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.

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.

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.

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:

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.

It has been a wonderful shop week. I squared up a 3.5x6x1.5 using a homemade fly cutter. Very nice results. Tried to mill a slot with a 3/4 roughing end mill, but it didn’t sound good, so I switched to using a face mill.

Finished cutting the slot to depth, pleased as punch, found out that the slot was too wide. Measure at least once!

This led to me doing still more organizational work in the shop. That includes 12 strong magnetic hooks, so I can hang clipboards almost anywhere.

Turns out that I can mill that face down level and then cut the slot again, with an end mill.

The result was beautiful. I’ve milled a slot 1.406 wide, 0.420 deep in the center and 4.005 deep on the edges. I started cutting the dovetails. It looks beautiful.

My dovetail cutter is too small.

Oh, well. I can’t stop there, I’ve got a larger dovetail cutter on its way.

Meanwhile, the missing parts to the dividing plate accessories arrived today. I do have to cut a grove for the spring washer to hold the sector arms in place. I am also going to turn and thread the eccentric to take a threaded ring for tensioning.

I should be able to cut my first gears this weekend! I’m looking forward to it. I do need to take a picture of the 3-jaw chuck holding another 3-jaw chuck with a backplate bolted on for facing. That worked better than I should have expected.

One of the things I’ve started doing since my cast iron mistake is that I am actually looking at and working with the right feeds and speeds. It makes a difference.

In court cases.

The Supreme Court held a conference yesterday, they will release their order list on Monday. During this conference, they discussed Harrel v. Raoul. This is the lead case in the cases out of the Seventh Circuit court over PICA. The Illinois semi-auto and magazine ban cases.

In my opinion, this is the case to be watching. Given the opinions that were issued yesterday by the Supreme Court, the justice that will be writing the opinion is Rahemi will be one of the conservative justices. It could even be Thomas, himself.

Thank you for all the feedback I received regarding being fat. I will continue to work the problem.

The comments, of course, are open. Please let us know what is on your mind, what you’d like to hear about, or just pick your best meme of the week and share.

Before the Bruen opinion, the Supreme Court heard arguments in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc., et al., v. City of New York, New York, et al.. This case had been working its way up through the court system for many years.

The Second Circuit heard the case on August 17, 2016, and issued their opinion on February 23, 2018.

From this, we can see that the arguments used then are the same they are using today. They are hyper focused on the part which allows them to wiggle and not on the part where the Supreme Court told the inferior courts “The People have a right to keep and bear arms.”.

The remark about Heller and McDonald not giving the “scope” of the Second Amendment nor telling the inferior courts how to analyze Second Amendment cases is a self reference, back to the Second Circuit court.

The state argued for over 5 years that the law was absolutely required to protect the subjects of New York City and New York State.

From June 2018 through January 2019, the state continued to represent that this law was required. That blood would run in the streets if it was struck down. That the Supreme Court should not grant certiorari.

Part of the reason that the Second Circuit court said that this law was required was because people with NYC “target licenses” were going to the range without abiding by the rules on how to store and transport firearms to the range.

No harm was caused by The People not following the exact rules, but the NYPD decided the only answer, and least restrictive answer, was to eliminate “target licenses”.

On Jan 22, 2019, Certiorari was granted.

On April 12, 2019, the state informed the Supreme Court that a new rule was being considered by the state and asking for the court to hold all briefings on the case until that rule making process was completed.

Of course, everybody with an interest in the Second Amendment went into over drive filing briefs. All the normal names were there. The briefs continued until Nov. 20, 2019. The case was argued two weeks later, on Dec. 2nd.

4 months later, the court issued their judgement. The case was vacated and remanded because of mootness.

This is and has been the states’ method when they are about to lose. It is more important to them that no unfavorable opinions be issued than it is to stand their grounds on “moral” principles.

And that is precisely what is happening in this case. The governor of Hawaii asked for a new law allowing for the possession of butterfly knives. The legislature passed the law.

The state is now arguing to the Ninth Circuit en banc panel that the case should be vacated and remanded because it is a moot issue, not withstanding that “possessing” and “bearing” are two different parts of the right to keep and bear arms.

Being the Ninth Circus, this is the type of argument that they will often find “convincing”

I am that whale. I’m overweight. I gross myself out when I look at my body in a mirror. I hate stepping on a scale.

I’m the guy who has to have a special office chair because regular chairs will break under my load.

The last time I flew, I was stuffed into economy, near the back of the plane. I didn’t complain. I just took my seat.

Getting into the seat was a struggle. My hips barely fit. The belt was a tight fit, but it did fit.

I felt sorry for the young lady who was forced to sit next to me. I believe there was a pleasant conversation, but I am large enough that even that “normal” sized person was forced to actually touch the stranger beside her.

Regardless, I was disgusted.

I gained wait after that flight during the panic. With exercise and a change in diet, I did start to come down in weight.

But I seem to have gained most of it back. According to my lady, I look and feel healthier, in that my size has reduced. But it doesn’t help the mental angst that I have from being fat.

When I read Miguel’s post about the woman demanding airlines be “more inclusive of plus size travel”, it hurt.

So I walked away. I know that he was not addressing me. Nevertheless, as more than one person has said, friendly fire isn’t.

So how do I differentiate myself from that person?

Simple, that article is about an entitled near human that wants special snowflake treatment. She isn’t interested in getting health. She isn’t interested in losing weight.

It hurts to walk. I left my right ACL at Bear Mountain, NY more than 30 years ago. It hurts if I have to walk any distance. I tried the treadmill for about a year, I had to stop because the doctor gave me a choice, keep walking/running on the treadmill, or we can schedule your knee replacement.

So I got an exercise bike.

I get on that bike 5 days a week. Sick or not, tired or not. My goal is 45 minutes per ride. I was up to 30 minutes when the old bike broke. I’m back up to 20–25 minutes and working towards getting healthier.

I’m out in the shop doing things. 4+ hours in the shop standing is a type of exercise. When I come in the door, my ass is dragging. There are three steps from the garage to the family room. I use my arms for extra stability because my legs wobble.

There are another two steps into the kitchen. It is a struggle to get up those steps.

Today, I was so tired when I came in for dinner that I forgot to take off my apron. I went back to the garage to put it away. I didn’t ask the kid to do it. And yes, those steps were just as painful and just as hard the second time.

So when I read about entitled fat people, I need to remember that my goal is to get health. I will continue to work on it.

I was watching Dead Boy Detectives with my lady and wife when a blast from the past showed up as part of the soundtrack.

Yes’s Owner of a Lonely Heart from their album 90125. You can go find it if you wish.

The song got me thinking about some of my old favorites. One of those is Pinball Wizard by The Who.

I learned to play the pinball when I was about 12. When I went to University, they had two pinball machines in each dorm snack shop. Those machines ate 100s of quarters. Back when it was a quarter per game and five balls per game.

This was the soundtrack of those days of playing the silver ball.

Harrel v. Raoul Illinois semi-auto ban: Scheduled for second conference!

Bianchi v. Brown Maryland semi-auto ban: Cert denied. Likely because this is pre-judgement. Fourth Circuit has heard this case en banc but has not issued their opinion.

Harrel is a good case to be heard by the Supreme Court. This is great news!