with that. Not that good for heavy-cutting edges, but if you need a really smooth, fine edge it's wonderful. It also has the added advantage of being a bit dangerous; you get careless with that buffed edge doing the final touch, and you'll be bleeding before you realize you've been cut.

Yes, knife people are a bit strange.

One of the tools I use most, because it a: works and b: I can carry it around, is this Gerber steel:

The narrow edges is medium, the flats are fine. It folds into the leather for carry, and the leather gives you a handle when you use it. I've used this thing on knives, axes, swords and scissors with good results. It doesn't show in the picture, but the leather's a bit beat up from the years and use, but it's still going strong. When you're finished, wipe it lengthwise with a cloth and a bit of oil and the metal bits come out of the grooves and it's ready for next time.

I haven't much experience with the various diamond stones. The idea is good, I'd guess how one works depends on how well the diamond dust is bonded to the substrate. I have known people who swear by them.

In history they've used- still use- everything from a smooth rock from a riverbed to a building block to sharpen tools; there are stones in Hadrian's Wall hollowed out in the center from countless soldiers touching up a blade on them. But it is a bit easier with something intended for the purpose.

More on the Trentadue & OKC Bombing cases

KTOK-AM had this today: "A newly released lawsuit deposition reveals now-retired Oklahoma Medical Examiner Doctor Fred Jordan changed his testimony about the August 1995 mysterious death of federal prison inmate Kenneth Trentadue and stated Trentadue had been involved in a fight before he died and might have been strangled with a plastic handcuff."

This goes on into, among other things, the retired ME saying in sworn testimony that Trentadue had died due to suicide, with his injuries being caused by the way he did it, and telling the Trentadue family, and writing in the file, ""I indicated that I felt Mr. Trentadue had been abused and tortured and at this point was not sure whether his death could be explained as a suicide or whether it should be regarded as a homicide."" And stating in a later deposition "Jordan went on to claim in the December 2002 deposition, given on the eve of his retirement as State Medical Examiner that he had been subjected to harassment and intimidation by FBI agents. "I don't think there's any question I was harassed by the Department of Justice from the very beginning of this, the 21st of August when we were denied access to do a job we'd been summoned to do,"".

Ok, this is getting worse and worse as time goes by. The documents the Trentadue family has received so far, after years of fighting, had already revealed some really nasty stuff. Now, on top of earlier reports of the normal investigative routine of a death at the facility being trashed, we have the ME at the time saying the Justice Department- not just the FBI- harassing him. Oh, and as to his 'suicide by hanging'? "...a picture of Kenneth Trentadue showing the deep bloody wounded across his death. He said the marks left on Trentadue's neck appeared to be those made by plastic handcuffs which had left tiny ladder like marks from one end of the wound to the other."

I repeat what I said earlier; the longer this is dragged out, the worse it's going to be.

You know, I haven't heard much of anything about this on any MSM site. I can't speak of the evening news, because I haven't watched it in a long time(I just don't trust them anymore). But I do have to wonder; with everything that's coming out about both the bombing and the Trentadue case, why not? You have FBI and federal lawyers from the Justice Department lying to a judge and defense attorney, you have evidence being covered up and/or destroyed, you have efforts to silence Mr. Trentadue, you have at least one man dead in circumstances you'd think would have reporters and journalists all over the place asking questions. I have to wonder if it's at least partly because who was President and who was Attorney General at the time this stuff happened: Bill Clinton and Janet Reno.

Whatever the reason, it's a shame. And this also connects back to all the work Jayna Davis did that found interesting connections between McVeigh and the bombing and, among others, possible Iraqi intelligence agents. You know, the stuff that the feds said was a load of crap, with no facts behind it?

Brings up the question as to just who is full of crap.

Mexico, what to do about

Was browsing around and a link took me here(dammit, I can't remember where I found the link at!), a guy living in Mexico and his thoughts on what it'll take to fix the situation there.

Short version about a century. With luck.

I've never been there, so I'm going by many things I've heard and read. I know it's about the only country where the State Department recommended that any U.S. citazen getting in a legal problem is better off paying a bribe than trying to handle it in court(do they still recommend that?). I know that in many cities they paid police a bare-minimum salary because it was expected they would take bribes. But his description is amazing.

Take a look and see what you think about it.

My primary take for the last few years was wishing President Fox would shut the hell up about how Mexicans have a 'right' to come here any time they please, and worry about fixing his own damn country. This post just made it worse. It also made worse my wish that Pres. Bush would tell him to shut the hell up and start doing something on his side of the border.

More OKC Bombing news

KTOK-AM carried this story today: "Salt Lake City attorney Jesse Trentadue says he is surprised at the order of a federal judge who wants to see unredacted FBI files in Trentadue's Freedom of Information fight."

I mentioned in my last post on this that Mr. Trentadue had received a bunch of documents; they were heavily redacted, with names and information blacked out.

"Earlier this week the judge made it known to the FBI he wants to see the FBI files turned over to Trentadue last month. But Judge Dale A. Kimball told the FBI he personally wants to see the 'unredacted' version of the documents, those papers which have not been blacked out by the government to protect the names of individuals. The judge set a hearing for October 12th at 3pm."

This is serious stuff. If the judge sees that government lawyers lied to him, I believe that is an offense for which they can be disbarred and/or prosecuted. If the FBI agents involved are proven to have lied, I do believe that is called purjury, and carries a prison sentance. And it would almost certainly go 'way up the chain of command in the FBI and Justice Department.

If you haven't heard of this mess before, what started Trentadue digging into it? "Trentadue has been fighting the government for documents about the August 1995 death of his brother Kenneth Trentadue at the Oklahoma City Federal Transfer Center. He believes his brother died in a fierce FBI interrogation because he closedly matched the description of a suspect sought in the bombing of the Murrah building."

And the longer the government lawyers drag this out, the worse it'll be in the end.

Part 4, hardening and tempering

Heat-treating is generally two steps. First, you have to get the piece up to critical temperature, evenly thoughout the length and width(more on that later), and quench it in whatever's appropriate for that steel to harden it. Second, you have to heat it up again, but to a much lower temperature; you have to ease the stresses in the blade enough that it won't be brittle, but will still be hard enough to hold an edge well.

What steel you used decides what the critical temperature will be, how you quench it, and how you temper it. Most of the fairly simple carbon steels are very similar in these respects; critical temperature is 1450-1550 degrees F. They can all be quenched in oil to harden. And the temperatures for tempering range from 350-600, depending on the steel and the use intended. A blade that has to be able to do heavy cutting and chopping shouldn't be as hard as one for fine work where you don't want to have to sharpen it often, for instance.

To touch basically- very basically- on how this works, steel has a crystilline structure that changes according to temperature and stress. When you heat it up to the critical temp, several things happen. The matrix of the structure opens up and carbon atoms can actually migrate through it(this is what allows case-hardening to work); the steel gets soft(duh); and most steels go non-magnetic(this temp is also known as the curie point). If you take a piece to a low heat, say 1200 F, and let it cool slowly, you normalize it, evening out and relieving stresses in the piece. If you get it to that temp and cool it very slowly, in hot ashes for instance, you can anneal it, making it as soft and easy to work as it can be, with the structure settling into, let's call it a relaxed structure(yes, there are specific words for the different states, but I can't remember them right now and don't have a reference handy; I'll try to add them in later). If you take it to the critical temperature and quench it, the structure freezes in a very stressed state, and under a microscope the structure will look different, with a needle-like appearance called martinsite(the one word I remember offhand). A high-carbon steel in this state is very hard; a sharp file won't cut it, and it's so brittle that dropping it might crack or break it. Tempering changes the structure a bit and relieves some of the stress, and here you have the hardness/toughness balancing act.

Let's say I'm making a large bowie or dirk out of 5160 spring stock. First problem is to get it up to proper heat along the full length. If you have access to or decide to buy or make an electric furnace, no problem; set the temperature to 1500F, set the blade in the oven and let it get to critical heat. In a forge, you may have to modify the firebed to get a long, narrow fire. What I wound up doing is taking a piece of about 3" diameter steel pipe long enough to fit into the firepot; split it lengthwise; then drill a bunch of holes in one half, no bigger than 1/4" and all along the length and partway down the sides. Then, get a piece of sheet steel and cut an hourglass shape out(you'll have to measure, cut and try to get it to fit), bend it in the middle, take the grate out of the firepot and set this into the hole. The idea is this piece will spread the air blast along the length of the pipe grate, instead of mostly hitting in the center. Set the pipe grate in place, and build your fire over it.

While the fire burns, make sure your quench method is ready. With smaller pieces you can use a can or bucket of oil, but for longer ones you'll need more length. A double-edge piece will have to be quenched point down, but a single-edge can be quenched lengthwise. I got a piece of steel channel about 3" square, cut one side open, and had ends welded on; I can fill it half to two-thirds full and do a fairly long and heavy blade in it. In either case the oil needs to be warmed, because it will flow better and give a more even effect; I usually set a piece of bar stock about 1" diameter in the fire while it's burning clean, and when the bar is low red, put it in the oil, you want it at about 100 F. A point here about single-edge blades; you don't have to heat them all the way from edge to back. Take a dirk that's about 2" wide at the ricasso and tapering. You can heat it so the area about 1/2" to 3/4" back from the edge is at critical temp and lower it edge-first into the oil. It'll smoke and bubble something fierce, and may ignite on the surface, so use tongs that will hold it securely and give you some distance. The advantages of this are two; first it's a lot easier in most cases to heat this section than the whole width of the blade, and this gives a hardened edge section with a softer, tougher back. Done right a blade like this is incredibly tough, and you probably won't live long enough to wear back through the hardened section. Further note: with a long single-edge blade, I try to finish the forging and grinding so the piece actually curves up toward the back a bit; when you quench it the edge section will shrink and pull it down into line.

You'll need to let the fire burn clean and even, then set the piece in. You want a very low air blast here; the piece needs to heat up slowly and evenly, so move it back & forth a bit too. You can check the temperature four ways. If you have one/access to one, an infrared thermometer would be nice. You can use a Templestick, a high-temperature crayon; pick one for the temp you want and either mark the blade and wait 'til it melts or lift it enough to wipe the crayon on it. You can use a magnet. When I mentioned they go non-magnetic, it means that at that temp a magnet will not stick, so you can use a shop magnet on a handle and touch it to the blade, when it doesn't stick you're there. And you can do it traditionally, learn to know the color that means you're there. I'd say a cherry red, but the description varies by who's giving it, so use some scrap pieces and practice. If the piece is not hot enough, it won't harden completely; too hot and the structure enlarges and the piece will be weaker than it should, in extreme cases the edge can actually crumble a bit under stress. So work the piece back & forth and watch the heat. When it's ready lift it out and put it into the quench. If you do this inside, you better have a fan set up for ventilation, especially with a big piece it takes a bit for it to lose heat and the oil will be smoking the whole time. Leave it until all heat coloring has disappeared, and if possible a while more, then take it out and let it cool completely. Turn the fire down but not out, because when the piece has reached ambient temperature, you need to clean it off thoroughly; inspect it for any warping so you'll know where to straighten it(mark with soapstone or something similar); and harden it again. I generally do two quenches with most steels. After the second, leave it in the oil for a while, then take it out and let it cool. And unless you're doing another piece, you can put the fire out now.

When the piece is all the way cooled off, inspect it again, and if all is well you can start tempering it. I wipe it down thoroughly, then wash it with dish soap(Dawn in my case) to get rid of the scale and oil, and put it in the oven. Yes, the one I bake in, which is why I'm fairly damn picky about washing all the oil off first. I set the heat at 375 F for the first heat, let it get up to temp and then leave it for about an hour. Then I pull it out and let it cool, then I hit it with the belt grinder to shine the sides up. I could probably do this before the first heat, but if I drop it it might crack, so I do one heat first. After shining it up I put it back in and, in the case of a piece like this, set the heat up to 425, leave it for long enough to get up to heat plus one hour. Pull it out, let it cool and check the color. For a big blade like this I want a bronze color, or dark yellow, along the edge. If it's lighter than that I increase the heat for the next time. If it got too hot? I reduce the heat by 25 degrees for the next heat, and hope the testing shows it's not softer than I want. Which is why I start below what I figure is needed and work up. And yes, for some things I know what temp I want and just go with it, but for bigger or more intricate shapes I start a bit low.

I do three tempering heats, cooling completely between. After cooling from the last heat, it's time for the next step: testing.

Carnival of Cordite #27

Over at Gullyborg. Some interesting stuff again, so go see.

And when you can, look over his place; it's well worth the time.

Ok, THIS just screws up my good mood

Went over to Kim's place and found this. Short version, they Brazilian the British cops killed was killed in error and the cops lied about it.

No 'heavy coat', no 'suspicious behaviour', no 'attempt to flee'. Instead the cops screwed the pooch bigtime and killed the man.

Crap. As Kim says, read the whole article here for the full flavor of this screwup.

The Gunny Bestiary

The last time I went to the range, I found that some people had left behind what is termed, by handloaders, as a 'buttload' of .30-06 and .30-30 brass, heavy on the '06. It occurred to me, as I was picking this up, that there is a sub-species of shooter that might not be that familiar to the new shooter, and to some more experienced folks. Thus, I present this small contribution to your knowledge base.

The Handloader or Reloader (brassus used pickupus) is a somewhat common subtype of the shooting genus. Physical appearance can vary widely; both sexes can be found in this type. Often the male of this type has a mate who shakes her head and mutters things when he brings a new bounty into the nest area; females are usually mated to a male who is also a Reloader. There is some disagreement as to whether this is an actual subspecies, or simply a common shooter(bang-bang multiplus) who has been infected by some agent causing this change in behaviour.

In the nest area they are easy to tell. The work areas tend to have buckets/bags full of cartridge cases, instruments known as 'loading presses' and 'scales' and 'measures', and (often) numerous books and other publications on this subject. Occasionally the work area has a strange scent reminiscent of smokeless propellent, which when noticed causes cursing and a rapid search by the Handloader for any loose lids on containers. There may also be precision instruments(they claim) such as 'micrometers' and 'calipers'. The 'scale' and 'measure' should probably fit into this classification, but depending on whether they have been dropped/knocked down/shot, they may not actually be that precise.

In the 'open range' environment they sometimes may be told by plastic ammo boxes and notebooks on the bench; truly rabid specimens may have some of the 'scales' and/or 'measures' and a 'press' on the bench, where they mutter alchemical formulae and construct their own ammunition. These signs are often missing, however there is an almost no-fail method of telling the specimen; they will often be found, after they or someone else has finished shooting, walking around/in front of the benches in a crouch picking up fired cases. If in doubt, observe closely and you may well see the specimen holding the fired case in such a way as to attempt to see how many holes are in the bottom; since the hole/holes will be on the inside, this can lead to some amusing head and hand motions as they attempt to see inside.

In the clubhouse or gun store they may also be found speaking in tongues, referring to things such as 'meplat' and 'leade' and IMR(followed by numbers); they can sometimes become rather testy and loud when some other Handloader informs them that their 'pet load' doesn't work worth crap and that the Handloader being addressed is an idiot.

Overall the Handloader, while sometimes boring/annoying, is a harmless creature, as long as you do not smoke in the work area; this activity can cause serious upset in the being.

Although it is suspected to be an infectious activity as opposed to an actual different type, no special protection is required in their presence.

Although occasionally earplugs may be considered a plus. Especially if someone does smoke in the work area.

For what it's worth.

No more of my money for this idiot

I always liked the music of Carlos Santana. Never knew much about him, other than his being a good musician. Then, a few months ago I read of his wearing a 'Che' t-shirt to the Oscars, and the reaction to that. And today, I read this, linking to this.

Crap. I really hate finding out that an artist I admire has turned out to be a jackass such as this. Especially when it's someone who, had he lived in Cuba under castro and his little butt-monkey, would have wound up in a camp and/or spending a few years in the cane fields.

Want to find out more about this? Go here, it's the search page for Babalu Blog on 'Santana', and click around. Just about guarenteed to piss you off. At least if you actually care about the idea of freedom.

As Kim puts it, it's Red Curtain Of Blood time

If this crap (found at Libercontrarian) doesn't make you see red and need breakables put out of reach, you need help.

We've been hearing a lot lately about judicial arrogance and abuse of authority; this is exactly the kind of crap spoken of. People held in jail and no communication allowed with the outside world, because the judge says he feels 'threatened'.

This idiot SHOULD feel threatened, threatened with being thrown off the bench, disbarred, and tried and jailed for his violations of the highest law of this land. And THEN his ass sued off, along with every idiot, like the prosecutor, who had a part in this. As the Rivrdog put it, this is the kind of thing that makes people remember what the 2nd Amendment is there for.

Just read it.

It seems connected...

By that I mean the stuff I've noted earlier about the FBI & co. telling lies to judges and defense attorneys and covering up, and the other covering up coming uncovered ref the 9/11 Commission and Atta and Able Danger.

As various people from Roger to the Captain(here and here) to Mark Steyn have been pointing out, the commission, it turns out, seems to have spent as much time acting to protect people as it did actually, oh, investigating things. When on the commission, as Steyn puts it, "There was at least one person with an outrageous conflict of interest: Clinton Justice Department honcho Jamie Gorelick, who shouldn't have been on the commission but instead a key witness appearing in front of it.", that tells you something about the aims of the commission.
And seems to match up pretty well with what has been happening in the OKC Bombing case; lots of information turning up that shows the FBI knew a lot more about McVeigh and connections to other people than it said, that the Bureau lied about it, and is stonewalling to try to cover up as much as possible.

I've said before that I take no pleasure in pointing out this crap. I grew up around law enforcement, I always respected those wo do the work and expected that they would do the right thing. Especially a group like the FBI. I don't question that there are good people in that agency, and ATF; I also no longer question that there are bad people there, people who will lie under oath, and cover up wrongdoing by themselves and others, and do almost anything to protect 'the Agency' or 'the Bureau', including violating the oath to protect and defend the Constitution that they took. And there's far too many politicians who will wink at it, or actively support it, for various reasons. It's horribly disillusioning, it's downright painful, and I don't like it.

The best that can come out of this is fairly simple and straightforward: find the ones who lied, who did wrong, who covered up, and a: fire them and b: prosecute them. If for some reason you can't prosecute them, you can at least get them out of their position so they can't do more harm and make examples of them. We NEED law enforcement to be trusted, to be able to do the job, and we won't- probably can't- have that if they don't act, and Congress won't act, to clean it up when things like this happen. The problem is there are, as I mentioned, people in Congress who think it's a good thing they did these things because it suits whatever agenda they're trying to promote.

God, this is a mess.

I'm baaaaaack...

But not much to say tonight. Good visit with some good folks. An even better visit in that it involved helping them choose and buy things that go 'bang'.

Oh, you know Cabela's? Big catalog store, until recently didn't have a store anywhere in the region; until now. They recently opened a store just north of Fort Worth, and we spent some time looking around. Lord, it's huge! Guns and ammo and bows and boats and clothes and boots and sharp things and fishing gear and, and, and.... If you're anywhere close enough, it's worth the trip to see. Where else are you going to find .470 Nitro Express snap caps and, in the fine guns room, a .470 double rifle? AND a couple of .500 Nitro Express.

There's even a damn candy store, with some of the best fudge you'll ever find.

Later.

Just before I leave part 2: various feds

Federals, that is. I can't find the link right now, but it boils down to this: ref the earlier posts on new information about the Oklahoma City Bombing(here, here and here), Trentadue has received more documents from the FBI ref the death of his brother. The current batch include information that the FBI was going to run bugs on him and on an inmate he was going to interview so as to try to find something to either blackmail him with, or use to charge him with a crime so as to shut him up and force him to drop the case.

The following is from a guy who was raised around LE people, to have respect for law enforcement in this country:
WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE?!? This is NOT the conduct expected of people in your positions; your conduct should be to find the people who did wrong- WHOEVER THEY ARE- and bring them to justice. Or doesn't the concept of 'Justice' mean anything to you anymore? Is covering up mistakes and protecting the Bureau's reputation more important? If it is, we have a real, real big problem; and you should be very, very ashamed.

Enough. See you folks in a few days

Before I leave part 1: Insane or nutcase women

I had- HAD, I tell you!- to do two last things. The first is this: over at the Hog's place I read this the other day, referring to that nut Sheehan who's in Crawford, TX for the purpose of playing victim and annoying people. She's bad enough, but on the radio today I heard some women who showed up to 'show support for this woman who sacrificed her son on the altar of Bush's lies', I believe was the wording.

Lady(using the term loosely), SHUT THE HELL UP! She did NOT 'sacrifice' anyone; in case you haven't heard, this is a volunteer military and her son SIGNED UP! And you are not there to 'show support', you're there to play your little political game and whack on the President. So, I repeat, SHUT UP.

Steve put it this way about women who crave attention: "Cindy Sheehan is a textbook example. Her son volunteered to serve in the military, and he died in a conflict which both major political parties supported. A conflict John Kerry said was justified even if there were no WMDs in Iraq. She got a little attention for it last year, and instead of satisfying her, all it did was make her want more". He just forgot to mention the others who either want their piece of attention, want to use Sheehan for their own ends, or both.

We will resume your vacation, after this short blogging break

Mostly posting information on gas mileage in the bike since the Microlon use.

Just before heading out, that fillup was 136 miles & 2.7 gallons, just over 50mpg. Going to see my folks was 90 miles at 75-80 with enough of a headwind to be uncomfortable; it also helped trash the mileage: 90 miles, 2.6 gallons, 34mpg! Yikes! I mentioned before I'd not kept really close track of this stuff before, it's amazing what the combination of those speeds and a strong headwind does. I have noticed that with a light wind or a tailwind, 75-80 still gives about 45mpg(in the past), we'll find out about that in the future. The trip back was, by the time I filled up, 100 miles total, 70-75, with the wind a bit more on an angle than a direct headwind, used 2.4 gallons, 41.6 mpg.

Two things here. First is that since I didn't track mileage on highway closely I can't state flatly that the Microlon made that better, but I have definately noticed that I had more left in the tank this trip than under similar conditions before; I have definately noted better mileage on city street and around-town highway travel at 60-65. Second, I changed the oil just before heading out. The instructions say to leave the oil containing the treatment in for at least 1000 miles; I was right at 1000, and decided I wanted to go ahead and change it before I started on the road. Especially if the weather allows me to take the bike to Texas in a couple of days. So we'll see if the improved mileage continues with the fresh oil.

Weather her can be so strange...

The '30% chance of scattered thunderstorms' became steady rain for about an hour. That's not the strange; the strange is steady rain for an hour and the sun shining brightly. Rain that blows from the southwest for the first half-hour or so, then from the east. THEN it clouds over completely for a while.

The day was spent with my daughter trying out her birthday present, then helping some friends pack and load up after a small fair. And I'm going out of town for a few days, so it'll be a while before the next installment of 'How to burn your fingers and swear a lot while making a knife'.

Bye, folks

It's been a fun few days...

Besides the normal running 'round in circles, had the following joy:

I mentioned a few months ago being the best man at a wedding. Well, the happy trio(the bride had a 7yoa boy) have been looking for, and finding, a bigger house. Their offer was accepted, but between the time they had to move out of where they were and could move into the new place was almost two weeks. So everything was in storage and they lived in a travel trailer. Helped them move some big stuff the day they signed papers, and a couple of days ago went over to help get some more.

Friend had rented a trailer so we piled into his truck and headed for the storage. About 3/4 of the way there his truck died. Pushed it out of the street and noticed smoke coming from under the hood. Pop hood and find coil wire burning merrily. Put out fire. borrow phone to call his wife. Luckily, I had left the keys to my truck in it, and she could drive a standard, so she came over to get us. In the meantime, a guy who stopped to help turned out to be a mechanic and cobbled things together enough to get him home. Wife and I hooked trailer to my truck and took it back to U-Haul(did I mention it was past 9pm by now?), then followed hubby home. What made this even more fun is wife is pregnant, and hubby had job interview the next morning. They got her to work and him to the interview in her car, which meant all getting up at 0530, when they got home just past 10.

Enough for now. The Carnival needs looking at, and I'm just the one to do it.

Carnival of Cordite #25!

Up at Gullyborg. Much goodness to be read and looked upon, so go see.

More followup on the OKC Bombing news

"The District attorney and the judge who were involved in putting bomber Terry Nichols away for life on state murder charges appear to be running as fast as they can from newly released FBI documents showing there was an apparent link between the white separatist compound Elohim City and the Oklahoma City bombing."

And this is really important why?

" ...retired FBI agent Jon Hersley.

"There is no connection between the people of Elohim City and the bombing," he testified on the evening of April 19th, 2004. "We were satisfied there was no connection." "
and
" ...lead prosecutor Sandy Elliott argued against any ties to Elohim City and the bombing.

"You can't make a huge leap from Tim McVeigh's call to Elohim City to the bombing. There is absolutely no way they were connected," she told the judge."

The whole article is here. Combine it with earlier reports coming out, and this is really bad on a variety of levels.
Lawyers apparently lying to judges, stuff that was supposed to be turned over to the defense that wasn't, and so on. And who was right in the middle of this? Janet Reno and company. And please don't try to tell me that all this could happen without the head of the Justice Department knowing something about it.

God, I hate this.

Something that a lot of gun-banners don't know,

or don't care about, is that a firearms company cannot be supported solely by government contracts; at least not for long. Then the companies close, and sooner or later you get this.

And that doesn't take into effect the fact that many- probably most- firearms development does not take place at some government facility, it takes place at a private company looking for a better product for their customers. The Barret and McMillan .50-caliber rifles the armed forces use to such great effect were not developed by some government armory or designer; private companies made them for people who wanted to shoot at really extreme ranges, and later on the military took notice and said "You know, we could really use those". The M16, no matter what you think of it, was designed by Armalite as the AR15 for civilian markets. And how many arms ideas the military goes with came through a competition between private companies? One good example being the old 1911 .45 pistol; the government wanted to new sidearm for the military, and John Browning(one of the best and most prolific firearms designers in history) won the contract. And so on.

And ammunition. New propellants, new bullet designs, from what I've read they almost always come from private companies. Who also produce most of the ammo our troops use.

I suspect that a lot of the GFWs think it would be a good idea for all these companies to go out of business and for us to have to contract all our government arms design/building to some other country; it would make us more 'sensitive' to other countries needs, and give the U.N. a big handle on us. Screw that.

And what happened to Britain in WWII won't count, because after all, if we're more sensitive to the needs and desires of other peoples, there won't be any more wars, will there? Only wonderful cooperation, overseen/controlled by the saintly U.N. I repeat, screw that.

Found over at Kim's place.

Part 3, grinding the blade

I covered equipment and such on grinding here and buffing here. I will repeat a warning: you CAN get hurt doing this. If you slip and stick a finger or knuckle into a grinding wheel or belt, you will lose skin at the least; if you've got a lot of pressure on, it can cut deep enough to do real damage. The edge of a grinding belt can cut like a knife(no pun intended) if you slip into it. Sometimes a belt or wheel, along with the tearing, can generate enough friction to give you a combined tear and burn. A buffing wheel can grab a piece out of your hand and throw it. And they all throw off a lot of material; metal bits, abrasive bits, lint, and in the case of buffing the glue or grease used to hold the abrasive. So do please be careful.

On to the actual work. If you are in any doubt as to keeping the shape of the blade in your mind as you grind the profile, get a Sharpie or something like it and draw it in. Once you start, at this stage it really doesn't matter how hot it gets, other than if it's too hot you can't hold on. I keep a bucket of water with a few drops of dish soap added in to cool the piece off(the soap breaks the surface tension and helps bits washed off to sink instead of floating). Grind the blade to just a touch outside the final line you want over the entire profile, from point to end of tang.

If you're doing a narrow tang and have trouble getting the tang/ricasso junction even, clamp it in a vise and use a file. What I'll often do here is clamp the blade in the vise point down, with the part that needs to be cut away even with the jaws, clamp it tight, and file it down. If your vise has really coarse jaws, you might want to use a piece of leather to pad them. What I've seen some bladesmiths do is get two pieces of spring steel long as the vise jaws, weld or bolt them together at one end with a spacer in between, grind one side dead even, round the corners a bit, then harden them; you clamp the blade in this, and can only file down to the hardened steel; if you temper it only enough to not be brittle, the file won't want to cut them.

In the next step you are actually grinding the angles in. Some prefer to flatten and true the ricasso and tang first- sometimes with a slight thinning toward the end of the tang- and then move onto the edge bevels, some rough the bevels and then the ricasso-tang; you'll have to try different ways over time and see which works best. I generally use the first method.
What makes this tricky- flats and bevels both- is you have to hold onto the piece as it's angled across the belt without burning yourself as it gets hot and without it slipping and running your hand into the belt. Three main points: first, a sharp belt cuts faster and runs cooler than a dull one; second, use a push-stick or something to help hold the blade; and third, take your time. Hurrying here either gets the piece ruined, or gets you hurt, or both. Light pressure only and let the belt do the cutting. There are belt lubricants made for this, they keep the belt running a bit cooler and keep it from getting clogged as badly by metal dust; they also make what amounts to a big eraser for cleaning belts, I recommend both. If you're flat-grinding, you can hold the piece flat on the platen- the surface supporting the belt- , if you're hollow-grinding you'll have to use the surface of the wheel the belt runs over. Note: you can hollow-grind with a grinding wheel; you have to keep the surface trued up to get a smooth cut, and you'll have to start out with fairly coarse buffing compound to clean it up.

Work one side a bit, then turn it over and work the other side. Keep an eye on the edge to make sure you keep it centered. Remember to leave the blade thicker than you want the finished piece to be. The part of this that can be a pain is when you get back to where the bevels meet the ricasso; getting the angles even and matching on both sides takes time and care. First time you try it you may wind up saying things that make the dogs hide, but keep at it and you'll get the method. Here's another place where some people leave the power equipment and go to the vise and files. Some have made jigs that hold the blade and allow them to cut the junction cleanly and precisely every time; if you wind up doing this stuff a lot, it'd be worth it to put something together.

I usually start with a 80-grit belt if there's much to cut down, a 120-grit if less. And the nice thing about a belt grinder is you can cut it clean with the coarse belt, then switch to a finer belt to clean away those marks, and so on. At this stage I wouldn't take it any finer than a 240-grit belt. If you're doing your own heat-treating with the forge, you'll have to regrind to clean up the surface( you DID leave it a bit oversize, DIDN'T YOU?); if you send it to a pro, or have/have access to an electric furnace for that part, you can go to a finer finish if you choose.

Assuming you want a flat finish, no signs of hammering left, grind deeply enough with the first belt to get rid of the marks and no further. When you switch to the next finer belt, try to work the piece at an angle to the previous grind, it makes it easier to see if you've got all the prior marks cleaned up. And so on, until you're done.

When you think it's done, cool it off so you can examine it closely without burning yourself or having heat waves blurring any spots. Make sure the whole thing is straight; that the edge is centered and not wavy; that the changes between blade parts are smooth and even. You can regrind to correct these after heat-treating, but it both takes longer and you have the risk of messing up the temper if you overheat it. So get it right now.

Everything is even? All is to your liking? Next step is hardening and tempering.

Forging, part 1
Forging, part 2

Busy days, and Microlon

Between work, house, yard and- the last couple of days- helping some friends move, there's just no time. For shooting, internet or whatever. Hopefully, most of that will be done soon.

Tanked up the bike, 123 miles and 2.4 gallons, 51 mpg. Mostly city and some highway, 60-65 mph. I'd never kept really close track of mileage before, it's amazing the drop when you take speeds over 65-70, especially if there's a head or flanking wind. It looks like city and highway, 65 and below, it's now getting around 50 or a touch above, above that about 47. It's a definate increase from before the treatment. In the near future it should have the miles to go ahead and change the oil, will see if the increase continues. So far it seems that, long-term, the Microlon will be worth it. I think it would be best in a motor well broken in, but not too many miles(I realize that's rather vague, but if you ride you'll know what I mean). I get some things under control in the future, I think I'll get the kit and run it through my truck.

More new information ref the Oklahoma City Bombing

Again, from the McCurtain Daily Gazette, and again it shows that the federal authorities had lots of information that they denied having. And had information that should have been made available to the defense in the trial, and which they covered up. Which tends to lend credence to the earlier article I posted on.

This current piece touches on a LOT of things. On how a man named Kenny Trentadue wound up dead in a cell in a federal facility in El Reno. On McVeigh making a call to Elohim City to speak to a neo-nazi, a call the federal agencies denied knowing anything about.

Three of the important lines from the article:
"After months of legal maneuvering by the DOJ and the FBI, U.S. District Court Judge Dale Kimball ruled on May 5, 2005, that the Oklahoma City FBI office had to search for documents linking the SPLC to Elohim City and/or specific individuals connected to the April 19, 1995, bombing.

With national attention on the case provided by several news agencies, the FBI released a small portion of what may prove to be a large reservoir of hidden documents that could reveal more sensational details about a widespread cover-up."
and
"Many of those new unclassified documents also establish that the OKBOMB task force was unable to interview subjects connected with Elohim City, because of conditions set forth by FBI director Louis Freeh and possibly other high ranking DOJ officials."
and, near the end,
""If the Southern Poverty Law Center was providing information about Elohim City after the bombing to the FBI, they must have been providing it before April 19th, Trentadue noted. Asking further: "So where are those reports?"

Every bit of this is stuff that was hinted at before, or someone found information on, and the feds denied everything. With this coming out, what else that was denied or laughed at is going to turn out to be accurate? A reporter named Jayna Davis did a lot of digging at the time of the bombing, and found evidence that McVeigh had met with Iraqi intelligence officers, among other things. Denied, laughed at, derided as 'conspiracy theory lunacy', and so forth. And if she was, indeed, correct in what she found?

Just like the last time, it's hard to write very well about this mess, it's too damn upsetting. Read the article, and see what you think.

The importance of standards

Both personally and in a society, they're priceless. And when you lose them?

I just finished 'Life At The Bottom', by Theodore Dalrymple, a British doctor(mentioned here at Kevin's place). He covers quite well what happens when multi-culti, PC beliefs throw the standards of a society out in the name of being 'inclusive' and 'sensitive'. Then I found this and this at Tech Central Station. All covering, in Britain, how things have gone downhill.

I can't remember where I first heard it, somone said "Tell your kids they have no prospects and they'll live down to them"; I'd add "Tell them there is no better or worse way to live, and they'll find the worst". Read the articles if nothing else; read the book if you can get hold of it. They're all scary as hell. Youve read of the increasing crime problems in Britain? From what I've found out, from these sources and others, it's worse- apparently much worse- than the official numbers let on. We tried some of the 'let the minor crimes go, worry about the big stuff' in many cities in the 60's & 70's, and crime rates exploded; I remember the upset when it was announced that New York City PD would no longer show up to take reports on routine burglaries because there were too many of them and too much other crime to deal with. Well, in most cities they finally got their collective heads out of their butts and stopped that. Rudy Guliani became famous because he insisted on "I don't care how minor the crime, arrest and prosecute them!". The civil liberties weenies screamed- as expected- and the average citazen applauded- as expected- and crime- ALL crime- began dropping. Lesson learned, except to those so tied to 'we must cuddle all people, no matter what they do' types.

But in Britain, it seems that they took that attitude, kept it going and are now at the extremes. The doctor notes cases he's personally witnessed where police show up after- sometimes during- an assault, break up the fight, and then refuse to arrest the bad guy. He's a known bad guy, you see, he'll just do it again, we've got more important things to worry about. The other side of this is if you're an honest citazen, and you smack somebody attacking you, YOU they'll arrest and take to jail, and do their very best to put in prison.

Standards. Those abandoned, and those people growing up without them. Why bother to work when you're guaranteed a place to live and food to eat and medical treatment? Why care about anything except your own desires of the moment when you face very little chance of any real punishment? Why worry about taking care of kids you bring into the world when they're guaranteed those things? Of course, that means the sperm-donor 'fathers' walking out, and/or beating up the mother and kids when they are around, and so forth. Which means the kids grow up thinking that's the normal way to behave.

We've got much of the same trouble here. It hasn't reached the proportions of Britain, and I have hopes that we can reverse the trend. But it's very troubling to see, and more troubling to consider how many people think the system in Britain is just the thing that we need here. It's like they look at what's happening there, and in places where it's tried here, and either cannot see it or refuse to acknowledge it.

Mark Steyn had a column recently where he was criticizing the British government for the 'shoot to kill if in doubt' policy when dealing with bombing suspects. There are parts of the column I'd argue with, but not the one where he points out that while the British government now has the agents of the state permitted to kill if they think someone might be about to enter a tube station or whatever with a bomb, if someone breaks into your house and tries to knife you and you swat him with a cricket bat, those same agents of the state will put you in prison. It used to be the standard in Britain that you had the God-given right to protect yourself and your family- and your HOME- with whatever force necessary, but that standard is gone.

Standards like 'if your kid misbehaves in school, you punish him for it; and you don't gripe at the school for punishing him'. That's been replaced by parents- using the term loosely- screaming at and threatening teachers for daring to fail a kid on a test, or for daring to tell the parent in a conference that the kid's in trouble now and it'll get worse if he doesn't straighten up. I've a friend who's a teacher, I've heard these stories firsthand as well as from the news. There was a kid in my daughters' first grade class who had 'developmental problems'; this was a polite way of saying he hit other kids, disrupted class, hit the teachers, and so forth. The parents threw a fit every time he was sent to the office: they knew he had a problem but didn't want him 'damaged' by being put in a special ed class, he deserved to be in a regular class and they'd SUE if you suggested otherwise! And the principal, and standard-issue bureaucrat, kept suspending the kid for a couple of days and then letting him back into the class. So the kid got to keep hurting other kids and keeping the teacher from possibly teaching the other kids, and that kid did not get the help he needed. All because the parents cared more about his tender feelings(can you say 'self-esteem? I knew you could) than about actually dealing with his problem. Their standards no longer included 'if your kid has a problem, get him in a class where he'll get the help he'll need' because it might stigmatize him, you see; much better to let him screw up a whole class than have his God-damned self-esteem troubled.

Standards like you don't let your pre-teen or teen daughter go out dressed and made-up like a cheap hooker because "that's the FASHION, don't you understand?!?" Standards like if your kid isn't doing well in school you find out why and try to fix it, not run to the school and blame the teacher for being mean/bigoted/whatever for daring to bring this up.

I wrote once before that I was split in my thoughts on some of my kid's friends when they were growing up. On the one hand they were really messing up their lives, and on the other they made such a fine bad example: "Yeah, So-and-So dresses and acts like that; remember what happened to them?" That's a damned expensive example; expensive to those kids directly, and expensive to other kids who thought that was cool and didn't get slapped down from acting the same.

Standards like an adult does not go out in public wearing a shirt with obscene words on it, or obscene suggestions. Standards like, if you're an adult, ACT LIKE ONE!

I do not think we should revert in all ways to the 'Father Knows Best' attitudes of earlier days, but in some damned important ways we should. We'd all be better off.

Microlon followup 4

128 miles, 2.8 gallons, 45 mpg. I think this would have been a bit better if not for some circumstances I won't go into right now. Overall, seems to be sitting(with this one corrected) at 47mpg, two above past norms. So far, so good.

Forging, part 2

When last I wrote of this, you had the blade rough-forged to shape, and now have to take care of the ricasso, and shape the tang.

Most modern knives have the edge end before the blade meets the guard; in most old knives, continuing up into the 1800's, the edge came all the way back. If you want the ricasso to have a squared-off or rounded section before the guard, have the edge run back a little further than the point you want it to end, then make sure the area you want for the ricasso is square with the blade shape- not bent up or down. Remember, leave it a little big in all dimensions, especially to the rear.

Now comes the tang. If you want a full tang- as wide and long as the grips, which will be riveted or pinned on- it's fairly simple. Mark off a touch shorter than you want the tang to be and cut the piece off, then into the fire with that end. Unless your blade is quite long, you'll need tongs to hold onto the piece at this point. Bring the tang section up to heat and hammer it out. At this point do two things; leave it oversize in width and length, and taper it a bit in thickness. A tapered tang is just as strong, and a lot lighter.

If you want a narrow or 'stick' tang, you will need something like this:

That piece on top of the anvil is a spring fuller. A fuller is a piece, often looking like a straight-peen hammer, used to shape a notch in steel. Often they're used as a set; the top fuller has a handle, the bottom fits into the hardy hole(the square one on the anvil face), and a hot piece is set between them to narrow it at that point. Obviously you need help to do it that way, so you can make one like this to do it alone. This is just a piece of coil spring from a truck suspension. Straighten out about two feet of it; flatten and bend one end into a 'U' to fit snugly into the hardy hole; flatten a section in the center and bend it over, leaving about an inch between the two round sections. To use it, you heat the area you wish to shape, slide it between the two round arms, and swat it right above the stock with a fairly heavy hammer. With a light piece you can use a lighter hammer, with a piece of thick stock you'll need more energy in the stroke. If the blade is very wide you put it in sideways, then turn it vertical. Pick a spot a little further back than you want the tang to begin(you can always grind up to the line), mark it if need be, heat it, put it in place and strike. Do one or two strokes, then flip the piece over and hit one or two from the other side; again, stop when the notches leave the stock a little wider than the finished tang will be. Now you can put the tang section back to heat, remove the fuller, and work out the tang.

Set the piece with the tang section on the anvil face and the notch at the edge, and hammer it along the length of the section; turn over and work the other side. That'll narrow and thicken it, so the next heat you work the sides, to thin and stretch the tang. Alternate sides to keep it even, and make the tang longer than needed. If you have a straight-peen hammer(cross-peen will do, straight is easier for me), you can use it like this: use the peen side and hammer a set of parallel notches in the piece, then flip it over and do the same, then flip back and flatten with the regular face. This will stretch the piece a lot faster, but if you don't watch it you can wind up making it thinner than you planned; it takes practice.

When the tang is forged, look at the piece from all angles. Is it straight? Is it twisted anywhere along its' length? Is the edge centered? If you spot a problem, correct it now, striking- or bending or twisting- just hard enough. When all is ready, there's a last step I'd recommend, called packing.

Supposedly this can refine the structure of the steel, making a better blade; I have noticed that if I do it right, it does seem to make a difference. Without that factor, it does smooth and even up the surface. In any case, take a hammer with a smooth face- not flat, just slightly rounded and as wide as you have-, bring as much of the blade as possible up to a low red heat, lay it on the anvil face with the flat of one side on the face, and start hammering with light, fast blows. Remember, this is not to shape, this is to refine, so control yourself. After it cools to a dark red, heat it back up and do the same on the other side, and try to use the same number of blows(roughly) and cover the same area as the first heat. If you need to heat a long blade in sections, no problem, just keep it even.

When you're done with this, back to the fire. This time you need to get the whole blade, or as much of it as you can, to a low red heat, as evenly over the length as possible. When it's there, take it out and let it cool in the air. I'll often clamp the tang in a vise and let it sit if it's a big one. When it's dark, do it again. I generally go for three annealing heats like this, the purpose of which is to even out stresses from hammering and, if you got it a bit too hot in earlier stages, will help keep the grain size of the steel where it should be. After the third heat, clamp it in the vise or set it somewhere safe and let it cool down completely.

The forging is done at this point. Next comes grinding, then heat-treating, then polishing.

Mr. Completely has OBVIOUSLY been drinking,

look at the spelling:
"In case you missed it I tagged you for the "What do you have on your Night
Stand" meme. Do you really keep a Scoytish Broad Sword next to the bed?"

'Scoytish'?, for God's sake?

Oh well, let's see... a lamp, a Surefire flashlight, a watch and sometimes something to drink on the table. By the bed... three, no, four books, David Drake, James Doss, Glen Cook and Rex Stout. No, there's not a broadsword, that's a little too tight quarters for that. There IS something sharp, and something noisy, just in case.

Assuming he's so hard up for reading that he comes by, I nominate the gentleman from mASS BACKWARDS. Due to living in the People's Republic of Maryland he doesn't have a noisemaker, but what else do you have there, dude?

And I'll try to get the next 'forging' installment in tomorrow.

Range report

I had a chance to try out a couple of firearms I've never worked with before; I had originally planned to shoot them next week, but as the last couple of days have not gone real well, it got done today(yeah, I know, lousy English).

First, the Savage 340 Series E

This is a bolt action repeater made, in this case, in .30-30 Winchester. There were very few bolt rifles made in this cartridge, and I'd rarely seen one of these. Barrel is 22 inches, it has a bead front and folding rear with a notch. It's light and handy, it'd work nicely in the woods. Trigger was light, I'd guess about 3-4 lbs, with a little creep.

One of the strange things about this is the magazine. Instead of a staggered-cartridge design it's a straight, like the Mosin Nagant. This one hold three cartridges; any more and the mag would stick out from the receiver bottom. And it's damn near impossible to load it from the top, you have to drop the mag to load. You can load single rounds, but you can't just drop it in and close the bolt, you have to push it into the chamber and then close, and with a flat-nose bullet it can be a bit of a pain.

Good things are, as mentioned, it's light and handy, and since you don't have to worry about a cartridge nose hitting the primer ahead of it in the magazine, you can load it with pointed bullets. What I had today was some cast-bullet loads I made up for practice with a Winchester 94, it's a 150-grain RCBS flatnose bullet with a gas check. If you're not familiar with this, on a gas-check bullet the base is slightly smaller diameter than the rest of the bullet body, and a copper cup is locked on. With lead bullets there are definate limits to how fast you can push them without badly fouling the bore; with a gas check on the base, you can drive them faster without a big mess to clean up. This load, if I remember correctly, drives the bullet about 1500fps, and is fairly accurate in my 94(I've also used this bullet in practice ammo for a .308, it's very versitile). So I tried it out, and got a pleasant surprise; very good accuracy out of this rifle. I'd started off at 50 yards, and then went to 100. My last five shots are below:

Overall group size is 2 3/8", with three within 3/4". That's accuracy that would put meat on the table at that range, and it's possible that with better sights- or a scope- that overall would tighten up nicely. Overall, it's a good rifle I wouldn't mind having. I've always liked the .30-30, and think a double-barrel in this cartridge would make a fine deer rifle in many areas. Maybe someday, if I win the lottery...

The other to try out is an odd beast, the Nagant Revolver

This thing fires a 7.62mm bullet(actual diameter about .311 I think) out of one of the stranger cartridges I've seen:

It's 1.5" long, and the bullet is seated way down inside the case(this is some Russian target ammo from SOG). When you cock the hammer, not only does the cylinder rotate, at the end it cams forward so the end of the case actually sits inside the forcing cone. When you fire, the case seals so you have no flash, and no pressure loss, between cylinder and bore. This makes this thing the only revolver I know of that will actually work very well with a silencer.

This one is a double-action, from what I've read they were also made single-action and double-action only. And it has what a friend once described as the 'trigger pull from Hell'. Single-action is not too bad, heavy but it breaks cleanly. Double-action is awful; heavy and it stacks toward the end. Sights are a tapered front post and a notch rear, though there are some target models with adjustable sights on the market.

I shot this one at ten yards, and was pleasantly surprised with the accuracy. Single-action fire gave nice tight groups(this ammo is a hollow-base wadcutter) as long as you could work the heavy trigger. The thing has a heavy V mainspring, and if you had one to work on you might be able to lighten the spring a bit to improve the trigger, but I don't know that for certain, it's just a guess.

Ammo for this is either the Russian stuff shot today($15 for 40 rounds), Fiocci($25 to $30 for 50!) or handload. Starfire now makes brass for this cartridge, and RCBS has dies. Lee makes a die set to load ammo using .32-20 brass; from what I've read it works pretty well. This case isn't long enough to give the gas seal, but it's a lot less expensive than factory ammo and from what I've read, with the right bullet gives good results.

I'd like to have one of these because of the history of them, and the unique action. It's a Belgian design, selected by the Czar's army in Russia, and stayed in use clear through WWII.

Overall a much nicer day than I'd expected it to be when I woke up.

Forging, part 1

I thought I'd go through the process, and my favorite thing to make being blades, I'll focus on that this time.

This may sound silly, but before you start, decide just what it is you're going to make. Not just 'a knife', but details: how long a blade, how wide, what shape, what kind of tang and how long? That affects not only the making, but also the choice of steel. What I'd choose for a big, heavy-cutting type of blade isn't what I'd choose for a smaller general-purpose type. It also affects how big a fire you need; you only work a section at a time, until near the end, but a big knife will, obviously, start out with bigger stock and need more heat.

That decided, the steel in hand, light off the forge, let it burn a few minutes to clean out the fire, then put the first section in to heat. While it's heating make sure the tongs are handy(if needed), the hammers you'll need are handy, and any other tools- such as a fuller to narrow the blade at the tang- haven't wandered off to hide..

If you're starting with round bar stock, the first thing you do is flatten it, wide and thick enough to shape the blade. Again, a section at a time; unless you have a really big forge, about 6" is as much as you can heat at this stage. DO NOT hammer the stock too thin; leave it thicker than you need, as you can always thin it a bit more later. And, unless you want to leave hammer marks in the finished piece, you'll want to leave it a bit thick at the end, so you have enough mass to grind away the forge marks.

Ok, you've worked your way down, and have about 12" of the bar flattened out. I'll generally leave it attached to the main bar 'till near the end; holding onto the bar is generally more secure than using tongs. Now you shape the point.

Let's say you're making a bowie-style blade with a straight clip point like this one. You start off by heating the squared-off end and forging it down so that it tapers from the back of the blade to the edge, not the other way around(reason to come). You'll have to hammer the sides to keep the thickness even as you go, and you should wind up with a bar with a straight angle from a few inches back from the end down to the point. It may take several heats, depending on thickness/width/type of steel, just try to get it done with the least number possible. Every time you bring a piece up to red heat, you lose some metal from the hot surface combining with oxygen in the air and forming scale that falls off as you hammer.

Now, if you haven't already, decide how long you intend the blade to be from point to end of cutting edge, and either keep a steel ruler handy or mark it with soapstone or something. And now you can start forging in the bevels, the angles from the back of the blade to the edge.

Start at the point, and this is why you wanted to taper the end from the back down toward the edge. Bring a section up to heat, place it on the anvil face with the edge along one edge of the face, and start hammering. I use a 4lb. hammer with a nicely rounded face for this(not applicable all users, your results may vary), and start from the point and work my way back. This gets tricky because you don't want the hammer to be coming down squarely on the stock, you want it to come down at a bit of an angle, so the strike is thinning the edge and leaving further back thick. This does two things; first, it gives the blade a nice taper from back to edge and second, it stretches the edge further than the rest. This causes the point to curve back up, and with experience you can, by working the edge and the clip section of the back, adjust the shape so the point will be exactly where you want it. It can be amazing how much the point will move as you shape the bevels, in some blades I will shape the point as described above, then hammer it over the horn so it droops down below the edge; that way, when I shape the bevels of some shapes I don't wind up having to hammer the point back down because it's become too high.

Work this side, then put it back into the fire, get it up to heat, and then work the other side of the blade in the same area, preferably with roughly the same number of strokes(it helps keep things even). Then turn it edge up and look at it closely. The edge should be centered along the length you've worked so far; if it's not, even it up now. This works much better than doing the whole length and then trying to straighten it all- especially on long blades. Trust me.

When this is all as you want it- smooth taper from back to edge, point where you want it, move back to the next section, heat it and hammer. Two things to remember here: first, in a long blade you may have to give much of the blade a downward curve before you start hammering the bevels in, with a long blade it can be amazing how much the blade will curve up as you shape the bevels; second, remember to leave it thicker than you want the finished piece to be. Not only do you want to be able(generally speaking) to have enough stock to grind & polish out the forge marks, but by leaving it a bit thick, the finish grinding after heat treating will remove the surface steel that lost carbon to the fire. So work your way back to the point where the edge will end, and at that point you'll need to shape the ricasso- the area where the blade body meets the tang- and the tang. That'll be part two.