Keep Your Genes Clean

I have fantastic news. My washing machine is going to have to be replaced.

As we move toward the Antichrist’s colonial-organism, totalitarian model of civilization, we are facing increasing governmental intrusions on our private affairs.

I know. “Tell me something I don’t know.”

Appliances and other products are filling up with “features” that make us miserable. Leftists have a sick fantasy of a future in which everybody is green, smitten with homosexuality, vegan, and virtuously poor, and they are reaching into our lives in unexpected ways in order to force their perverted, pathological vision on sane people.

Case in point: washing machines. They don’t work any more. Washing machines were targeted because they use a lot of water and power. Leftists think the world is going to run out of water and energy, and they aren’t as interested in cleanliness as the rest of us, so they went after our washing machines and ruined them.

If you have a washing machine made in the last few years, you probably smell like Roquefort cheese when you sweat or rain hits your clothes. Modern washing machines use very little water, and for some reason, the technology that reduces water consumption causes mold to grow in them. You can’t get rid of it. You can leave the machine door open all the time so it gets as dry as possible. You can buy ridiculous fans that sit in washing machines and speed up drying. You can run bleach through your machine. You can clean the rubber gaskets with bleach. It doesn’t work. You may get some improvement, but wait for the next rainy, humid day, and you will still smell like dirty gym socks.

Statists aren’t interested in practicality. They’re interested in the messages products send. It’s okay if you smell. If it bothers you, it proves you’re bourgeois. The French don’t bathe much, and they’re better than us. They’re chic.

Statists love shoving half-baked technology down our throats to solve problems we don’t really have. They can never wait for the good technology. You have to have curly fluorescent bulbs that don’t work, NOW (rhymes with “Mao”). You have to have hybrid cars that only work because of subsidies NOW. You have to smell like a slice of green, furry bread NOW.

If modern washing machines are so bad, why is it good news that my machine is dying? Won’t I just have to replace it with another cheese-smelling mold farm? No! There are still a couple of machines that work, and I just bought one.

Many people think Speed Queen machines are the answer. Speed Queen makes commercial equipment, and they also make consumer products. Until 2017, they still made very sturdy washers that didn’t smell, used plenty of water, and completed cycles in less than an hour, the way washers used to. Unfortunately, they stopped making the good machines, and they replaced them with bad ones. The last good ones have “432” in the model numbers. If you buy a 2020 Speed Queen, you’re buying failure and heartache with a plastic water pump, and it will cost you a thousand dollars anyway.

My plan was to let my LG machine wear out and replace it with a Speed Queen. Then when it started making noises, I researched, and I found that Maytag was the answer. Nearly all Maytags are modern garbage, but they have a couple of models that work.

I learned this from a guy who is obsessed with washers and dryers. He runs a website called Loraine Furniture. He buys washers, takes them home, runs them, and makes Youtube videos. He refurbishes old washers. Many people are starting to realize it’s better to put $500 into an old GE than to spend $600 on a new Samsung that stinks.

The washer guy used to tell people to buy Speed Queen. Then Speed Queen gave up the good fight. Things looked bad, but then he discovered Maytag’s new machines.

If you buy a new Maytag, it will fill all the way up with water, like a real washing machine. It will load from the top, sparing your lower back and making it unnecessary to spend a hundred bucks on a base that lifts the machine and screws up the geometry of your laundry room. It will wash your clothing in something like 40 minutes, not 90. My LG has a time display on it, and it claims it will do a normal load in under 45 minutes. When I use it, I set the oven timer for 90 minutes, because the LG’s display lies like crazy.

Remember the days when you could do three loads of laundry in one afternoon? You can have those days back.

Here’s another problem with modern machines, and it’s a wonderful paradox: you can’t fill them very full, because they won’t get the clothes in the middle of the machine wet. I’ve removed dry clothing from my LG several times. It’s really something. It’s a great example of how statist thinking is self-defeating. They sell you a front-loading machine which is supposed to hold more clothing and save water and electricity. Then you have to run it twice to do one load, killing the water and power savings and wasting your time. They also add special “extra water” features which prove the manufacturers know the whole business is a hoax.

If you get a Maytag, you will be able to fill it up, the way you’re supposed to.

The Maytag he recommends is model number MVWP575GW. Lowe’s has a sister model which is basically the same, except the warranty isn’t as good. Why buy the Lowe’s model? Because it’s at Lowe’s, where you can get it easily and quickly. When your washer fails, you don’t have time to wait for the perfect deal.

Maytag’s machine is a commercial-style washer, and thankfully, it has very few features. Remember how your old washer had about 5 settings, and it worked great? That’s how the Maytag is. You don’t need a fragile video display and special modes called “Power Fluf” and “Techno Steam” to get clean laundry. Do you think professional launderers buy machines with video displays and stupid features? Of course not. But they get clothes cleaner than you do.

Why am I giving you this advice? Because your washer may fail soon, and if you’ve had it for 20 years, you may have no idea what you’re up against. If it’s a good machine, consider investing in expensive repairs. If not, Maytag will solve your problems for about a thousand dollars.

Will the Maytag be available when you need it? No idea. I’m surprised it’s legal and available right now.

Lowe’s says my new machine will be here tomorrow, which probably means next Tuesday, but I believe my LG will keep running until then, so I’m fine. Even if I have to go to a laundromat, it will be worth it.

Incidentally, never buy an LG appliance. If it breaks (and it will) you will not be able to call your familiar, reasonably-priced appliance repairman. LG will force you to hire their people. At least that’s what they did to me when my last (nearly new) LG broke. Maybe they’ve changed their policy. I won’t bother checking, because I have had two LG washers break down, I was forced to use their repair people once, their washers make clothes reek, and I don’t see any reason to have anything to do with LG in the future.

Greenie washers are generally front-loaders, and that’s bad, because front-loaders don’t last. There is a reason why nearly all washers used to be top-loaders. A top-loading tub doesn’t put a lot of stress on a machine’s mechanics. Obviously, a horizontally-mounted tub containing 40 pounds of wet laundry, spinning and stopping, supported by a single underengineered bearing, is eventually going to go funny. My last LG’s tub got out of alignment while it was spinning, and the tub knocked the magnets off the motor, destroying it. My current LG has a bearing screech, but it still runs. You can buy a new bearing for about $25, but installing it is like putting a new timing belt in your car. You don’t want to try, believe me.

I have been dreaming of getting a real washing machine for years. I hope it works out.

What else is on my mind? Covid! People are saying the vaccine is the mark of the Beast. Christians aren’t the only ones who don’t want it. Jews in Israel are resisting, which is odd, since they don’t believe the Revelation. I don’t know what their complaint is.

When covid was young, I thought a vaccine was a great idea. I’m not an anti-vaxxer. They’re generally nutcases and neurotics. Science-illiterate moms who think with their hormones. I’m a huge fan of flu vaccines, and I wanted the covid shot. When I heard people talking about the mark of the Beast, I wondered what was wrong with them.

Now I’m hearing disturbing things about it. I heard a podcast today, and Messianic Rabbi Zev Porat says the Israeli government is considering a bunch of “incentives” to make people take the shot. Among them: you will not be prevented from getting a mortgage, and you will not be prevented from boarding flights.

Doesn’t “incentive” mean a reward, not a punishment?

I can’t find independent confirmation of the threats to restrict borrowing and air travel, but I found a story saying Israel will provide vaccinated people with “green passports” allowing them to go to restaurants and other public gatherings and to fly without being tested for covid.

What, exactly, is “green” about vaccination? I wonder if “green” means the same thing in Israel and the US.

Another question: since vaccines aren’t completely effective, is it intelligent to release vaccinated people to mingle with the rest of us? Some vaccines have effectiveness rates below 50 percent, and many scientists expect the covid vaccine’s immunity to wear off quickly. Does it really make sense to turn the vaccine into a license to go out and breathe on crowds? Are the rewards really about science, or are they about showing us what Mommy State does for good boys and girls?

In any case, the vaccine appears to have the potential to have similarities to the mark of the Beast.

If you don’t have the mark, you will be devastated financially and socially. You won’t be allowed to buy or sell. It’s a Nuremberg sort of thing. People who reject the vaccine probably won’t be completely excluded from commerce, but they may face punishments (“incentives”) that severely limit their participation in important activities, and if so, they will be stigmatized and hated.

It reminds me of something God told me the other day: the rapture isn’t just an event; it’s also a process. Long before God removes you from the earth, he will change you internally and help you reject the world’s sick culture. He will help you give up secular entertainment and worthless pursuits like fornication and recreational drinking.

There are two earthly raptures: God’s, and Satan’s. God is pulling us out of society (and society out of us), while Satan is using force to drive people deeper into society and the arms of the state.

This year has been a wonderful training exercise for the Beast. Like Jesus, he has a body, and he has been using things like BLM, Antifa, and covid to train it. He has taught people to become filthy, entitled, violent, and openly bigoted against white people, men, conservatives, Southerners, and Christians. Jews are also getting some overspray.

The vaccine is not the mark of the Beast. It can’t be. The Bible says the mark will be put on people’s right hands or foreheads (probably for people who don’t have right hands). The vaccine doesn’t fit that description. Also, the Bible says the man who will be called the Beast will be revealed before the mark appears. The Beast has not been revealed.

Does all this mean the vaccine and the mark are not connected? Not necessarily.

Satan has been using 2020 to train people to serve him without reservation or hesitation. He has been removing all the internal obstacles that help people resist him. The vaccine may be a way of preparing people to receive the mark. By the time the mark gets here, we may have been forced to do so many other things, in the name of good, that taking the mark will seem like just another trivial violation we need to get over with. Just get it done. Get in line, stick your hand out, take the mark, get the “I Took the Mark” sticker, and go home and wait for your good boy check.

I am no longer willing to receive the vaccine. Too many people are wary about it, and many are Spirit-filled Christians. They may not have a proper understanding of the science, and they may not understand what’s wrong with the vaccine, but it sure looks like the Holy Spirit is filling people with concern.

Many people think the vaccine permanently changes your DNA. From what I’ve read, this is not correct. I’ve read that it uses RNA to trick your cells into manufacturing covid proteins so your body can create antibodies. I’ve read that the effect is temporary and doesn’t alter your DNA. Maybe that’s true (and maybe scientists are wrong, which happens), but it may be that an RNA vaccine is a tool to prepare us to accept shots that really do alter our DNA.

If common people can’t tell the difference between an RNA vaccine and a DNA vaccine now, many won’t be able to tell the difference later when we are offered another “harmless” vaccine that really does change our DNA. They’ll think it’s another RNA vaccine, or they’ll think it’s a DNA vaccine and that it’s okay to take it because they already had one that didn’t harm them.

Satan likes to move in baby steps. One day, you’re voting for Hitler to build up the German economy, and down the road, you’re cheering while the Einsatzgruppen round up your Jewish neighbors so they can drive them out of town and shoot them next to a ditch.

For all I know, the mark is something that alters DNA.

It’s an interesting question. Most people don’t realize that the battle in the supernatural realm is genocidal. Satan and God and fighting to get rid of each other’s seed. Satan was rightly partially castrated in the flood, and he is a castrater and abortionist. There are two families: God’s, and Satan’s, and God and Satan are working toward futures in which their families have overwhelming dominance and numbers on earth.

What is it that makes you a member of another person’s biological family? DNA. If you’re a Christian, you know that blessings and curses are hereditary. At least part of the time, DNA is involved. Intelligence, health, talent, good character, and looks are inherited. So are stupidity, mental illness, criminal tendencies, addictive tendencies, ugliness, sickle cell anemia, Huntington’s chorea, many cancers, dwarfism, and, some believe, homosexuality.

If you let a scientist change your DNA, isn’t it possible you’re changing your divine inheritance? Maybe your salvation depends in part on your DNA. Maybe changing it can make you a child of Satan and cause your blessings to be replaced with curses. That would certainly explain why every person who takes the mark will be damned.

Maybe spirits see our DNA, and when it contains certain flags, they enter us and do what they do, or they pass by because it says they’re barred. Maybe it’s like the blood on the lintels during the first Passover.

The flood was God’s effort to cleanse the earth of the DNA of fallen angels who impregnated women. What if the mark is Satan’s effort to use science to spread that DNA? What if he’s trying to hack DNA in order to cheat in the genocidal war? He uses the internet to imitate the way the Holy Spirit connects Christians. Why wouldn’t he use gene modification to imitate the spread of salvation?

I won’t take the vaccine. Not until I have reason to be comfortable with it. Covid is a mild disease, I’m not afraid of death, and I think I’ve already had covid. It’s not a big deal to me. The prospect of getting deeper into the body of the Beast is repugnant to me.

Right now, I may have three decades of life left, and they’re the worst decades, unless you count childhood, which is pretty awful. On top of that, I would have to live them in a world that hates me with unprecedented intensity and cruelty. I’m not all that desperate to be here during the diaper and weakness years.

We all get old. We all fall apart. We all die. It’s going to happen to every person who reads this, barring the rapture or early death. How hard are you willing to work to hold on just a little longer? What are you willing to give up? The word says he that loves his life will lose it.

Cling to Whatever Works

It’s December 26, and I am still here.

For a few months, I’ve had a powerful impression that the rapture would occur by December 24. I didn’t know whether to trust it or not. There are some things I believe I receive from God, which I have found to be completely trustworthy. Others have not always panned out. I suppose it’s up to me to decide which things to hold onto and which to discard.

From time to time, I get words and phrases, like, “I will not be rushed,” or, “There is nothing good about worry.” I generally record these things so I can refer to them later. They have always turned out to be consistent with the Bible and my understanding of Christianity, and as far as I can recall, none have turned out to be wrong. I believe I can go on trusting these words.

I also started practicing prophecy. It’s like praying in tongues, but you let yourself go in your native language. Derek Prince recommended it. I had some false starts, but these days, nothing I say turns out to be a problem. I don’t find myself making specific predictions, but God tells me he will give me victory, that I shouldn’t worry, that the evil times the world is going through won’t touch me, that I belong to him, and so on. Biblical prophecy isn’t always about the future, and when it is, it is often vague, so I don’t see any problems.

It seems like what I’m doing is like prayer in tongues, only stronger, because I understand what I’m saying. That makes sense to me, because Paul seemed to say that prophecy was better than prayer in tongues. One good thing about it is that you can relay what you hear to other people without resorting to interpretation.

Prophecy looks sound.

When I ask God yes or no questions, I get answers that sometimes turn out to be wrong. I don’t know if this is because my own desires make me override God’s real answers or because I’m imagining answers. The problems seem to be worst when dates are involved. It may be that my own biases are the problem.

I have had dreams that seemed prophetic, and as far as I know, they have proven reliable. The important thing is to know which dreams came from God and which ones are garbage.

Prayer in tongues is completely trustworthy. It never fails to work, and the more I do it, the better life gets. I have tried interpretation, and it appears to work, too.

I thought I should write this, because I often write about things I think God has told me. If I find out I have deceived myself, I should inform other people who listen to me, so they won’t be deceived, too.

I wish I could point to a preacher who has the answers, but if such a person exists, I don’t know who he is. They’re all unsatisfactory. They can only take you so far. You have to learn from the Holy Spirit.

Do I still think the rapture is imminent? Absolutely. There are too many positive indications. We are losing our free will because of technology, we appear to be seeing the dawn of the tribulation, the last great Christian country on earth has cast its vote for Satan, people are getting too filthy to share the planet with, and leaving us here no longer pays off for God the way it used to.

My advice is to keep praying in tongues and to keep asking God for correction and revelation. Read Psalm 32 and work on self-examination, confession, and repentance. Ask God to do the hard work for you, because otherwise, it will never get done. You can’t do it. Separate yourself from the common culture. There is no point in trying to please people who are going to hell.

Shooting Arcana Continue to Befuddle

Every time I hear an abysmally ignorant leftist ask why anyone needs more than one gun, I feel like asking, “Why do you need more than one piece of silverware?” Guns are really complicated. Different guns are good for different things. You wouldn’t eat soup with a fork, and you wouldn’t cut steak with a teaspoon.

The more I learn about guns and shooting, the less I feel like I know.

Today I learned some new stuff about .17 Hornady Magnum Remington, the queen of rimfires. I say “queen,” because .17 Winchester Super Magnum is the new king.

You would think all guns would have similar cleaning requirements. Generally, they shoot lead or copper-covered projectiles, using smokeless powder. You would think they would all need the same kind of cleaning, and that every gun would need cleaning at about the same intervals. Of course, none of that is true.

I have learned that .17 HMR barrels have a peculiar problem: powder residue accumulates around the bores at the muzzle ends in kind of a star pattern. It’s very hard, it’s irregularly shaped, and of course, it degrades accuracy.

A well-made muzzle is very important to good accuracy. The muzzle is the last thing a bullet sees on the way out of a gun, and if there’s a burr on the muzzle, it can send a bullet off in the wrong direction. Strangely, many guns have carelessly made muzzles. Others have muzzles that are recessed in various ways to protect them from damage.

I have generally cleaned my .17 HMR with a Bore Snake, which is a rope sort of a thing with metal bristles embedded in it. Bore Snakes are very, very handy. They’re also fast. When used for an appropriate job, a Bore Snake will get a great deal of the crud out of a barrel in one or two passes. A while back, I learned about jags, and I started using them. A jag is a cylindrical brass plug with indentations machined into it. It would be pretty hard to describe without using a picture. You wrap a cloth patch around your jag, and you shove it through the barrel using a rod. The fit is tight, and it cleans well.

I have noticed that my rifle seems to lose accuracy after a couple of dozen shots, so I asked for help. Someone told me about the muzzle issue. I looked at my muzzle, and it had an irregular ring of hard crust on it. I was aghast. It looked like the muzzle was ruined. I attacked it with Bore Tech Eliminator, Q-Tips, and my fingernails. I got it off. I used a jag and patches to finish up.

I looked for more information, and here is what I learned: the .17 HMR produces a lot of powder residue but not much copper fouling. If it turns out this is wrong, sorry, but it’s always hard to pin down the truth when it comes to guns. The powder residue is what you have to worry about. If you can take care of that, the copper shouldn’t be a big problem.

I also learned that Tipton “universal” bore guides are not universal.

A bore guide is a device which funnels your cleaning rod and attachment into the chamber of your gun without allowing anything to scrape the barrel. You clean from the chamber, not the muzzle, so you don’t screw the muzzle up. I bought a “universal” bore guide, and today I learned that it won’t fit a Savage 93R or any other .17 HMR rifle.

A company called Possum Hollow makes Delrin bore guides for rimfire rifles. You can also get a bore guide from some guy with an Italian name. I didn’t bother with him even though people recommend his product. You have to call him on the phone and send him a check. No; it’s 2020. We don’t do that any more. I ordered a Possum Hollow guide, and my plan is to clean my rifle as soon as I notice the groups opening up. I’m hoping to prove that the powder crust is what causes me to have inaccurate strings of shots. If I can prove it, I can come up with a maximum number of shots to take between cleanings, and I’ll be the Grand Poobah of .17 HMR marksmanship.

It may not be necessary to clean the entire gun. It may well be that cleaning the muzzle will make all the difference.

If you’re wondering why .17 HMR has a problem .22 Magnum or .17 Hornet doesn’t, I don’t have a clue. Guns are weird.

In other news, I finally got a rangefinder. I probably spent too much. I opted for a Leica which interfaces with my Kestrel ballistic calculator. I think the connectivity is probably an overrated asset, but I didn’t want to buy cheap and then find out I had blown it. The Leica will tell the Kestrel how far away targets are, what the inclination is, and so on, and the Kestrel will tell me how many MRAD’s to hold over.

I found out it’s 100 yards to my mailbox. That’s not me guessing. That’s science.

I had to buy that silly bore guide for the Savage, so I decided to do something I’ve been wanting to do. I ordered a real chronograph. I have a Competition Electronics Prochrono DLX, and it’s great for pistol reloading, but if you want to be a precision rifle shooter, you need a Magnaspeed or a Labradar. Magnaspeeds are not expensive, but you have to clamp a doodad on your muzzle, and I didn’t want any part of that. Labradars sit beside you on tripods, and they tell you all sorts of things. You don’t have to put them downrange where you will eventually shoot them. Very nice.

My understanding is that Labradar sticks it to you on batteries. They tell you to use AA’s, when they know their unit will run about 35 seconds on a fresh batch. They sell big USB batteries to fix this problem. Luckily for me, I already have big USB batteries. Labradar also sells tripods, but I think the tripods I already have will work fine. Labradar doesn’t include a padded case with their chronograph, which is amazing, because it’s expensive. I have a padded laptop case I don’t need, and I have high hopes for it.

My rangefinder and Kestrel have been introduced to each other, so I need to get to a real gun range and do some shooting. Either that, or I should move my new portable shooting bench back to 300 yards on my own land.

I have a feeling all of my .17 HMR troubles were caused by powder fouling. I never knew the problem existed, so I did nothing to compensate. It’s a very little-known problem, so my guess is that 98% of .17 HMR shooters–the ones who claim you can’t get consistent accuracy–have crusty muzzles and don’t know it.

There is a guy in England who posts Youtube videos in which he uses .17 HMR to kill rabbits from over 200 yards. If he shoots as well as he seems to, the rest of us must be doing it wrong. It can’t be the ammunition. You can’t make your own .17 HMR, and supposedly, all of it comes from Winchester and CCI regardless of what the labels say. It’s not the ammunition, and there is no reason to think his rifle should shoot straighter than the ones people use here in the US.

I’ll post one of his videos. Maybe I’ve posted other ones.

I should get out and shoot tomorrow. Hope my powder theory is right.

Are You Really a Maker if You Buy Stuff?

I am still overthinking the business of procuring a new welding table.

To re-cover old ground, I thought I might buy a Fabblock table, which is a box made from 1/4″ plate, supported by transverse ribs welded to it on the underside. Then I thought maybe I should buy an Arc Flat table, which would be two or more cast iron boxes that could be bolted together side by side. Then I considered making my own table from a sheet of plate. After that, I thought maybe I should buy strips of plate, mill them flat, and bolt them to a table side by side with 2″ gaps between them.

I would like to have a fairly flat table. My current table has a 1/16″ crown in the middle, which means it’s pretty flat. I don’t want anything wavier than that. The biggest challenge in welding is putting things together square and flat, and the flatter your table is, the easier it will be.

I was getting to the point where buying strips of plate seemed like the way to go. Then I saw another sales pitch. It came from Texas Metal Works, a company that makes box-style steel tables.

TMW, as I will call it out of laziness, has a page where they defend their tables. One of the problems with choosing a table is the fact that a lot of the most detailed information comes from people who are trying to sell you things. It makes the information hard to trust. You have to dig around and try to determine how sound it is. Anyway, TMW’s page attempts to debunk a video made by a company called Fireball Tools.

Fireball makes inventive tools, including cast iron panels you can attach to a frame to create your own table. You can’t make tables of arbitrary size, because the panels are 12″ by 24″. A panel costs $125, and it requires a little machining, which I can do easily. If I made a 24″ by 54″ table, which is as close as I could come using Fireball products, the panels alone would run me $650, so figure $800 for a table which would be smaller than I want.

Fireball criticized Fabblocks. A standard Fabblock is made from 1/4″ steel. You can get thicker tables, but 1/4″ is where they start. TMW makes a table which is nearly the same thing, so when Fireball criticized Fabblocks, TMW had a dog in the fight.

Jason Marburger, the Fireball Tool guy, took a Fabblock and stuck a clamp into one of its fixture holes. Then he put about 1,000 pounds of force on it. When he was done, the hole had a burr around the edge. The clamp had a round post that went through the hole, and it worked by catching on the hole as pressure was applied. This only works because holes allow round rods to lean slightly. If they stood straight in the holes, they would slide right out. Because they lean over, there is friction.

I thought the Fireball video showed that 1/4″ steel was a bad idea, but TMW makes some good points.

1. No one in his right mind puts 1,000 pounds of force on a welding clamp. I agree with this point. If you have to put that much force on a clamp, something is wrong, and when you weld your joint, it will have an internal stress trying to open it, just as strong as the force you had to apply to close it.

2. Some welding accessories are made to work with 1/4″ steel, and if you make it thicker, you can get compatibility issues.

3. TMW is only too happy to make thicker tables on request, and they make more money from them, but they advise people to go with thinner tops instead.

4. TMW makes welding tables in a commercial environment, they can make new ones for very little, and they use their own 1/4″ tables to make the ones they sell.

TMW put up photos of one of their big tables hanging from two clamps, and they showed that the damage to the holes was so slight, they couldn’t be sure the clamps did it.

So we have two companies duking it out. Both make expensive products, but only TMW advises you to buy cheaper ones.

TMW says you can’t really get extreme, lasting flatness without spending several times as much money. Other companies try to make it sound like their lower-tier tables are extremely flat. For example, they’ll say the plates are cut on laser machines that have tolerances of a few thousandths or ten-thousandths of an inch over long distances, but they don’t point out that the tolerance of a machine isn’t the tolerance of a product it makes. Once the cut plate comes off the machine, things can happen to it in the assembly process.

Here’s a quotation:

All providers cut parts for welding tables on industrial CNC lasers, which are built to very tight tolerances. For example, a Baileigh Fiber Laser quotes .0004? per foot of repeatability, and ~.005? minimum cutting width. And while these numbers are impressive, they have absolutely nothing to do with the quality of fabrication of a finished product coming off them! They are products on their own.

Of course, that passage comes from a page in which TMW is comparing its own table to a truly flat one costing much more, so caveat emptor.

Making a table would validate my existence as a welder/fabricator. A lot of welders deride people who buy tables. On the other hand, zillions of professionals buy tables, so it’s probably more accurate to say that a real professional buys instead of building.

I figure I can make a decent table for under $800, whereas an assembled 5′ by 2.5′ TMW table could be sitting in my driveway next week for $1700. A 5′ by 2′ Fabblock kit, unassembled, would run $1250.

To make things more complicated, a guy just told me flat tables don’t stay flat once you use them. Does he know what he’s talking about? I don’t know. He’s a random guy on a forum. For all I know, his metal-bonding experience consists of several adventures with a Radio Shack soldering iron.

At least I’ve come to a tentative decision regarding table size. I was thinking of 3′ by 4′, but now I’m thinking 2.5′ by 5′. The square footage is nearly the same, but I would get an extra foot of length, and I think that would be much more useful than the 6 inches of width I would lose.

All this cogitation is based on the premise that the rapture isn’t coming this year. Still not sure what to think about that. I have never “predicted” that it would, but I keep having strong impressions that it will, and then there were the two Christmas-related rapture dreams I had. Also, other people have had rapture dreams involving Christmas. In my dreams, I found myself singing “I’ll be Home for Christmas,” and a lady who heard about these dreams said she had found herself singing that song in her dreams, too, and that it made sense to her after reading about my experiences.

If the rapture is upon us, there is no point in buying or building a welding table. On the other hand, if I place an order or start working on a table, and the rapture comes, my trying to get a new table won’t cause any problems.

When it comes to expensive tools, you need experience in order to know what to buy, but if you never buy anything, you aren’t likely to get experience. I guess I should make a decision and jump in. It looks like a maximum of around $900 is at stake, since I have to spend around $800 no matter what, and an assembled factory table would run around $1700.

Generosity Should be Rewarded

I want to send out a prayer request for a reader.

A while back, I put up a blog post about two young friends I called Diamond and Silk. They came to visit me on the farm, and I taught them how to shoot pistols. I wrote about the problems they had, finding ammunition.

Longtime Reader XC put up a comment offering to send them cartridges. He said he didn’t want to see women go about unarmed, and he had some .380 he was not going to use.

I put him in contact with Silk, and they worked out a shipment. Then nothing happened.

Eventually, the ammo showed up, and XC provided an explanation. He was delayed by a heart attack. In spite of a grave health issue, he still lived up to a promise he made to two strangers.

He sent 400 rounds, which he could have sold for about $300 on Gunbroker.

Anyway, I am asking people to pray for his health and a continually improving relationship with God.

Rodents Fall Victim to Improved Technology

Today, I tried out my new shooting bench, and I also did some rimfire research. I tested two rifles in my pasture.

As covered earlier this week, I built myself a massive square shooting bench. I welded it together from 2″-square steel tubing, and I put two-by-sixes across the top. It has two wheels so I can move it around.

Yesterday, I moved it to the pasture. I would have done it sooner, but I needed to have forks on my front end loader, and they had been removed so I could move dirt. My forks are held on by chains with big turnbuckles, and I learned that some bubba in the past had ruined one of them. I had to fix it before I could put my forks back on.

A turnbuckle is a tube with internal threads on each end. One set of threads is left-handed, and the other is right-handed. You screw threaded parts into each end, and these parts are attached to cables or chains. When you turn your cylinder, the threaded parts move into it, and you tighten your chain or cable.

Some master engineer had apparently used Vise Grips to hold onto a couple of my turnbuckles in order to get a grip so he could turn them. This compressed the tubes slightly. When you compress a threaded tube, you make it very hard to screw things into it.

I had to buy a 1″ tap and fix one of my turnbuckles. The other one isn’t all that bad. I put the turnbuckle in a vise, used a breaker bar to get the stuck part out of it, ran the tap through it, greased the daylights out of everything, and reassembled it. About 99% of tractor owners would have been lost, but because of my hobbies, I knew what to do, and I had all the tools I needed except for the tap.

I intended to fix this a year ago, but I forgot. I ordered and paid for a tap, and it never arrived. I didn’t check on it, so I’m out five bucks.

Anyway, I attached the forks to the tractor, put moving blankets on them, and lifted the bench. Moving it was no problem. I scuffed the paint while backing the tractor out, because I dropped the forks and forgot about the lower crossmembers in the bench, but I can fix the scuffing in two seconds, literally.

I put the bench by my shooting platform, 100 yards from my target area. Today I was shooting rimfire, and I wanted to see what the guns would do at 50. I lifted one end of the bench and rolled it forward. No problem. It was not light, but I was able to balance it on the wheels so I didn’t bear the weight.

I used a Home Depot folding chair. It was okay, but I need a higher chair or a board to put under the chair’s feet. I need to be down low, and the chair’s feet sink in the ground.

The bench was excellent. Like shooting from a boulder. It was also spacious. Lots of room for junk.

I shot my newish Savage A22 and my friend Mike’s old Marlin Model 60. I have a Nikon Prostaff II scope, and he has a Tasco which looks like it came from a drugstore. The Nikon is pretty nice for a low-end scope. Both guns are semiautomatic.

I wanted to try these guns on a rest, because I have been thinking about trying “precision rimfire.” I use quotation marks because I’m not sure “precision” .22 LR exists, for people who are not willing to rob banks in order to finance their shooting.

I have a Ruger Precision Rifle which will shoot 0.5 MOA, no problem, consistently. I saw that Ruger had come out with a Ruger Precision Rimfire rifle. The purpose is to give people a practice gun to shoot at shorter ranges, with cheaper ammo. I got all excited. Most .22 rifles won’t beat 2 MOA at 100 yards. In fact, 2 MOA would be much better than average. I figured if Ruger was willing to put “Precision” in the rifle’s name, it ought to shoot sub-MOA.

I watched some videos, and boy, where they disappointing. The reviewers who made the videos squealed like little girls. They were thrilled with the accuracy. And how accurate were the rifles? Maybe 1.5 MOA, at 50 yards.

I figured I could do that with a cheap semiauto, so I wondered why anyone would pay a lot more money for a “precision” .22. What were the reviewers excited about? Were they just bad shots?

I went to a sharpshooting forum and asked questions. I learned some things.

There is one well-known brand of .22 rifle that will shoot sub-MOA, and you can expect to spend close to $3000 for one. This is what the forum guys said, anyway. I was also told I would have to test the boxes of ammunition I bought. So I would be spending maybe 30 cents per round for post-coronavirus ammunition, testing boxes, and throwing out the ones that didn’t pass. Basically, I would end up paying 6.5mm Creedmoor prices, or more, to shoot a .22. Actually, I would pay more, because the rifle would cost over twice as much.

If I can shoot 0.5 MOA at 500 yards, why would I pay the same money to shoot 1 MOA at 50 yards? It seemed like a stupid idea, so I dropped it.

The company that makes the accurate .22 rifles is called Vudoo. After giving up on precision rimfire, I read that Anschutz and Lithgow (an Australian company) made cheaper rifles that would do nearly as well. You can get a Lithgow rifle for about a thousand dollars, which is not totally out of the question. This renewed my interest in accurate .22 rifles. I decided to find out what the rifles I already possessed would do.

Today I got out my dwindling bucket of Remington Golden Bullets and a box of CCI Mini-mags. I refused to use expensive ammunition, because it would make the test pointless.

With Golden Bullets, the Model 60, its 20-pound trigger, and its claw-machine scope annoyed me by outshooting the Savage. It shot around 2.5 MOA, and the Savage did slightly worse.

I wouldn’t wish the Marlin’s trigger on a mass shooter. It’s like lifting weights. At one point, the pull was so heavy I thought I had the safety on, so I checked. Nonetheless, it was accurate when I concentrated. The Savage has a very nice Accutrigger, but I had it adjusted too low, so it was tricky. You don’t want a rifle to go off before you’re ready.

I kept shooting, and I moved to Mini-mags. Both guns liked them better. What I found was that these guns, with this ammunition, in my hands, would shoot 1 MOA 5-shot groups, or similar groups that were ruined by one flyer. My best guess, which is only a guess, is that both guns will shoot 1 MOA most of the time at 50 yards, if I fix the triggers and practice a little.

That’s not bad. If I can shoot 0.5″ groups at 50 yards for a few cents a round, it’s worth it to do it regularly. All practice is good, and cheap practice is better.

I can’t be sure of my conclusions yet. I was not completely consistent. The trigger issues may explain that. A really good marksman who was used to these guns could work around bad triggers, but I was not able to make them behave 100% of the time.

I’m wondering if I can improve my accuracy by working on the Savage. I can’t hack up Mike’s rifle, but the Savage is all mine.

I’ve read that one reason the Vudoo shoots so well is that it has special magazines that make sure bullets don’t get damaged on the way to the chamber. Cheap .22 rifles don’t have features like that. My Savage has a crisp chamfer on the lower side of the chamber mouth. If a bullet hits the upper edge wrong, it may to get scraped, and this could cause it to fly crooked.

I’m wondering if I can put a smooth radius on that edge and make my shots more consistent. I looked it up, and I read that other people have already thought of this. They do it to pistols and some centerfire guns. I’m thinking about trying it. If I ruin my barrel, it’s not a big deal. Savage barrels can be replaced with simple tools.

If I can turn this gun into a 1-MOA rifle, maybe I should put better glass on it. I have an MRAD 4-14x scope which is gathering dust. It would make it easy to spot my own shots. It might work for hunting, too, since small animals suitable for rimfire hunting go well with high magnification.

I doubt this gun will ever break 2 MOA at 100 yards, but if it will get to 2 MOA, it will still be pretty great for a .22.

I feel like I should see what I can do with this gun before looking at other options.

The bench is great. The rifles and ammo are better than expected. I expect to do better with a little gunsmithing and practice. That sums it up.

If not, there is always Lithgow.

Dinner Destroyed by Transcription Error

You’re never too old to learn something obvious.

This week, I got a craving for kung pao chicken. I have yet to find decent Chinese food in my area. I learned how to make my own kung pao chicken last year. I have a bunch of non-perishable ingredients on hand. Yesterday I bought chicken and some vegetables, and today I cooked.

It’s a big, big job. Something you don’t want to do every week. I cut up green onions, ginger, chicken, and so on. I minced garlic. I measured stuff out. One of my ingredients was Sichuan peppers. I bought them last year, but I didn’t use them. I figured peppers were peppers, so I used something else.

Today I looked at my ingredient list, and it called for three tablespoons of Sichuan peppers. I decided to use the real thing. I thought they smelled odd, but I figured the Chinese knew what they were doing. I ground some up and added three tablespoons to my sauce.

When I tried to eat the food, it was disgusting. My tongue got numb. I put the whole batch down the garbage disposal. I thought the Chinese had poisoned me, the way they poisoned American pets with melamine and the way they poisoned American houses with bad drywall. I wondered if I would die. I decided that if I lived, I would take the rest of the peppers to the health department and rat out the Chinese grocer, who probably didn’t know she was selling tainted merchandise.

Then I looked at my computer, and I learned two things. Sichuan peppers are not peppers, and I was supposed to use three teaspoons, not three tablespoons.

Sichuan peppers are also called Sichuan peppercorns. They have a chemical in them that causes numbness, especially if you eat three times as much as you should.

Now my dinner is in the septic tank, and I am full of pecan twirls. I had to eat something.

In other news, I feel like I know what to do about getting a new welding table. I have been thinking about buying a factory-made table, but I have also been thinking about saving money by building my own. I just built a 4-foot-square shooting bench from steel tubing, and it’s nearly the same thing as a welding bench, so I know I can do the job. Before I built the bench, I was afraid of the welding job, and once that fear was put to rest, I was only put off by the difficulty of buying steel for the table top.

You can’t just go to the mall and ask for a 12-square-foot piece of 3/8″ steel with a precision-ground surface. People who live in the Rust Belt are lucky (in one way, anyhow) because they are surrounded by businesses that sell tools and materials. If I lived in Pittsburgh, I could probably walk out of my house and throw a rock and hit a place that sold steel for welding tables. Florida is different.

Today, through the magic of Google, I located a business that sells precision-ground plate. It’s in Tampa, 90 minutes away. I emailed and asked if they could help me. Haven’t heard back yet.

This is not the only encouraging information I got. I learned that the density of steel is 0.292 pounds per cubic inch, so the type of top I’m thinking of buying would weigh 188 pounds. Before doing the calculation, I had no idea what a decent table top would weigh, so I was afraid I’d be trying to work with a monumental object. I can deal with 188 pounds. For that matter, I could go up to 1/2″ steel and deal with 250 pounds. Drilling fixturing holes would remove something like 58 pounds from a 3/8″ table and 76 pounds from a 1/2″ table.

The steel for the frame would come in at maybe 100 pounds, which is not bad at all. It wouldn’t be like I was buying a gigantic piece of metalworking equipment I could never take with me if I moved. It would be more like buying a rolling toolbox.

I’ve seen smallish welding tables that weigh 400 or more pounds. I didn’t want to deal with that. Now I’m inclined to think they’re overbuilt. Men who like tools have a weakness for things that are too heavy. They think you can’t have strength or rigidity without lots of iron. This isn’t even close to true. It’s pretty much what the Soviets used to think, and it’s why they built machinery that was way too heavy. It’s poor engineering, based on ignorance.

I’m no engineer, but I used to be a bad physicist, and I can look at a table of figures and tell you don’t need a 300-pound frame to hold up a small welding table. The tubing I used for my bench will deflect 1/16″ if you hang 500 pounds from the end of a 4-foot stretch. That’s assuming you only use one tube, the weight is all on one point at the end, there is no thick steel plate attached to it to add rigidity, and there are no struts or legs under it to resist deflection. Add a few companion elements to your tube and refrain from putting tiny 500-pound objects at one end of it, and you should get, essentially, no deflection.

I should be able to use the exact same 2″-square tubing I used for my bench. I think it would be better to use 1″ by 3″, though, with the long sides oriented vertically. The vertical parts of the tubes would be the parts that resisted deflection, so a 1″ by 3″ tube would be a lot more rigid. It would also fit nicely between the fixturing holes on the table top. I would want 5/8″ holes on 2″ centers, so a 1″ tube would fit between holes without obstructing them.

Based on figures I’ve seen from overpriced online metal dealers, I may be able to get a 1/2″ ground plate for around $400 if I pick it up myself. The tubing would run another $100, and then I’d need paint and about $50 worth of casters. So $550, plus $30 for an annular cutter and the price of renting a magnetic drill press long enough to put holes in the plate.

It sort of looks like I could have a really neat table for maybe $700, along with bragging rights because I designed and built it. Compare that to $2000+ for a factory table.

If only I had a big welding table to build my welding table on.

Anyway, things are looking good. I have not been poisoned, and I may be able to create a nice welding table at a reasonable price. Hope your day has gone well.

I have a Shooting Bench

My latest creation is finished. I put the top on my new shooting bench, planed it, sanded it, and put more sealer on the wood. It’s ready to use.

I thought I was done with the metalworking yesterday, but then I realized the bench had no feet on it. The tubing on the rear side had nothing to prevent it from sinking into the ground. I fired up the dry saw and plasma cutter and made two 3″ by 3″ squares of 11-gauge steel, I ground the paint off the ends of the tubes, and I welded the squares in place and added truck bed coating. Done.

I also finished cutting wood for the top. I would have been done two days ago, but I had to go buy another two by six. I applied water sealer to the wood and left it out all night to dry, and today I was ready to assemble the bench.

I used 5/16″ by 3″ lag screws with big washers. I laid the wood out on a tarp, and I rolled the bench over on it so it was upside-down. I located and drilled pilot holes in the wood using the holes in the frame as guides, and I inserted and tightened the screws.

After this, I righted the bench. This was not fun. New pressure-treated wood is very heavy, and I had 36 feet by 5.5 inches by 1.5 inches of it to lift.

I got out some hand planes and made the top and edges of the bench a little friendlier. I sanded it lightly and rounded off the sharp corners. After that, I applied more sealer to the top, and I was done.

I’ve very happy with it. My welding got better and better as I worked, so there are a number of very pretty welds on it. The paint looks great. It’s very strong. I stood on it and jumped up and down, and it was not unlike jumping on a concrete driveway.

I have not gone through with my plan to add a way to pull it behind my cart. I’m thinking it over. It may be best to pull it by the bottom brace instead of the top brace. When the bench is tilted upward on the side with feet, it takes the weight off that end and puts more of it over the wheels. It would be easier to tow this way.

I was thinking of taking that strut off because I installed it by mistake, but now I see that it makes the bench much easier to move. You just lift so the strut is at chest level. All the weight goes to the axles, so you don’t have to hold the bench up. It’s like a balanced wheelbarrow.

This bench is very, very nice. It makes me regret buying a stainless table for my barbecue area. I spent well over $300. For maybe $150, I could have had a much stronger table set up just the way I wanted. It wouldn’t have been stainless steel, but truck bed coating and pressure-treated wood work very well outdoors.

There is no reason why I couldn’t build a less-robust patio dining table. I could use 1″ tubing and 1″ lumber. When you’re having lunch, you don’t need a table that can hold a ton. Of course, I’m assuming the wood wouldn’t warp like crazy. Pressure-treated wood comes full of preservative fluid, and it eventually evaporates, causing shrinking and warping. I guess I could use wood that isn’t treated, though. My outdoor dining area is under a roof.

I’ll try to put the bench in the pasture and try it out later in the week. If the cattle touch it, I’ll have them deported.

More Evidence for my Antifa Tribunal

My new shooting bench is taking shape.

Today I put the remaining pieces on it and finished the welding. I was thinking about getting a new welding table, and I can now confirm that I need one. This afternoon, I had to take the shooting bench off my table and stand and sit inside it to weld. This was the first time I had ever had to get inside one of my projects.

Everything went well. I have a couple of lumpy welds I decided to grind down, but generally, I did an acceptable job. The table doesn’t rock when I put it on its top on the driveway, so it can’t be all that warped.

Once I was done with the welding, I put the wheels on it so I could roll it out for a photo. Then I shot most of a can of truck bed coating onto it. I figure I’ll need one more can to finish it.

I went to Home Depot and picked up some wood for the top, and I also bought deck sealer. I got the cheap kind. Pressure-treated wood may resist rot and bugs, but it soaks up water and swells, and it gets moldy. Maybe sealant will slow things down.

I’m hoping I can use the bench without paint. There may be times when I don’t want a slick surface. It probably doesn’t matter, but I’m playing it safe for now. I can always paint it later.

I’m considering making a cart attachment so I can pull the bench around with my EZ-GO. If I drill one big hole in the bench’s frame, I can come up with a way to attach it to the cart later.

The bench seems very low. Without the top, it’s low enough to sit on without jumping. The wood will raise the height an inch and a half, though.

I have to keep it low in order to do proper recoil management. If you’re going to go to the trouble of making a bench, you might as well make it correctly instead of making an amateur bench no serious shooter would want.

It’s very sturdy. If it were overloaded to failure, the axles on the wheels would probably collapse before the wood and metal box would give. An online calculator estimates that each of my steel crossmembers will deflect about 1/20″ if a 500-pound weight is suspended from the center, and I have three crossmembers with two by six lumber on top. I need the bench to be rigid, so it made sense to build it too strong.

I’m very excited about this project. Should be a great addition to the shooting area. I just hope the cattle don’t take a liking to it.

Two-day Project Expands Predictably

My daily adventures are finished, as far as I know, so I am writing to unwind.

I spent several more hours on my shooting bench project. I thought I would be done with the metalworking today, but as always, I decided to complicate things, so I lost a couple of hours.

The bench will probably weigh the better part of 100 pounds, and I would like to be able to move it easily so I can shoot at different distances. I don’t think it’s a good idea for old people to drag heavy objects across pastures. My obvious and hypocritical solution: wheels.

Why is this solution hypocritical? Because I’m using wheels I labeled trash a while back, claiming they were useless.

I bought a handtruck and turned it into a propane cutting cart. In the process, I took the pneumatic tires off and replaced them with solid ones. I have had bad experiences with pneumatic tires on things like handtrucks and wheelbarrows, so I don’t trust them. I have the feeling China is involved. It seems like small innertubes all leak these days, and that was not the case in the past. When I was a kid, I didn’t have to inflate my bike’s tires every time I rode it, but the last two bicycles I dealt with had to have their tires inflated over and over, just like handtrucks and wheelbarrows.

Maybe China has the only Schrader valve plant on earth, and it makes garbage.

When I took the pneumatic tires off the propane cart, I reviled them publicly, and I tossed them in the garage so they would be close to the car when I loaded up to go to the dump. I never took them, because it seemed wasteful. I had an idea that I might take the tubes out and use them for head pillows while watching TV.

When I got the idea to put wheels on the bench, I thought of the tires. They were here. They were free, sort of. Most amazingly, they were still inflated.

Maybe the Chinese got these innertubes right. I am willing to take a chance.

My bench has 2″-square legs. Instead of a big long axle running through two of them, which would require a long drive to my metal dealer, I decided to use junk I already had. I took two pieces of 3/4″ round bar, turned parts of them down to around 5/8″, drilled holes in them for cotter pins, chamfered the holes so the pins would go in easily, and cleaned them up for welding. I drilled 3/4″ holes through my bench legs, pounded the axles through them, and welded them in place.

It was a great deal of fun, and I saved a trip, although I want to get one more piece of steel for the bench, so okay, I didn’t save a trip at all. But for a while, I thought I had, and that illusion of success had a certain amount of value to me.

The really sad thing is that I had enough 3/4″ bar to make a solid axle. I found that out after I got started. Still, why use up metal when you don’t have to? It’s not free.

I’ll post a photo of my bench’s legs.

As of this morning, the bench had one leg, which made it okay for milking cows but not very good for shooting. I got two more legs welded on, and I added the final horizontal member.

Adding the last member was not what I would call a breeze. My table is 2′ by 3′, and the bench will be about 4 feet square. I can’t get all of it on the table at the same time. I have to make clever, or what seems clever to me, use of clamps to make it work. I have to set up one corner of the bench at a time, hoping everything will still be lined up when I weld the other corners. Of course, this did not work. I had to cut some tacks on a piece I put in place yesterday. It had turned out to be about 1/8″ too long. I had to shorten it. I had a fine old time getting the bench on the table so I could weld the piece back in.

Yesterday, I started looking at welding tables. I realized I had outgrown my second table, and I was wondering whether I should build a new one or buy one. I thought the only reasonable choice in a factory table was a Fab Block, made by Weldtables.com. These tables get great reviews, and they’re inexpensive. The problem is that “inexpensive” means about $2100 for a 3/8″-thick table.

While I was looking for answers, I found a company which had done what I had been hoping someone would do. They were offering cheaper tables to compete with Weldtables.com. I don’t think a small welding table is worth $2100, even if it has wifi and a built-in espresso machine. I think industrial tables are incredibly overpriced, and I suspect that when Weldtables.com decided to offer a less expensive alternative, they didn’t have much incentive to be all that much cheaper. They had no competition on the low end.

A company called Langmuir now makes “Arcflat” tables aimed squarely at the Fab Block. They’re cast iron. They’re basically iron boxes with supporting members inside. They’re covered with regulation 16mm holes for fixturing. They’re 3/8″ thick, whereas the default thickness for Fab Blocks is 1/4″. Here are the two best parts: they come fully assembled, and a 2′ by 3′ table only costs $650 plus shipping.

Fab Blocks have to be welded together. You get a really heavy box of parts, and after that, you’re on your own.

Arcflat tables are ground flat before you get them, so you don’t have to worry that your poor welding skills will ruin one during assembly.

Why would I want a 2′ by 3′ table, since I already have one? Simple. Arcflat tables are modular. You can buy two tables and clamp them up to make a 4′ by 3′ table, which is what I want.

I’m not all that excited about welding on cast iron. When you weld on steel, you can tack things to it to hold them in place, and you can grind the remains of the tacks off afterward. You can’t crack or snap steel, either. If you gouge it, you can weld new steel into it very easily to make it like new. That could be tricky with cast iron.

There are good things about cast iron, though. It’s rigid, and weld spatter doesn’t stick to it very well. There are high-end industrial tables made from cast iron.

Like Fab Blocks, Arcflat tables have vertical side panels with fixture holes. Those would have come in handy yesterday.

Based on what I know right now, I can forget about a Fab Block. I see no reason to buy one if I can get a bigger, thicker table, fully assembled, for less money.

Langmuir also makes a $3000 CNC plasma table which is really tempting. I already have a plasma cutter. Best not to think about it.

Yesterday, I thought I was going to finish my bench today. Today, I think I’ll finish it tomorrow. I wonder what new features I can come up with to drive me into next week.

It’s looking really good. I look forward to trying it out.

…your Shooting Bench Costs Five Times as Much as Your Dinner Table

Work on the shooting bench is going very well.

Today I attacked the steel I bought yesterday. Most pieces had very little rust, and that was a rare blessing. I removed spots of rust from the shiny pieces, and I gave the rustier ones more effort. Then I started drilling holes.

This bench will have a nearly square upper frame with a crossmember bisecting it. When I put wood on it, the boards will lie across three pieces of steel tubing. Screws will pass through the tubing from the bottom, into the wood. That means there have to be lots of holes.

I used 2″ tubing, so I set my square to 1″ and used a carbide scribe to mark the centers of the tubes where I needed holes. I used a tape measure and a Sharpie to locate the holes along the lengths of the tubes. I used a punch to make dimples to guide my drills. I drilled through the tubes with a #35 bit, because I happen to have a whole package of them. I followed with a step bit, which opened the holes up to nearly 7/16″ and deburred them.

Using a pilot hole makes drilling go faster, because it gets rid of the hardest part of the hole to drill: the center. A drill’s flutes move very slowly near the center of a hole, so they don’t do much. It’s worse with big drills, because the flutes don’t go all the way to the center. If you drill the center out with a small drill, which has flutes that come much closer to the center of the hole, you get much higher RPM’s, you move fast, and you remove the metal which slows down bigger bits.

Once I had holes on one side of each tube, I was able to use the drill press to put holes in the other sides. I dropped oil through the existing holes, onto the areas where I was going to continue drilling. I used the existing holes as drill it guides. I ran a big drill bit through them, and the existing holes located the holes on the other side. When I was done, I deburred the new holes with the step bit.

I can’t say enough about step bits. Unless you’re drilling deep holes, they’re totally superior to ordinary bits. They cut much, much faster. You have to get good ones, though. Cheap ones just spin in place.

Once I was finished with the holes, I had to figure out how to weld a nearly 4-foot-square frame on a table measuring about two by three feet. I had to use all sorts of clamps, including wood clamps. You can weld metal with wood clamps. You just have to take them off before the pads melt!

Right now, enough of the capital B is tacked together to make an A, and one leg is tacked in place. Tomorrow, I plan to install the other legs, finish the welds, and get started on painting. I should be able to use the bench in about three days. Sooner, if I don’t insist on painting the wood first.

While I worked on the bench, I thought about my plan to upgrade my welding table. I don’t know if I want to deal with a project this big again on this small table, and a new table would be similar in size to this project.

I keep going back and forth: put my own table together for maybe $400, or buy one for around $1300?

If I were to build one, I would have to make somewhere close to 300 16mm holes in it, through 3/8″ steel. Every hole would take at least two minutes to drill. Ten hours of drilling? Seems like a lot.

If I were to buy one, I’d go for the 1/4″-thick Fabblock from Weldtables.com. The 3/8″ table is too expensive. So I would lose rigidity and durability.

Also, I would make a shopmade table bigger, since it would cost less. I would go for 36″ by 48″, whereas I was looking at a 36″ by 42″ Fabblock.

Welding tables have to be very flat, and welding makes things warp, so the pitfall to making my own table is obvious. Making welded objects flat is not easy. I would hate to spend a lot of money on metal and then end up with a bowl instead of a table.

As dilemmas go, this is a good one to have. I could be trying to choose between paying the rent and buying winter clothes.

I will put more photos up as I go. Can’t wait to put this table to work.

Meat-Eating Weirdo Builds Scary Shooting Bench

Recently, my friend Mike visited, and we shot in my pasture. I have a very nice roofed shooting platform which I built from pressure-treated lumber. You have to lie down to use it, and that didn’t work well for Mike. He used a Home Depot folding table.

The platform is a joy, but I can see that it won’t always work for guests, and it probably weighs 350 pounds, so moving it to different distances is not practical. I can do it on rare occasions, but I’m not going to keep the tractor next to it all the time. A bench will be easier to move, it will be easier on guests, and it will be nice when I want to shoot from a seated position.

I learned some stuff while I was planning the build.

1. Real sniper wannabees do not build benches with cutouts. A cutout will encourage you to sit beside your gun, not behind it. It will also make it too easy for you to sit upright. These issues will cause problems with recoil management.

2. A proper bench is low. I thought a tall bench would be nice because it would be comfortable. I learned that you need a low bench so your back will be nearly horizontal where you contact the gun. The idea is to make bench shooting like prone shooting. Again, recoil is the reason.

3. A bench should not have built-in seating. Every time you move your rear end, you’ll move your point of aim.

In order to see your own shots land, you need a muzzle that doesn’t jump or move to one side. To get that, you need to be directly behind your rifle, not beside it. You also need your body to be a good backstop, and that means you want to lean forward. It all adds up to a low bench with no cutout.

I never liked cutouts anyway. I always felt I had to strain to get behind the gun.

I’m building a simple table about 4 feet square. The height will be about 29 inches.

I thought about materials. First, I thought of wood. I decided against it. A strong wooden bench will be heavier than steel, it will require more ingenuity to put together, and it will require big, thick parts that are likely to get in the way when shooting. A steel bench will be lighter, and it won’t incorporate a bunch of two-by-sixes that make for cramped positions.

Today I went to my metal dealer and spent a hundred bucks on 2″ square tubing. I also bought a bunch of hex screws and washers. I plan to weld a metal frame and screw two-by-sixes to it for a top. I’ll put the screws through the tubing from the bottom. They won’t go through the top of the wood, so no hardware will be in my way.

I made a mistake by choosing 1/8″ steel. It’s pretty heavy. It will be much, much stronger than necessary. I guess I added 30 pounds to the bench’s weight. I couldn’t lift it even if I made it with thinner steel, though, so it’s not like it will be a problem. I should come up with a way to add wheels so I can pick one end up and move it.

The bench will be one solid weldment with a wood top, so it won’t break down. That will be a problem if I move. I can cut the legs off with grinder, though. If I did that, I could move the bench in pieces and weld it back together somewhere else.

I should be able to do all the welding tomorrow. Cleaning the metal to paint it will take a while, but it won’t be bad, because the steel they sold me is very bright. Once it’s welded, I’ll need a day or two to put truck bed coating on it, and then I can screw the top on. I think I’ll paint the top with farm implement paint. I just need a slick surface I can wipe down to get rid of mold or whatever.

I’ll need a mat for the bench. My prone mat is not suitable because it’s made in 4 flat sections. You can’t just unroll half of it and hang the rest off the front. I have a couple of very thick bath mats I don’t use for anything. They would be perfect.

It’s nice to have another welding project. It’s nice to know I’ll have a fantastic bench. If I couldn’t use tools, where would I be? Factory benches are not very good, and they cost a fortune.

Night Vision Bargain Disappoints

Back when I moved here, I bought myself a cheap night vision scope, thinking I would shoot coons and other critters with it. I believe I wrote about it recently. It’s an ATN X-Sight II. I used credit card points to buy it, on a lark. The cost was $600, which is not a lot for night vision. It came with an infrared flashlight to help it see things.

I was busy with my dad, and I never got around to night hunting. Now I’m trying to get the scope to work.

It’s a badly executed product. No two ways about it. Yes, it works, but it won’t do what the ads make you think it will do.

1. The IR illuminator is not very good, so you need to get a better one for long distances.

2. The scope will eat the 4 AA batteries ATN says to use, so don’t even try. Buy a zippered butt pack and a 20,000-maH USB battery plus a micro USB cable and use these items to power the scope. It will run for hours. ATN sells its own version of this setup for $100, but you will pay more like $30 if you buy things separately.

3. The scope has Bluetooth, but it does not work well enough to be useful for anything.

4. ATN has an app for the scope, and it will help you change the scope’s settings or show another person what you see through the scope, but that’s about it. You can look at your own photos and videos, but you can’t save or share them. As for changing the settings, you can do that using the scope’s buttons.

A few days back, I tried to use the scope in the backyard, just to get ready. Without the illuminator, all I saw was a green mess. There was nearly no contrast between one thing and another. When I turned on the illuminator, everything went bright green, and I saw nothing at all.

Today I updated the scope’s firmware, and suddenly it started working. Here’s a photo.

As you can see, the scope is still a little confused about the date.

Now I can see well enough to shoot varmints. Unfortunately, the scope is zeroed for my .204 Ruger rifle at 100 yards, and I expect to be shooting at maybe 50. I have to take it out and shoot some close-up targets.

How do you shoot varmints if you can’t see them? That’s a great question. The scope has a small field of view, so there is pretty much no possibility that I will be able to spot game. I can put bait out and watch a small area, or I can get a different tool for spotting. I can find animals with the other tool and shoot them with the scope.

I think. I’m just guessing.

Night vision is the cheap way to shoot at night. The best way is thermal. A thermal scope will make any warm object light up, even if it’s behind leaves. If you take a thermal optic out in the woods at night, you will be able to see every animal around you a long way off, as long as the view isn’t completely blocked. You’ll even see birds in the trees, like little Christmas lights.

I’m thinking I should get a thermal monocular. When I spot critters, I can shove put the monocular down and use the scope.

I’m trying to get advice as to whether this is a good idea.

What if it works? Then I’ll use the night vision scope until I get tired of it, and I’ll upgrade to a thermal scope. I believe I’ll still need a monocular to find things, because monoculars have big fields of view.

After that, I should be able to hammer hogs at will, provided I can find them.

It’s annoying, buying a product from a company that doesn’t seem to care about whether it works, but as long as I accept the fact that it doesn’t do everything it’s supposed to, I should be able to have a lot of fun with the X-Sight. I will be very cautious about buying a thermal made by ATN, though. You only get to fool me once.

God Ends Lack

I got an unexpected surprise today, and I got relief from a long drought.

Yesterday, I wrote about my friend Tina. I used to drive her to church every day. I don’t hear from her often, but a few days back, she texted me and invited me to watch her online graduation. She had earned a master’s degree.

I watched the ceremony, and I was very glad. I mentored a young man named Travis for years, and he was supposed to graduate from college this school year. He died after an accidental shooting. Seeing Tina succeed where he had been cut off was rewarding.

Today, my phone rang before 9 a.m. It was Tina. She called to ask my advice about some problems she was having.

As I wrote yesterday, Tina comes from a broken family, and her sister had to raise her. Tina has had to look after herself and plan her own future. She is an achiever. She is extremely focused and goal-oriented. She worked hard and earned scholarships. Now she’s out on her own, she hasn’t been blessed with a husband, and she is still carrying too much weight. She is having some problems with her landlady, who doesn’t seem to understand how residential rentals work. She also wanted prayer because she wanted to hear from God more clearly and more abundantly.

As far as I can recall, I have not had anyone to pray with since March of last year. Of course, I’m available, but people I know don’t seem inclined to take advantage. I used to pray with Travis, and I was able to share things God had given me so Travis would also be helped. Travis helped me as well. For a long time, I’ve been asking God to send other people to fill the void.

I own residential rental properties, so while I am not an expert on property law, I know a few things, and I was able to give Tina some information so she would understand her situation better. That was nice, but the real blessings were that I was able to share tactics God had shown me, and that we prayed together.

Yesterday morning, I got a supernatural revelation concerning my connection to God. It helped open the channel so he could give me the things he wanted me to have. It helped me know I was not imposing on him and that he was eager to supply and support me. I got to tell Tina about it. She has been fighting her own battles all her life, with less help than she should be getting. She should have a Spirit-filled husband as well as friends who team up with her supernaturally. She should have a house. She shouldn’t be worried about bills. She should have someone to pray with every day. She shouldn’t feel she will sink if she stops paddling.

We prayed for God to help her landlady to become Spirit-led. We spoke defeat to her efforts to put unreasonable demands on Tina. We prayed for Tina to hear God’s voice and to know she is part of him. We prayed for God to bring her together with a man who will stand by her.

I told her she really needed to spend time praying in tongues every day. I said it was where revelation began. She accepted the advice.

It’s great to be blessed, but it’s frustrating when you can’t get anyone else to listen to your story and receive what God gave you. Being able to help Tina was wonderful, especially after what happened to Travis. I hope we’ll get together for prayer in the future, and I hope to see results in her life. Maybe soon she won’t have to call an old man a long way off in order to have someone to pray with.

I suppose praying with almost anyone is a good thing, but it’s especially nice to pray with people who know a few things and have some connection with God. You get tired of going over the basics with people who are still at square one.

I’m not a model Christian, but I know a lot of helpful things. I will be very grateful if God helps me share a few, effectively, during my remaining time here.

What Graduation Looks like in 2020

Today I’m getting a taste of everyone else’s 2020. I’m watching an online graduation made necessary by coronavirus. Even the classes took place online.

I was a deacon at a church called New Dawn Ministries. While I was there, I met a young lady named Tina. She was in her teens. I don’t know a great deal about her early life, but I know her family was very dysfunctional, and she was raised by her older sister.

Tina made the most of her situation. She was extremely motivated. She participated in beauty contests in order to get scholarships, and she ended up going to the University of Miami.

I lived near the University, and her family lived in Broward County. They asked me if I could drive her to church every Sunday, and I agreed.

Tina did well in college, and she decided to get a master’s degree in leadership and management, with a concentration in human resources. She has been attending Purdue’s online program, and today she graduates. A few days back, she sent me an invitation by text message.

The ceremony appears in a window in a web browser. There are only 4 or 5 people on camera in the room with the podium. They are all wearing masks except when they speak. It felt very strange, watching figures in robes and masks filing into that dark, lonely room. It was like watching a scene from a post-apocalyptic science fiction movie, except I was watching real life.

They’re announcing the names of the graduates in alphabetical order. They’re showing a photo of each graduate. We’re in the B’s, and Tina’s last name starts with H.

Tina knew my friend Travis, who died in May. They attended UM at the same time, and they were friends. I had some hope they would pair up and marry.

I won’t get to see Travis graduate, but at least Tina made it.

I saw her photo and sent her a congratulatory text. Now I’ve closed the browser. No point in sitting through dozens of photos of strangers.

I was thinking about Travis, and I decided to do some counting. I counted black male and female graduates, with the intention of stopping when I got to 10 of either. When I quit, I had counted 10 women and only three men. Unfortunate.

It’s funny that I watched the graduation today. I had a dream last night, and it seems related.

I used to write for Tropic, the Sunday magazine of the Miami Herald. I met a number of the writers and employees. I remember them. Dave Barry, Gene Weingarten, Joel Achenbach, Michelle Genz, Philip Brooker, Ray Bubel, John Dorschner, and Doris Mansour. The editor I generally worked with was named Tom. I remember going to his house for a party. He had just built his own deck. Dave Barry’s young son was taking karate classes, and while I talked to Dave, his son kept punching me in the leg.

I never fit in with the group. There was a hardness to the writers, except for Dave Barry, who seemed to float above it because of his ability and his fame. They were cold, worldly people who looked out for themselves and had no romance in their hearts. Maybe it was because they were journalists. They published my work, but I felt there was a barrier I could never cross. I could never be an insider.

I seemed to connect better with the art people. Of course, I wasn’t in a position to compete with them, although one of my drawings did get published.

In my dream, I was at an outdoor table, eating lunch with several Christians and Tom. In the dream, the Herald still owned its gigantic waterfront headquarters. The table was maybe two miles north of the building, on the other side of I-95.

In the dream, I had quit writing for Tropic. In real life, I quit in about 1988. I had become a Christian, I felt Tropic and the Herald were not very helpful, and again, I didn’t fit in. As the relationship diminished, Tom sensed it. The last thing I remember him saying to me in real life was, “Don’t disappear.”

It felt like Tom was having lunch so far north of the Herald because he wasn’t comfortable being seen with me. I could tell he wanted me to do some more work for him, and I was willing to do small jobs, just to be helpful. He wasn’t direct, but he hinted at a desire to bring me back in.

Our lunch companions started talking about his choice to have lunch so far from his office. I got up to throw my soda can in the trash, and I said, “It’s because we’re conservatives. Or because we’re Christians.”

I woke up, and I felt distressed. I found myself thinking about the years I had wasted, trying to get the devil’s world to accept me. I tried to make it as a writer, and I had two comic strips that reached the development stage. Many times, I had the feeling I had finally broken the ice. Success was just a few weeks away. But it never came. I was grabbing Satan’s bait over and over. I didn’t realize there were two different families on the planet, and when it came to earthly promotion, I belonged to the wrong one.

If you belong to God, you’re not supposed to get wrapped up in secular accomplishments. The word says God sets him that is godly apart for himself. You shouldn’t feel you have to win prizes or titles. You shouldn’t believe you have to have your name on buildings. You shouldn’t feel like a failure because you’re not a big name in some field or other. Secular accomplishments are God’s garbage. They don’t go with you to heaven. Up there, your service to God is what makes you rich. You get to see your wealth every time you see a person you helped to make it.

Satan likes to dangle bait in front of people. He’ll say, “You can serve God and be an Oscar winner. You can be a billionaire. You can win a Nobel Prize.” He’ll give you the idea that you glorify God with your silly achievements, as if God needs you to help him get publicity. Generally, in order to get what he offers you, you have to whore out. If you don’t, he keeps you from winning, and he gives his tacky prizes and ribbons to people with less ability but more plasticity.

I didn’t feel good, thinking about the wasted years, but then I got a supernatural revelation that made me feel wonderful.

Every Christian who understands the Holy Spirit and grace knows we are not supposed to serve God through hard work or superior natural ability. We are not supposed to earn; we are supposed to receive an inheritance. This is why the volumes of the Bible are called testaments. A testament is a will. Jesus died, and we are supposed to inherit what he earned.

Spirits work and move in every person. The only spirit a Christian should carry is the Holy Spirit, but many of us are inhabited by more than one spirit. People who don’t know God are full of evil spirits, but they don’t know the Holy Spirit.

A Spirit-led Christian is supposed to be like a hand connected to a body. A hand doesn’t feed itself. It doesn’t even have a mouth. It doesn’t get a job to pay for its upkeep. The body feeds it and looks after it. A Christian who thinks he has to take care of himself and guide himself is like a severed hand with delusions.

If I am truly God’s son, I am supposed to be as much a part of him as my hand is part of me. My hand is supported from within the body, through various vessels. As a Christian, I am supposed to be supplied by God at all times, and–this is the important part–I should never feel that he is reluctant to supply ever need, more abundantly than I need. He allowed himself to be tortured to death so he could do that.

I really am God’s son, and he really is eager to do things for me.

I knew these things before last night, but you know how it is with revelation. I hope. You can know things perfectly well and still not have a good grasp of them. A supernatural revelation will make knowledge part of you, undeniable and suddenly obvious.

Things like faith, love, peace, and knowledge are supposed to flow into us without end, just as blood flows into hands. God didn’t put us here so we could be isolated and poor.

Satan isolates people and makes them feel alone and small, and that makes sense, because he’s a predator. Predators like to get their prey alone. God binds us to himself so we have his power and invulnerability of God. If we don’t see these things fully manifested, it’s because we’re blocking God with our misconceptions and disobedience.

There is always symmetry in the supernatural. If Satan cuts me off from help and prevents me from succeeding, God will make me an important member of his family, and he will give me victory.

If I had gotten rich writing or drawing a comic strip, I would be a mess. I wouldn’t have realized I needed to get closer to God. I would be subject to tremendous temptation, and I would probably give in all the time. I would have a social circle of cold, godless people who would keep drawing me away from God. I might have a horrible atheist wife (or ex-wife) who would be like a painful tumor to me. I would have friends and business acquaintances who would take advantage of me and make me feel bad about myself. I would have no prayer life. I would not know how to get God’s help when I or someone else needed it. I would be a rich failure.

The revelation I got last night is life-changing. Things will be much better from now on.

I hope you will keep trying to get close to God. It’s the only plan that works. The others are just traps.