Month: May 2024

Shop Update

I’ve decided I really don’t like FedEx delivery. The last two times they have delivered, they have delivered late. For the company that made a name for itself by being on time with the best tracking is now performing worse than the USPS.

When last we left you, we were doing something in the shop. Progress has been made.

Is that a little hang-out you have there?

This shows a different view of the shop. On the right, the Bridgeport is cutting a slot in the homemade toolholders.

These 3 are BXA sized, but the front slot is for 1/2″ tools. The key is that the top of the tool is at nearly the same height as if you had a 5/8″ tool in a regular BXA holder. It will be using 1/4-20 set screws for clamping and 3/8-16 for the height adjust.

The red tray over the lathe is shop made. Originally, there would have been a plate to hold collets for the lathe. I did not have the collet chuck, the collet closer nor did I have the tray. I had the post and the ring to hold the draw bar.

A few years ago, I made up this thing. It has three separators to keep the toolholders from sliding down or off. The plate is steel, but the separators are aluminum angle. This was a great improvement and organization system.

The three rows are “right hand turning tools”, “left hand/facing tools”, and boring bars.

I actually have more tools than I have holders, thus the need to make the toolholders. I’m waiting for a dovetail cutter to arrive before I can complete the toolholders.

There is another 12 inches for 6 more toolholders. 4 will be 5/8 slots and 2 will be 3/4 slots.

You can see the rotary table on the mill. I used the rotary table to finish the alignment boss for the chuck. You can see the shiny backing plate attached to the second chuck. Once it was attached to the chuck, I moved both to the lathe to face and turn it to size.

The jaws have been removed from the second chuck to allow it to fit against the jaws.

Yesterday’s progress didn’t feel like that much. I finished the slots in the first three toolholders. I got this picture, so I can break down the chuck in chuck setup. I drilled and tapped the holes in the retaining plate for the rotary table., and I started cutting the groove for the spring washer.

On the rotary table, you can see a small lever pointing to the right. That is the lever to rotate the eccentric to engage or disengage the worm. That disk is a replacement for the original. That is now completed.

Once that was done, I removed the retaining collar, the worm backlash adjust, the eccentric retaining plate.

With that, the eccentric came out with no issues. The worm came out by unscrewing it.

It was here that I realized that I had to cut a groove in the eccentric, not the central. Bummer.

This required changing out the chuck for the four jaw.

Which meant I had to actually clean the four jaw chuck. That went well. It still has 3 tight jaws, but it is much, much better.

Once the four jaw was back together, I realized that the cradle for the 3 jaw doesn’t fit the four jaw. This meant it was a pain in the rump to get it on. It happened.

Then I had to dial in the eccentric so it ran true. What this means is that by moving to opposing jaws, you can move the workpiece. By putting a dial indicator on the boss, you can measure the difference between opposite sides. You then move things until the reading stays the same as you rotate it.

I dialed everything in to within 0.001. For a groove, this is more than good enough.

I then realized I didn’t have a grooving tool. So I ground one.

Just as I started to cut the groove, Something felt off. I think the workpiece slipped in the chuck. I’m not sure that I tightened all the jaws fully.

This means I have to dial it back in again. Not a bit deal, but that is a today job, not a yesterday job.

The only task, after completing the groove, is to cut flats on the worm. This is a slight issue as I do not have any metric 5C collets to hold it.

This means that I will need to get ER40 collet blocks to go with my 5C collet blocks. A cheap set of metric ER40 collets covers nearly the same range as 5C and is pretty cheap.

What I will likely do is to use a pair of matched V-Blocks to hold it and use a square to make both sides parallel.

Again, this is not critical. It just has to be good enough for the crank arm to fit over and to be locked in place by the screw.

Is the goal to make us hate them?

 

And the City doubled down in theory support.

 

The cop shot a old, blind, deaf, 10 lbs Shih Tzu because he feared getting bit.

What a dickless coward.

He makes the officers who stood around in Uvalde with their thumbs up their asses looked like He-Men.

If the cops wanted us normal people to hate them, would they be doing anything differently?

Ask The Right Question

As we have discussed, multiple times, the courts are only allowed to act when there is an active dispute. This is most often seen in “The Question” put to the court.

The formation of those questions can make or break a case.

As cases move through the appeals process, the parties will state the question in the most favorable light to that party.

The state might say: The question is whether the state has the authority to regulate the sale of dangerous implements?

The People might phrase it as: Does the Constitution protect The People’s right to acquire arms?

Part of the problem is that we all fall into the trap of using the enemy’s language. When we do, we have lost at least part of the battle, and maybe the war.

Judge VanDyke wrote a powerful dissent in Duncan. In that dissent, he wrote about how the courts should analyze Second Amendment cases. His answer, to the Ninth Circuit, was that they should use strict scrutiny.

We have learned that the correct answer is we use the text and this Nation’s historical tradition of firearms regulation.

When we use text and history, we win.

What this means, is that we should never be fighting for strict scrutiny. Any level of scrutiny is a request for the judiciary to balance away our rights.

Questions Presented

  1. Whether the Constitution allows the government to prohibit law-abiding, responsible citizens from protecting themselves, their families, and their homes with semiautomatic firearms that are in common use for lawful purposes.
  2. Whether the Constitution allows the government to prohibit law-abiding, responsible citizens from protecting themselves, their families, and their homes with ammunition magazines that are in common use for lawful purposes.
  3. Whether enforcement of Illinois’s semiautomatic firearm and ammunition magazine bans should be enjoined.

Harrel v. Raoul

The question(s) should not have are in common use for lawful purposes. The reason is simple, that is not what the plain text of the Second Amendment says. It says, “shall not be infringed.”

Remember, it is text first. Does the conduct of the individual, wishing to possess semiautomatic banned by Illinois, implicate the plain text of the Second Amendment and if so, has the state provided examples of firearms regulation in keeping with this Nation’s historical traditions?

Now, my phrasing isn’t the best. I hope you get the idea. When we simplify the question (K.I.S.S.) then it becomes clear that this isn’t about “lawful purposes”, nor is it about “law-abiding”, nor “responsible” citizens. It is text, and historical tradition of firearms regulations.

The state has not met their burden of proving that historical tradition.

For context, here is the state’s response:

Question Presented

Whether petitioners are entitled to a preliminary injunction on their claim that state and local laws restricting civilian possession of assault weapons and large-capacity ammunition feeding devices violate the Second Amendment.

Notice that the question presented by the state has nothing to do with the constitutionality of the law in question, it is about the interlocutory state of the case.

Smoking is hazardous to your health.

And being stupid too does not help.

An SUV parked in a Van Nuys parking lot on Thursday night suddenly exploded after the driver lit a cigarette next to some propane canisters he stored inside.

Firefighters and police rushed to a supermarket parking lot in the 7200 block of Van Nuys Boulevard after receiving a call about an SUV that exploded around 10:30 p.m., police said. When first responders arrived, the man told them he had been trying to light a cigarette when the explosion happened. Investigators said he was living in the vehicle during the explosion.

He suffered minor injuries and was taken to a nearby hospital, according to the Los Angeles Police Department.

 

SUV explodes after man tries to light a cigarette near propane canisters – CBS Los Angeles (cbsnews.com)

 

I.Want.So.Bad.

“Nah, I am done with handguns for a while. There is nothing that I really like out there ”

And earlier today I heard Michael Bane’s podcast and a new gun being introduced.

One of the painful holes in my small stash of sidearms is a snubby and I am not much into the modern look at all. And the old cool guns are priced into the four figure sky, so forget about it

But the Roscoe? A 2″ .38 Special +P? super old school snubbie retailing for $360? Oh! hellyesIwantsoverymuchthankyou.

Heritage Roscoe 2″ Wood (heritagemfg.com)