Relic From the Archives

Can I tell you how great it is to dream of something for decades and then do it?

I am going to get up off my lazy rear end and take a photo of something for you.

That is my copy of The Metalworker’s Benchtop Reference Manual. I got it about 20 years ago. I’ll tell you why I bought it.

My mother had some stone crab claws. Stone crabs have very thick shells. They are not easy to bust. These days, most sellers crack them before they sell them. That was not the case in the 80s. At least, not at the place where my mother got these claws. She needed help with them.

The standard thing to do is to get a hammer and put the claws on a cutting board, one at a time, and go at it. But that makes shells and bits of crab fly around, and it’s easy to overdo it. My solution? Vise Grips.

It turns out that if you tighten Vise Grips on a crab claw using the screw in the handle, you can break a very tough crab claw by squeezing the handles without much force at all. It’s beautiful.

That inspired me. I thought I needed to make my own crab claw breakers. The Vise Grips worked okay, but it was time-consuming to adjust the screw before every squeeze. I had a couple of ideas for a set of pliers that used leverage.

I went to a local machine shop and paid a guy $35 to make some pliers I designed. They would have worked, but he used 1/8″ mild steel, so they weren’t strong enough.

I knew absolutely nothing about machining. I got a drill press, and then I went to a metal supply place and ordered a small amount of tool steel. You can probably imagine how well that went. The instant a spinning tool hits tool steel (at the wrong speed, with no lube or coolant), the tool steel hardens up until it’s about like a diamond. I managed to get part of the way through the project, and then I quit. It was at some point during this time that I got the manual. It was pretty much the only book I had seen anywhere that I thought might contain a clue about how to make the crab pliers. I saw it in a bookstore one day, and I bought it on a whim.

I never got any benefit from the book, nor did I succeed in creating the pliers. But it shows how long I have been interested in machining.

I am in the process of getting a metal lathe. Readers and people I’ve contacted via forums are giving me all sorts of advice. Everyone said the tooling was what would kill me, and I tried not to think about it until the lathe order was in the works. Now reality is in my face, and I am buying things like fishtail gauges, dial calipers (better than the Chicom jobs I already have), indexed carbide tools, and a tool post. Thank God for China and the used-tool market. Without these resources, there is no way the cost of this effort would be something I could make myself swallow.

Machining experts seem to agree that you should learn turning before you learn milling, so the lathe is probably a good move. But I would still like to make those crab pliers! I could do it on a lathe, if I could get a milling attachment. I’m pretty sure Clausing made about 3 of those attachments, and they have since been sold for scrap and turned into doorknobs. I suppose there’s a work-around. There always is.

I can’t wait to do this. I can’t wait to see the first chip squirting off the surface of a workpiece. FINALLY. This will be even better than the table saw, which, without a doubt, is a life-changing tool.

Maybe I’ll even get to use that book.

I’m convinced that good things like this come from turning back to God.

Make it Fast

I wish I had known about this before I went to bed.

Someone I got to know through Nowlive has had a series of strokes. Right now he is in surgery. This is one of the nicest people you could ever hope to know. I have been asked to post a prayer request.

I ask you to pray that the surgery is successful, and that he is healed completely, and of course, that he draw closer to God.

I Plead Guilty

I have depressing news about Mish Weiss. Don’t worry; the news about her health is great. What’s depressing is the way she has been treated.

Many people have been praying for Mish. Many of those people are Christians. And Christians want other people to become Christians. I certainly do; I don’t pretend otherwise. But it looks like some people got overexcited and used poor judgment, going overboard in their efforts to expose her to the gospel.

Mish wrote a polite response on her blog, stating that she did not wish to become a Christian. It’s her decision to make. God gives each of us that choice.

Since then, she has been receiving hate mail from people claiming to be Christians. I don’t say “claiming to be Christians” because I don’t think Christians could do this. They certainly could, and I’m sure some of the responsible people are Christians. I say it because it’s possible that some of the vicious morons who sent these emails were just posing as Christians to make trouble. Like the Democrats who call radio shows and use the phrase “lifelong Republican” to describe themselves.

One particularly fine person sent an email accusing Mish of hating Christians. Wasn’t that helpful and loving? She was also called “Christ-killer.” And worse.

I can’t believe there are Christians so stupid, bigoted, and vicious that they would use the term “Christ-killer.” The fact is, every Christian is a Christ-killer. We believe Jesus had to die, and chose to do so, in order to pay for our sins. That means he is our sacrifice. Our sins caused it. So we are the ones who caused the death of Christ. It amazes me that there are people who don’t understand that. Have you sinned? Have you accepted Jesus and asked for forgiveness? If so, you’re a Christ-killer. Get used to it.

A long while back, I got a ridiculous, self-righteous email criticizing me for not pushing Mish to accept Christ. I posted the text here, and I explained why this person was wrong.

Many Christians are unfamiliar with Jews and the Jewish mind. I’m more aware than most. I’ve been living among Jews since I was three. Half of the students at my high school were Jewish. I spent three years at Columbia University, which has a big Jewish population. I lived in Israel for four months. Aaron even got me in to some yeshiva classes.

I know that Jews feel threatened by Christianity. Christians were responsible for the Inquisition, pogroms, and much of what happened in the Holocaust. Hitler was hostile to Christianity, and he persecuted Christians, but many of the people who did the grunt work were Christians, and it was not unusual for them to tell Jews that persecution was justified because Jews killed Christ (I thought it was the Romans!). Some Catholic clerics helped the Nazis. On top of that, Jews believe they cease to be Jews if they accept Jesus, and they are extremely concerned about their dwindling numbers. They are afraid of disappearing as a people.

I am familiar with the sophisticated objections Jews have raised to the divinity of Jesus. I am aware that most Jews do not take proselytizing efforts gracefully; you can’t just give a Jew the same canned speech you would give any Gentile on the street and expect to get anywhere. In all likelihood, you’ll just alienate them and increase their antipathy toward your religion. I know these things. Many ignorant Christians do not. And I will not be judged by the ignorant.

When I got involved in the prayer campaign for Mish, I also knew that the Bible instructs us to look out for the Jews, without any requirement that they become proselytes. No strings attached. That’s the assignment. So I was perfectly content to pray and offer encouragement; I felt no need to badger this poor sick woman.

There is no Biblical precedent for badgering people. Find me an example in the New Testament. There is none. The early evangelists went from place to place, making their case. Those who chose, accepted Jesus. And that was the end of it.

The Bible tells us God calls people to become Christians. He knows who will listen and who will not. If that is the case, then telemarketer-style sales techniques are unscriptural and ultimately serve to harm the church by giving it a bad name.

I believe you pray for people to give in. You try to live a life that makes them jealous of what you have, so they feel moved to try to get it for themselves. You tell them about the benefits you’ve received. And if that doesn’t work, you need to give it a rest, because when you torment people in the name of Jesus, you only drive them farther away.

How stupid do you have to be to think Jesus wants you to call Mish Weiss a Christ-killer? How can a brain as small as yours even manage to coordinate things like breathing? Explain why you think this is likely to make her want to convert. I’m sure whoever wrote that idiotic email or comment reads this blog. Enlighten us all, oh holy one.

Self-righteous imbeciles have probably succeeded in undoing whatever positive work the rest of us managed to do over the last few months. Here’s what I have to say to them: Chabad should hire you to make sure no one ever converts to Christianity again. You are doing things they could never hope to do. I am ashamed to belong to the same religion as you. You are a disgrace. And you are taking God’s name in vain, pretending to serve him by expressing your hatred.

Okay, enough of that. Here is the good news. Mish’s blast cell count has dropped below 30%. That is fantastic. And her blood counts are up. The stronger she gets–I think I have this right–the better she’ll be able to tolerate treatment that could cure her. So the prayers are working. I mean Christian AND Jewish prayers. Nowhere does the Bible say God only hears the prayers of Christians, or that he only hears when you pray in the name of Jesus.

Let’s keep it up. We can’t ask for better results than this.

I Only Like Religions Endorsed by Major Celebrities

I’ll tell you what. I am fed up with congestion.

I don’t know if it’s pollen or what, but I am having all sorts of sleep problems due to nasal congestion. I was getting up at 5:30 every morning, and I really enjoyed it. Now even if I go to bed early, I tend to feel crummy when I get up, so I add two hours to the alarm setting, and I go back to sleep. Today when I woke up I was so out of it I got up and made coffee in order to help me make it to the shower. Have you ever awakened in such a state that you had a hard time keeping your balance during your first steps? That’s me today.

I probably need to sterilize my bedroom. Wash the mattress cover and dust ruffle, mop under the bed, dust everything in sight, and get more of that Clorox allergy spray. I may also get a memory foam pillow. When I was a kid, a doctor told my mother I couldn’t have feather pillows, and at the time, he was wrong. Maybe he’s right now.

I still haven’t recovered from the time change. That’s weird. Usually it doesn’t bother me at all. I tried melatonin, but the results were not great. I tended to wake up in the middle of the night. I don’t know if that’s the melatonin or something else.

I strongly suspect that when you have a good prayer life, and there are people that need your help, God will literally wake you up so you can pray. Maybe that’s what’s happening now. I am determined to be thankful for the opportunity, but I think you know how that works. “Thanks for giving me this chance to pray, and boy would I thank you even more if you gave someone else the chance tomorrow. That would be just great, because I hate to hog the righteousness.”

Here’s a good question for everyone. Have you ever been shaken up by an answer to prayer? I’ll explain. Usually when I pray for things, I find myself praying for things that are likely to happen regardless of whether I pray. “Keep me safe.” “Help me find the car keys.” But sometimes I pray for things that are extremely unlikely to happen without divine intervention. One example: I pray that people I know will become Christians. That’s a tough one, because it involves manipulating beings who have free will, and it also involves a decision that is subject to tremendous cultural bias.

People who are not Christians are often very contemptuous of Christianity; praying for them to change is a little like praying that I will give up Christianity and become a Scientologist or a Mormon. Many people see Christianity as beneath their level of sophistication, and they may see Christians as rubes and suckers. The thought of having their cool friends look down on them is too much to bear. Often, the barrier is pride. It feels great, thinking you’re more clever than people who picked the wrong religion. That’s something I need to watch, as a matter of fact.

Why is it that American Buddhists are so stuck up? Can someone explain that to me? Buddhists can’t wait to tell you they’re Buddhists; it’s as if they think they won the Nobel Prize. The real message, much of the time isn’t “I’m a Buddhist.” It’s “I am smarter and more moral than you.” Isn’t bragging about your morality and humility sort of oxymoronic?

Was Buddha stuck up? Isn’t that bad karma? And why do so many Westerners assume Asians have deep wisdom? One look at Asia is all you need to realize how kooky that idea is. Life in Asia is pretty awful, and it always has been. How come the deep wisdom isn’t kicking in and fixing things? Also, if human beings are recycled, how come there are six billion of us now? Where did all the new souls come from? Maybe a lot of us are recently promoted ants and cockroaches.

If you were a cockroach not too long ago, what do you have to be arrogant about? You must have been a mighty impressive cockroach. And if you insist on being arrogant, why be arrogant toward other human beings? The appropriate thing would be to lord it over all the folks who are still cockroaches.

I often think one big draw of Buddhism is that it enables you to work on yourself without having to oppose or even acknowledge sin. That’s pleasant, because it means you never have to take a stand, and you never have to give anything up because it’s sinful. This is probably why gays love Buddhism. You can be gay and be a full-blown, hardcore Buddhist. In order to be a gay Christian or Jew, you have to mangle the Bible pretty badly.

Some non-Christians feel brave and strong because they don’t need the “crutch” of an “imaginary” God. Unlike those weak Christians who chose to be torn apart in the Coliseum rather than deny God. Wow, what crutch-dependent weaklings. That isn’t courage. Real courage is standing up in a room full of your fellow unbelievers, saying you believe exactly what they do. I guess.

It takes real bravery to do things that make your life easier. That must be how it works.

I have never understood how anyone could feel smug about thinking for himself, while espousing beliefs that tend to bring him approval and acceptance. I think the funniest examples are on college campuses. Kids who rebel by doing and saying exactly what their teachers tell them to. Tenured professors who pretend it’s brave to spout rhetoric their bosses agree with. How is it brave to speak out, when you can’t be fired for it? You can’t “Question Authority” by agreeing with everyone who has power over you. The proper term for that is “toadying.”

I’m off on a tangent. All I’m saying is, it’s a big deal when a prayer involving changing another person’s mind is answered. I was using prayers regarding religious choices as examples.

Not long ago, I had a prayer granted, and it had seemed so unlikely, I literally looked up and thanked God in a state of confusion and amazement. I always try to believe God will grant my requests, but the human mind is a funny place where a belief and its opposite can exist at the same time; when you say you believe something, you usually mean you have less doubt than belief. So when God comes along and crushes the remaining doubt, it wakes you right up. Are all believers like me? Maybe Moses was startled when God parted the Red Sea.

It’s funny; faith is not constant in a given person. It varies in degree. I suppose it would be impossible, on my worst day, to convince me that God doesn’t exist. On the other hand, it can be a big shock when he does something really bold that forces me to realize he’s really there.

Let me know if it has ever happened to you. Meanwhile I better suck it up and clean that bedroom.

My Whole World View is Crumbling

Most of the time, being absent-minded is a minor inconvenience, but sometimes it’s embarrassing. Example: I received a prayer request and forgot to post it. It comes from JeffW.

In addition to your prayers for Mish, could you also lift up a boy by the name of Russell? He is a 13-year old student at my daughter’s homeschool co-op that has a cancerous brain tumor. The family was informed last night that the tumor had grown 3-4 times it’s previous size in the last six weeks and the prognosis is not good. The family are all committed Christians, so they value prayer.

I had no business going about my business and forgetting to put this up. Prayer is powerful, and sometimes it is needed desperately. I should have mentioned this earlier. And don’t forget Mish. Her fever is going up and down. I assume that’s a good sign, since it suggests the bacteria are not getting their way.

Overall, my own walk is going well. Lately I have let things disrupt my routine, so prayer and study have suffered somewhat. I am working to fix it, and I’m going to succeed.

For many Christians, faith is all about not going to hell. As I keep saying, I don’t focus on that. I can’t recall ever having concerns about going to hell; I have no idea when I became a Christian, but it was a long time ago, and since then, I haven’t thought a lot about my own salvation. What I do think about is leading a blessed and productive life. I can’t tell you what heaven is like. I’ve never been there. But I know the difference between life close to God and life far from God. It’s huge. So to me, Christianity is mainly about holding onto that difference.

My life was consistently miserable until I was about 30. Everything I touched turned to garbage. I was depressed. I worried. I never stopped fighting the problems; I kept trying to improve my life. I learned all sorts of wonderful self-help tricks. But I could not make things better on a long-term basis. It seemed that the things I wanted were dangled in front of me and then jerked away, over and over. I was healthy and free, but other than that, I was incredibly unlucky and there was nothing good about my life.

I became increasingly religious in my twenties, and for a while, it seemed to help, but I got in with a self-oriented prosperity-theology Assemblies of God church, and things stalled. That stuff does not work. You can’t just go to church twice a week and beg God to heal you and make you rich and so on. You have to focus on serving God and helping other people, too. The word-of-faith people didn’t teach that. Many still don’t. Listen to their sermons, and you hear the word “money” over and over. God wants you to be rich. God wants you to be perfectly healthy at all times. Give money to the church and do everything just right, and it will work out. If it doesn’t work, come back next week, give the church more money, and find out what you’re doing wrong. It’s like chasing a carrot on a string.

It’s a sink. You dump your time and money and effort into it, and you don’t get much out, and the farther in you get, the more you think you’re not doing enough. Sooner or later, you realize it’s not working, and you get discouraged. You may get the wrong idea. You may think your preacher is a dud and your church is no good, and you’ll be right, but the danger is that you’ll decide God is imaginary or that he doesn’t care about you.

I realized my church was a dry hole, and I quit. Stupidly, I didn’t find another church. I figured I could do it on my own. And of course, I fell away. Still believing, but lazy and not very obedient. I would go days without prayer. I rarely looked at a Bible. When I needed help, I prayed. And in the mid-Nineties, I had the disturbing experience of feeling as though I were praying in some sort of tank or cistern, and that my prayers simply bounced off the ceiling. Maybe that was because I was asking for help, but I wasn’t offering anything in return. I didn’t think I had to change.

I had problems in my thirties, but on the whole, the trend was positive. Things have been pretty good since about 1997. I would say that was when I became a happy person. Since then, things have gotten better and better. I don’t think I’ve had more than two or three consecutive days of sadness in all that time.

After 911, I started praying every morning. I developed a prayer list, which is something everyone should have. Since then, the improvement in my life has accelerated. And lately, the acceleration has accelerated. Incidentally, I believe engineers call an increase in acceleration “jerk.” Appropriate in so many ways. I feel like I’m being jerked out of the state of being a jerk.

Every morning and every night, I literally get on the floor and thank God for the way things are going. And I mean it. I don’t have all the pieces of my conception of a whole life, but the quality of life is not determined primarily by whether you’ve achieved your goals. What matters is the trend. If you know you’re on the right track, and things are consistently improving, chances are, you’ll be happy. And for that to be true, it is necessary that you be among the things that improve. Your behavior, your feelings toward others, and so on.

Goals are important, but here’s a funny truth: once you achieve them, you are likely to feel a tremendous and painful emptiness. Sometimes I wonder if this contributes to post-partum depression. Before you get something you want, you’re excited, because you’re anticipating and working toward something good. It gives your life meaning. It fills your time. Once it arrives, all you have is the thing itself. And it may be less rewarding than the process of getting it, even if it’s a child. Your hopes may be so unrealistic that nothing you receive can fulfill them.

I’ll bet brides have to cope with that a lot. They have the most unrealistic hopes of anyone in society. It’s a little disgusting. You spend thirty thousand dollars on one day of self-worship and concentrated attention, and then three hours after the wedding, everyone has stopped focusing on you, and all you have is the same old boyfriend and a bunch of junk from Williams Sonoma. And maybe a lot of debt. It’s never fun paying for something you have ceased enjoying.

Watching a big, self-indulgent wedding is not significantly different from watching a morbidly obese man get in bed and eat five pies with his fingers.

I think women have an unfortunate tendency to turn new husbands into messiah figures, expecting them to solve all their problems and provide things only God can give. It doesn’t work like that. You don’t enter your own personal messianic age when the ring goes on.

New things that bring me satisfaction keep coming to me. I don’t mean objects, although I have found objects essential to some parts of the process. I mean new outlets for creativity. New growth as a Christian. New knowledge. New interests. I think this all comes from God. I believe that making a sincere effort to believe and serve has brought me a certain measure of protection and reward.

I am not stupid enough to think I’ll never have a problem again, or that every good thing I have will be with me until I die. But I suspect that regardless of what happens, the sensation of being blessed and looked after will be with me the rest of my life. After all, what does Psalm 23 say? “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life.” What does Psalm 1 say about God’s servants? “And he shall be like a tree, planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season. His leaf also shall not wither, and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.” What about Psalm 34? “Delight thyself also in the Lord, and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart.” This stuff isn’t lip service from a fat rich Jewish king trying to impress people with his piety. It’s truth. These are promises from God. Either you believe in God, or you don’t. If you believe, you should believe these words are not empty.

God does not necessarily make your life problem-free, although it is very likely that he will shift it strongly in that direction, ending many of your troubles. He makes the problems unimportant and brings good things out of them. That’s actually better. It increases your faith and makes you stronger, because it teaches you that troubles are not to be greatly feared.

Christians who only worry about where they go when they die are blowing it. Life in the kingdom of God starts while you’re here. Literally.

So anyway, I am determined to get back on track. The course deviations I experience these days aren’t all that bad, but they are not acceptable, either.

Enterococcus

I just checked Mish Weiss’s blog. Her fever is fluctuating. Here is the bad news:

Enterococcus is the bacteria, and with counts as low as Mish’s sepsis can occur. Because this bacteria is sometimes antibiotic and multi drug resistant, it is especially difficult to treat.

This girl can’t seem to catch a break. Her parents are gone. She had problems with addiction. She got leukemia. She turned out to have a genetic makeup that made it harder to treat. Curative chemotherapy didn’t work. Now this. Yet she still fights. How many people would do that? I don’t know that I would. I know that the afterlife is better than this life; I don’t think I could hold on as hard as Mish has.

Please keep her in her prayers. Hopefully the variety of bacteria she has will respond to drugs. This is not the time for the people who care about her to give up. This is when faith matters most.

Help

Mish Weiss is unconscious. It’s not the leukemia. She has a bacterial infection in one lung, and her fever has hit 105.4, which is about as high as an adult fever gets.

Please pray for her. Her blood cell counts are up, which means she is getting some benefit from chemotherapy. It would be a terrible thing if she were to succumb to a bacterial infection while she was improving.

Obama Subterfuge Works Better Than Papal Candor

Shmuel Rabinovitch, rabbi of the Western Wall, says the Pope can’t wear a cross when he visits.

That’s up to him. He’s the boss; he writes the dress code. The wall is Jewish property.

But where was he when Obama showed up at the wall carrying his famous Hindu monkey idol in his pocket? Also, a cynical person might say Obama himself, being the self-anointed false messiah, is a religious symbol.

I suppose you can argue that the monkey idol was not visible, whereas the Pope’s cross is. Does that mean the Pope can please the rabbi by putting the cross in his pocket right before he approaches the wall?

My guess is that the rabbi has no idea Obama carries a Hindu idol around, or that he accepted a huge gold-plated version sent from India. It’s probably in our White House right now, since it’s Obama’s property. This is the kind of “diversity” Solomon favored. Sadly, God felt differently.

Interesting quote from the rabbi:

“I feel the same way about a Jew putting on a tallit and phylacteries and going into a church.”

He may feel that way, but I very much doubt the Pope does. I can’t imagine any Christian, even in a weak mainstream church, telling a Jew to keep his Jewish paraphernalia out of the sanctuary. These days, even Orthodox rabbis sometimes speak in churches, and they don’t have to scrap their yarmulkes.

I don’t think the rabbi feels it would be disrespectful to Christians to wear these things in a church. I know of no basis for such a feeling. The overwhelming likelihood is that he feels it would be disrespectful to Judaism, but he’s trying to convey a different impression, which is pretty disingenuous. On the other hand, maybe he just misunderstands us. Very badly. To a degree which is not really credible.

The Pope should cancel his visit to the wall. Asking a Pope to take off his cross is like asking the rabbi to take off his yarmulke or work on Saturday. It would be a tacit yet undeniable and unambiguous denial of faith. Part of the Pope’s job is to profess and symbolize belief in Jesus. If he took off the cross, he would be letting down every Christian in the world. He would be telling us it’s okay to hide your faith in order to avoid trivial social awkwardness.

He can have a nice visit and mend fences without going to the wall. He showed respect by asking to go; that’s good enough.

The world is not ready for Papal visits to the wall. That’s the bottom line.

Still Waffling

Mish Weiss’s blood cell counts are showing some improvement, but she has another cold and a very high fever. Here’s what a faithful prayer warrior has to say in her comments:

Of course, we will pray. Thanks for the specific info so we know exactly how to pray. I believe G_d answers our specific prayers. So we will pray that Mish’s counts continue to go up and the fever goes down the the cold goes away.

I’m joining in these prayers, and I hope you will do the same. Posting for Mish, Marc says “I know that I don’t even have to ask for prayer, thank you in advance.” What a day we live in, when Christians and Jews cooperate like this and see each other as allies. Many denominations, especially mainstream churches, display disturbing hostility to Jews and Israel, but there are at least 800 million Christians who have been taught that the Jews are the apple of God’s eye, and that we are to help them whenever we can.

In other news, I’m dithering on the lathe issue. A certain sum will buy me one of these three items: a Grizzly G4003G with a stand and a warranty, a used Clausing 5914 that came from a prison, and a South Bend 13 x 36. Og says the Chinese stuff is as good as ours now. If that’s true, the Grizzly is a good move. It will have a warranty and great customer support, and presumably, it will work right out of the crate. Still, I’ve read about little quality issues where the old US stuff is much better, and it’s possible that I might be better off with an old lathe.

I should point out that the G4003G is a gunsmith’s lathe. It’s a G4003 with better bearings and a few gewgaws. It should be considerably better than most non-Taiwan Grizzly offerings.

I’ve decided I’m not comfortable buying a used local machine unless I can be completely sure it will perform as well as a new Chinese job. The risk is too big, unless the machine is so cheap I can’t justify not trying it. A person of limited skills can’t really restore an old lathe, unless it has damage limited to certain areas. The Clausing and South Bend come from a dealer with a great reputation; I’d rather pay him a fair price than buy an iffy lathe really cheap.

Complicating the issue, I keep thinking the smart move might be to drop a few hundred on a Harbor Freight job and learn about machining. If I did that, presumably in a few months I’d be knowledgeable enough about lathes to evaluate used tools.

I hope my next round of Smartflix DVDs arrives today.

Friction Gone

More info for Hornady Lock-N-Load AP owners.

A while back I wrote about the problems I had with my Lock-N-Load. I want to emphasize something: this machine may have been completely perfect when I got it. It is possible that I screwed it up while learning how to use it. But I don’t think so, because it appears that the fundamental problem is excess friction, and that’s a design and/or manufacturing tolerance issue.

I had problems with indexing from the time I got the press. The ball detent things under the shell plate are of limited value; they don’t give enough resistance to prevent the plate from indexing incorrectly. You have to have the pawls set perfectly. These are little spring doodads that push the index wheel that turns the plate. They must be aligned with extreme precision; one quarter of a turn of an adjusting screw can mess things up.

The pawls move the plate by pushing the index wheel with their upper edges, which are very thin and somewhat fragile. The index wheel is hardened steel, and it will eat the pawls quickly if they have to work too hard. If it takes a lot of torque to turn the wheel, the pawls aren’t going to last. I think Hornady dropped the ball here. It seems to me that if you’re going to use a thin, delicate metal edge to push something, you should reduce the required force as much as possible. It would have been just as easy to make machines that turned with less resistance. Change two specs: the diameter of the drive hub, and the diameter of the drive shaft.

I figured I was having a problem with friction, so I took the driveshaft out, mounted it in a drill, and spun it inside a sheet of emery paper until it was shiny. When I stuck the shaft back in the machine, the decrease in friction was obvious. But I couldn’t test the press because while I was fooling with it I snapped a little key off the drive hub, and I put a lot of wear on the pawls. I ordered new pawls and a new hub, and they arrived a couple of days ago.

I put the hub on the shaft, mounted it in the drill, and gave it the emery-paper treatment. I cleaned out the inside of the sub plate (the hub rotates inside it), and I greased everything and put the machine together. When all was said and done, it turned considerably more freely than in the past, and it indexed perfectly.

One interesting side note: I had a hell of a time getting it to index when I first put it back together. Finally, I looked at the index wheel. It appeared to me that it was impossible for the pawls to push it as far as it needed to go, because of the shape of the wheel’s arms. They seemed to be curved in the opposite direction from the way they needed to go. And of course, they were. I had put the wheel on upside-down. This is probably why I couldn’t get the machine to index the last time I worked on it, after I ground the worn parts off the pawls. In all likelihood, I bought new pawls I didn’t need. Oh well. I’ll need them eventually.

I also have a habit of reassembling coaxial parts in the wrong order, so whatever I’m working on has to be taken apart several times before I’m done. I only did that about three times tonight.

The machine works great now. Slick as snot on a doorknob. And I understand it, finally. I suspect that every LNL owner needs to do what I did. Unless some units have less friction than others.

Hornady redesigned the shell ejection system. You have to buy a $30 replacement sub plate and pay $10 each to get your shell plates converted to work with it. I don’t know if I’ll bother. The old system relies on a stiff wire that pushes shells out of the plate. It’s very clearly at an angle which is suboptimal for the job. That’s not the whole problem; when the wire pushes on the side of the case to eject it, the rim rotates up against the bottom of the shell plate and creates resistance to ejection. But I think that if I bent the wire a bit, it would be reliable enough to keep using. I have two or three spares, so I don’t really care if I ruin one.

It feels great to get something fixed. So often now, when I have a problem, I’m able to go out in the garage and fix it. I can’t explain how wonderful that feels. I am finally getting something I’ve wanted all my life. It’s like coming up for air after a long swim under water.

My tool journey has been much more than a frivolous waste of money or a passing interest. I has been a genuine voyage of self-actualization. Christians don’t use that term much, but we should, because self-actualization is something the Psalms promise us. “Delight thyself also in the Lord, and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart.” “The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord, and he delighteth in his way.” God knows us before we are born, and he designs each of us for a purpose. So it’s only natural that faith and obedience lead to a life in which you find yourself doing the very things that fill your innermost needs.

It’s funny. Non-Christians talk about the importance of “finding yourself.” That’s exactly what’s happening to me. So often, we spend our lives trying to find the things we know we need, when we should be living by faith and letting God bring us those things. You don’t need to find yourself. God already knows where you are, and he can show you.

I am starting to wrap up my lathe search. I have a couple of candidates. The prices are merely fair, but I can live with that, if it means not having the headache of coping with disappointing tools from shady dealers. Sometimes you have to pay for things. That’s just how it is.

I’m thinking I’ll get a 12″ by 36″ lathe and possibly a Millrite. I would prefer a Bridgeport, because there is a good chance I’ll eventually want to upgrade from a Millrite, but space is an issue, and a Bridgeport is about half again as big as a Millrite, in linear terms. The Millrite I found locally appears to be very nice, and I can get it at an okay price, with a shipping charge much lower than what I’d pay to drag one in from out of state. Once I have a mill and a lathe, I’ll be pretty well set for major tools.

Just don’t talk to me about Bobcats.

Squirrels Must Pay

First off, please keep praying for Mish Weiss. She is having some problems because she tried to get off IV painkillers.

Now back to my exciting life.

I am suffering serious frustration here.

A couple of weeks back, I decided to take the plunge and get a Vz 58 rifle, to discourage people from walking on my grass. Okay, I got it for home defense. But a man’s grass is sacred. We need legislation to account for that.

The gun is still not here. The dealer had some kind of problem contacting the local FFL who is supposed to take delivery. And dealers are so busy, you can’t really get on their backs and push them to get things done. Thanks, Obama, for saving the American firearms industry. After the Obama gun panic is finished, it will be perfectly okay to outlaw the sale of guns, because everyone will already have five or six.

Meanwhile, I have learned that Obama has made it extremely difficult to get a Saiga 12 shotgun modified. By passing laws against it? No, by inducing a surge in sales that has resulted in a gigantic gunsmithing backlog. The best-known source of modified Saiga 12s is Tromix, and they (“he,” actually) are so busy, they would probably lay down suppressing fire if you tried to enter their property and place an order.

The stock Saiga 12 is very silly. They took a Kalashnikov and added parts to make it look like a deer gun. I don’t know why liberals are too dumb to realize that hunting guns are just as deadly as self-defense guns. I don’t know why it’s so easy to mollify them by talking about hunting and target shooting. But that’s how it is. They love to pretend the Second Amendment has something to do with sports, which it does not. And the gun industry has to play along.

The Second Amendment is about having the power to kill human beings, so they will refrain from oppressing you and committing crimes against you. It has nothing to do with shooting rabbits or quail. Still, we have nutty laws that result in the sale of odd-looking Frankenweapons that need to be modified in order to perform their actual purpose well.

If the Founding Fathers had cared about protecting our right to engage in sporting activities, they would have done something really useful and written an amendment forcing home builders to construct houses in such a manner that every one had room for a full-size pool table. They could have called it Frank Costanza’s Law.

There are a few other people out there who do a good job modifying shotguns. They have backlogs, but not like the Tromix backlog. Maybe the Obama panic will subside to the point where it’s possible to get a gun fixed up without losing the use of it for three months.

I think it would be great to get a tax stamp and have a shotgun with a 14″ barrel. Very nice for turning quickly in hallways and small rooms. Chris Byrne says the answer is to learn the technique for maneuvering a longer gun. I assume the technique consists mainly of pointing the barrel up. Up and not down, because you can’t hit your toes if you shoot the ceiling.

The defensive ammunition I ordered for my .38 Super arrived. It does not seem inclined to cycle well. Maybe this is the time to get serious and have the gun worked on. The .38 would be a marvelous carry piece for formal occasions, but not if the bullets won’t cycle. I guess the ramp needs to be worked on. And I never did get the defective rollmark fixed.

I think I have pretty well covered my survival needs, as regards food. I mentioned the possibility of shooting squirrels, and I said I needed a BB gun. Someone said I should use the .17 HMR. I think that in a national crisis, the local cops would have no problem with a BB gun, but they would be highly disturbed, to the point where they couldn’t digest their doughnuts and pastelitos, if they saw me wandering around with a rifle.

I’m pretty sure a simple Crosman pump would do the job. They do a number on birds, and the accuracy is more than adequate. The smartest thing, really, would be a trap. Let the squirrels come to me. A reader told me how to build a very efficient squirrel-drowning machine from a bucket and a piece of pipe.

I figure I’ll buy some dried beans and some oatmeal and be done with it. It will be easy to stay alive for a month. If things get so bad people need more supplies than that, it probably means there is no point in prolonging the misery.

The funniest suggestion I’ve heard is this: buy cartons of generic cigarettes and vacuum-seal them in bags. If the nicotine supply dries up, smokers will gladly give you their food, their jewelry, their kidneys, and their children in exchange for cigarettes. You could buy tobacco seed, for that matter. Grow your own cheroots. You could have a home staffed by groveling nicotine-addict zombies.

It won’t work with booze, because sugar plus water plus time equals alcohol. You can’t take away the supply. And real alcoholics will drink absolutely anything that gives them a buzz. Mashed raisins in toilet-tank water will do just fine.

I’m kind of stalled on the machine tool issue. I continue to believe machine tools are going to flood the market shortly, due to the effervescence of the amazing Obama/Geithner economy. I think businesses are going to disappear, and their machine tools will have to go somewhere. Also, a guy I want to buy a lathe from is in the hospital.

Man, I want a lathe. Just once in my life, I want to knurl something. Can you relate to that?

Anyhow, stay away from my oatmeal, and keep off my lawn. Let the piles of squirrel skeletons be a warning to you.

Therapy not Sustainable

Here is an update on Mish Weiss.

She had a marrow biopsy last week. The results were good. When you have leukemia, you produce immature blood cells called “blast cells,” and the percentage of your blood cells which are blast cells is indicative of the severity of the disease. Mish just went from 36% to 31%. That’s about a 16% decrease, using 36% as the initial figure. That’s good.

I wish I could say that were the whole story. She got positive results from her last round of chemotherapy, but she is so ill, a continuation of that therapy would be fatal. You have to wonder what would have happened had they started with this particular therapy back when she was stronger.

Treatment has now shifted to a different type of chemotherapy intended to prolong her life. There is a difference between curative therapy and life-prolonging therapy. As a lay person, I don’t know if there is hope that a person in this condition will gain strength until curative chemotherapy can be attempted again. I suppose that’s the obvious question.

Mish is not giving in. A total surrender would mean giving up chemotherapy and focusing on improving her quality of life. She is very, very tough.

My plan? Keep up the prayer. It costs me nothing, and miracles do happen, and it’s a gift to be given a chance to do something for someone in need. There is always a blessing in trying to do good. I can’t think of any significant reward for giving up. I hope people who found Mish through this blog, and who have been praying for her, will think about that. Even if you have doubts about what you are accomplishing for her, you’re doing yourself a lot of good.

Today Drudgebart links to a story about David Wilkerson, the famous preacher. He is predicting a horrible sin-generated American catastrophe, and it seems to center around New York City. He talks about “a thousand fires.”

I hate to say this, especially since I have been attending a church pastored by a man said to be a relation of his, but I would not get too excited about the New York prediction. David Wilkerson has a history of making predictions. I invite you to read up and draw your own conclusions about his batting average. I have doubts, to put it mildly.

Nonetheless, I continue to believe we’re in big trouble as a nation, and I do think it’s because we’ve tested God’s patience. People have always been sinful, but over the last fifteen years or so, we’ve gotten downright gross. In addition to our old sins, we now do bizarre things like cutting up our own bodies for amusement. Our sexual perversions are getting so strange, it is impossible to understand how anyone can find them erotic. And now we have a weird, vacuous, inept, idol-packing President who is the very symbol of human pride, and he’s starting to take an adversarial position toward Israel. He’s also taking our money and using it to fund convenience abortions.

Life is changing. A couple of months back, I noticed that the atmosphere in the US seemed to be altered. Things seem grubbier and dingier. The way they’ve always been in foreign countries that don’t do well. It’s really obvious here in Miami. The grass is brown, and huge trees are dying all over the place. Is it my imagination? It can’t be. I’m surrounded by vacant houses no one can sell. The stores are quieter. The restaurants are often empty. It reminds me of places like Greece and the Bahamas.

It looks like Iran is now a nuclear power. Isn’t that great? The vast bulk of the process of getting nuclear weapons is behind them. Only the easy jobs remain to be done. Obama tried to appease the Russians into negotiating with Iran for us, offering to give up our efforts to protect ourselves with a missile shield. The Russians dealt him a remarkable public humiliation, dismissing his offer as eccentric and half-baked. Good thing. I wonder what he was thinking? If we build a missile shield, it won’t just protect us from Iran. It won’t check a missile’s nationality. We have other Muslim nations to worry about, as well as North Korea. Where did Obama get the idea that Iran was the only reason we needed a shield?

It’s funny that the press didn’t get excited about the Russian slapdown. It was an extraordinary bit of public emasculation, and the MSM ignored it. Obama came across like a little boy trying to break into his dad’s poker game. We’re going to see more of that. He is not man enough for the office. We retired a pit bull who scared our enemies to death, and we replaced it with an attention-starved bichon frise. Obama has been called Carter II, but even Carter had more grit. And Carter wasn’t totally opposed to maintaining a national defense.

I almost feel like God selected our leaders in the past, making sure that even when they were not the best available, they were not utter fools. And now we have served our purpose, and God has decided to let some other nation take the lead, so he is content to let us put rabble in our high offices, as less-blessed nations do. For now it’s Obama. Maybe next time we’ll swing to the other extreme and get a nut like Ron Paul. When no one guards the door, you don’t know who will come in and crash on the couch.

Wilkerson says each of us should have a month’s supply of food. That, I agree with. He’s not the only one saying it.

I think I’ll summon my nerve and check the Dow Jones average.

Pray for Mish.

Someone Wants to GAIN a Job

A friend has asked me to put out a prayer request for her dad. He got squeezed out of a job a while back, and the company has tanked, and now they may want him back. I believe he was the CEO; I’m not sure. Anyway, they apparently think they made a big mistake, and this would be a big boon to him and his family.

Would everyone do her a favor and pray that he gets the job? Thanks.

As always in these situations, I pray that everyone concerned will draw closer to God, in addition to getting the earthly need filled.

Usually a Mitzvah

I’m going to go ahead and just steal this.

Posted by Leah’s Dad.

Mish is a wee bit better this morning, they removed the tube holding the airway open, but not the NG tube. I’m deaf but I know she said at least 3 four letter words. Her counts are still dangerously low, she’s weak and pale, but she has fight left in her.

In a few hours she will have the bone marrow biopsy to see if the blast cells have decreased from the last chemo regime, hopefully they have. She remains in critical condition, too weak to sit up. Seeing her fight and cuss the doctor was a good sign, it means she hasn’t given up.

When I suggested she open this blog it was for her to vent, and keep track of her progress. We had no idea of the love and support she would receive, thank you.
G_d bless you all.

Gut Shabbos

It’s not much, but “better” is not “worse.”

Let’s make a big prayer push and ask for a good result on the biopsy! Come on! We’ve pulled this off before!

Well. GOD has.

You know what I mean.

Cold, Grey, Ugly, Lethal

Is there any ammunition uglier than Wolf? It’s like the Russians had an ugly bullet competition, and the guy who designed this stuff won.

I don’t care. I have never had a problem with it. I’ve used it in a Glock and a PSL, and it seems accurate and reliable. I question the guys who say it won’t shoot straight. When you have a bad day, any excuse looks good.

I just received my order from Midway; a big pile of 7.62x39mm. It is shockingly ugly. I got the hollow points, because I had read that they were probably better at helping perps relax and then die. It’s intended for the range, but it’s good enough for guest control. I don’t know if I’ll even bother getting better stuff. How much better can it be? There’s a ton of difference between cheap FMJ 9mm ammunition and Cor-Bon, but AK stopping power is so much better than a pistol’s, I don’t know if ammunition quality matters much.

Yes, I know the gun I got is not an AK. But it’s AK ammunition.

I’m definitely getting a Saiga 12. That will give me two very good long guns for self-defense. That should cover my needs, regardless of the duration of the soon-to-begin Ob*ma Dark Ages. I truly fear that the next few years will be a bad time to live in a suburb, especially in a town like Miami with big, violent ghettos nearby. Those folks live in tiny apartments and microscopic houses with bone-dry dirt yards where nothing grows. They will have needs and no way to fill them, and the government teat may get downsized considerably. Obama has already fomented an atmosphere of class and race hostility. It will only get worse if a depression hits.

I should go ahead and get a food dehydrator. Why not? I’m going to be producing all sorts of bananas and papayas. I can’t eat them all fresh, and they’re very good dried. Papayas are actually better dried than fresh.

I could also get bulk apples from Costco and dry them. Nothing beats dried apples. You can make pies. You can make apple butter. They rule.

I’m thinking up ideas to save money on food. Beans would be perfect. Buy a fifty-pound sack of pinto beans, a bunch of smoked ham hocks that will keep a long time, and some salt. Rice is good. I should be able to fish for grunts and snapper in the local canals.

If life really goes in the toilet, Coral Gables will have to give up its ridiculous pansy ordinances. People will need chickens and ducks. They’ll need cheap fences and razor wire.

I don’t know what life in Miami was like during the Depression. In Kentucky, drifters wandered up and down the roads looking for odd jobs. Hoboes used to sleep on my grandparents’ porch; it was accepted. They didn’t even have to ask permission. People showed up asking for meals.

My grandmother said the local people didn’t notice the pinch much. That’s because the area was poor before the Depression, and also because the locals were still able to grow their own food and trees. And there were squirrels and rabbits.

Maybe it won’t be so bad here. Maybe it will just be boring. Spend less money, travel less, stop eating out. Keep your old things longer and make them last. That may be tough, with a 2003 Thunderbird.

I wonder what will happen to the car market. Most people don’t own their cars. When unemployment jumps, will the banks repossess, flooding the market with cheap vehicles, or will they renegotiate and take the losses?

It will be strange, seeing bums who actually deserve handouts. I’ve never seen those in America. “Will Work for Food” actually means “Will Take Money Straight to Liquor Store, Drug Dealer, or Crack Whore.” How often do you see “Will Work for Food” over a hundred yards from a place that sells beer? I can’t think of one instance.

I keep meaning to get some fast-food gift certificates to give to bums. That way, if I misjudge someone, no harm done. And if it turns out I’m feeding an addict, that’s okay, because giving them food is not immoral. And if they trade gift certificates for crack, it’s their sin, not mine. When you give them money, you’re not even trying to help. You’re giving to make yourself feel good, and you know what they’re going to do with the money, and you don’t really care if they buy drugs. If you give a food gift certificate, you’re making a credible effort to help.

The market is tanking again today. On top of that, a surprising number of finance-show talking heads are openly excoriating Obama, for whom most of them voted. I am going to be fair and point out that George Bush is getting off easy. He was blamed for many things he didn’t do, or which didn’t even happen, and he didn’t get credit for the great things he did. But in his last months he gave Obama a great head start on his wrongheaded mission of pouring socialist gasoline on our economic conflagation. And people aren’t talking as much as they should about Bush’s dumb 2008 moves. Still, if Bush is measles, Obama is leprosy.

I think I’ll do some research and see what to expect in a depression. I believe God will take care of me, but I don’t want him to have a bigger job than necessary.