I’m on a Roll

I ruined a supporting two-by-six on my workbench last night, implementing a clever scheme to enable me to drill straight down through seven inches of wood without a drill press. It works like this: you make marks at the far end of the workpiece, so that when you sight along the side of the bit, you can keep it aligned with them. The theory is that if the bit tilts either way, it won’t be vertical any more. And it works. Just not well enough to be worth doing. In other words, it works about as well as guessing. Which, I guess, means it DOESN’T work.

Oh well. Seven dollars down the toilet.

I should have bought me a drill guide. But unbelievably, Home Depot didn’t have them. A trip to Sears is in order.

I knew a day would come when the lack of a drill press would bite me in the ass pretty hard. And here it is. But I think I would rather blow forty bucks on a drill guide than nearly five hundred on a press. And it would be a good thing to have, press or no press.

When I finally buy, it looks like Steel City is the best choice for a drill press I will never outgrow. Out of the stuff available at the prices I can stand to pay, this one has the longest stroke, plus a few other features I forget. This job, all by itself, is a good argument for a long stroke. It would be a pain, drilling these 7″ holes with a short stroke. If the prices start to creep up, I’m going to get one. Sooner or later, it has to happen. Oil is high, the dollar is low, and the Chinese will eventually get spoiled.

There are a lot of neat old commercial drill presses on Ebay. But even if you eliminate the 220 and 440 machines, plus the machines that are just too big, you’re looking at worn-out items over a thousand miles away, with no warranty. For this risk, you save about a hundred bucks.

I’m going to go ahead and get .45 bullets in the Hornady promotion. I guess it’s the best choice. Now I have to worry about primers and powder, which means I need a manual. The ABCs of Handloading has a chapter where a guy who makes match ammunition for pistols recommends a bunch of stuff, but I’ve gotten so paranoid from warnings to read the manual, I am afraid to listen to him. He recommends something called Bullseye powder. I would like to go ahead and order it with the manual and save money (can’t get the manual in local stores), but I guess I’m screwed.

The guy in the book says you don’t have to sort or trim cartridges for pistols, so that’s good. But he likes very slow loads (under 800 fps), which is a bummer. I would like to learn to shoot, using loads that feel similar to defensive ammunition. But I guess it doesn’t matter. An inch or two of difference at fifty feet probably won’t make me lose a gunfight. One comforting thing about self-defense is that if you can shoot at all, and you have done any preparation worth mentioning, you are miles ahead of a typical moron criminal. I suppose you don’t need pinpoint accuracy, if you can reliably pump someone’s torso full of lead at distances from which a generic criminal can’t hit a house.

More Tool Woes

Once again I must call on the tool gurus for help.

I have to mount my reloading press on my workbench. The best way to do it is to drill holes and use hex bolts. But the holes have to be over 7″ deep, and they have to go vertically through a two-by-six. And obviously, it will be bad if they aren’t straight, because they will come out of the side of the wood.

So, what’s the deal? I have a foot-long bit already.