Anonymous Web Angel(GFZ)

Thursday was a driving day. I took Hagar to drop off her stuff for a weekend event. Since it was in the right direction, I stopped at my metal supply shop to pick up some metal.

To understand an interaction with these folks, you have to first understand noob.

13+ years ago, I found them because they were close to where I had a client. It was no issue to stop in and buy from them.

I opened the door and was in their office. Not in an anti-room, but in their office. Bill turns to me and asks, “Can I help you?

“I’d like some 1 inch steel.”

“What type of steel?”

I’m a smart guy. At least that’s what my mom told me. I had no idea, “What type of steel?” Steel is steel. Aluminum is aluminum.

Bill wasn’t interested in teaching a noob. He took enough time to make sure I got what I needed, and I was ready when I came back.

I now know to ask for 6061 when I want aluminum. If I want cheap steel, nasty and ugly, but mostly flat. I ask for that garbage steel, 1018. If I want cheaper still and less flat, A36 steel.

If I want a better steel, I’m likely to ask for 4140 or some other word or number I’ve seen mentioned.

I ask for what I want by name. If I don’t care, I’ll ask them as the steel people. They have always treated me fairly.

Thursday was slightly unusual for me. I had placed the order on Monday. Told them I was picking it up on Thursday. And I specified some sizes specifically.

If you are a production shop, and your end size is 1x3x10, you will get 1.061 by 3.061 by 10.125. You do not get 1.5×3.5×15.

The time it takes to remove that extra material is money. The cost of that extra steel is money.

The cost of material is based on weight, for all intents. That 1x3x10 is 8.520 lbs and that is what you get charged for.

If the material is a little oversized, nobody cares, and you pay would it should weight at the nominal size.

If they are cutting that from a longer stick, you will often get charged a cut charge. This ranges from $5/cut to $10/cut.

On the other hand, drops are a thing. If a client has ordered four 7ft long sticks of 0.25×4 6061, that is what they are paying for. That is a single cut because it will be gang cut. But a stick of 0.25×4 is 10 foot long (Or 20, I do not remember). That means they have 4 pieces that are 4 feet long.

They aren’t going to trash it. They aren’t going to scrap it. They are going to put it on a shelf and how somebody wants to buy a piece of 1/4×4 that is less than 36 inches long.

Which means me. I’m willing to buy those drops. So I get a good deal on most drops.

So I walk into the metal supply shop. “Hello Bill!”

“Hello, AWA, it’s been a while.”

“It sure has Bill. I don’t work around here anymore.”

“You’ve changed your look.”

I stroke my beard, which is starting to look good.

“I didn’t say for the better.”

With that, I knew I was part of the accepted. This is a person I interact with maybe 3 times a year. It has been over 4 years since I purchased from Bill.

He greets me by name. And gives me a gentle insult.

That insult stopped my search for a closer supply house. I’ll stick with Bill and his people.

(Bill is not his name. If he were to read this, he would know I’m talking about him.)

It has been a filled week.

There are things you do not know you need until you have them. I’ve been cleaning parts with a spray bottle filled with WD40’s cleaner/degreaser, which sort of works. I also have used Purple Power at a 50%, 100% and had good luck with it.

But the chuck I took apart this week had oil and grease that might have been original from the factory, 50 years ago.

I ended up using a simple aquarium type pump with a dish tub on top of a 5 gallon bucket. I was able to clean that chuck in less than an hour. It looks nice.

Which leads me back to why I required that chuck cleaned and put back into production. Back in 2018, I picked up a semi-universal dividing head, BS-0 size. It is somewhere. I knew where it was for a long time, but every time I needed to use it, I didn’t actually do it.

Now I can’t find it. Instead, of replacing it, I picked up a cheap 8″ rotary table. This cost less than the 3″ dividing head I had purchased.

The differences are that the rotary table doesn’t come with dividing plates, easily fixed for cheap. And it doesn’t have a foot stock, or lathe dog, nor a chuck.

That old chuck is about to be mounted on the rotary table. I will finish making the chuck key soon, then it is on to the rotary table work. Making gears.

Which takes us to “Chinesium” goods. Rotary tables can be had for less than $90 from Amazon. That is a 4-inch version. A Yuasa 12″ tilting rotary table is only $5,815.

You get what you pay for. Mine is on the very cheap side of things.

The overall quality feels and looks good. Nothing obviously wrong with it.

But, because it is Chinesium, the first task, before first use, is to tear it all the way down, clean it, lube it and put it back together again. The reason is that there is likely to be chips and grinding grit in the tool. Not likely, there is dirt in the system.

There is a handle that is used to rotate the table. I removed that handle with the dial to reveal a machined surface that the dial rides against. There is a glob of grease there, as there should be. But when I wiped my finger across that machined surface, it came out black. This is an indication that there is grinding grit in there.

That grinding grit will destroy a tool if it is left on working surfaces. Thus, we clean it well before putting it into production.

Making progress in the shop.

For your thoughts, Hagar reported that she had watched a video by a young woman that had escaped from Gaza. She suggested that we consider why there are all these pro-terrorist protests throughout the United States, but there does not seem to be any in the countries that have had to deal with the Palestinians.

So the questions are, are there pro-Palestine protests happening in the Middle East? Are there pro-Palestine protests happening in other countries? If so, how many and how big?

Why are they mostly(all) happening in the US?

When talking about sensitive places, the state takes the position that who or what might be in that location is what makes that place “sensitive”.

This is just a dumb way of infringing on The People’s right to keep and bear arms.

We will ignore property rights at this junction, just to simplify the discussion.

My yard is not a “sensitive” place. No matter who might enter my yard, there is nothing that would make it a place where I should be kept from bearing an arm.

The same goes for the street in front of my house. Nor anyplace along that street.

But what about a school? A school is full of “vulnerable” people, children. Having vulnerable people doesn’t make the place sensitive. For example, what if the school was empty of students, and you were attending a meeting with a bunch of crazy liberal/leftists? Like school administrators and teachers?

The park is not a sensitive place, nor is the town hall nor the public parts of the police fortress.

What makes a place “sensitive”, is whether the government has taken responsibility for providing security and that security is comprehensive.

For example, a courtroom. The state has the responsibility for providing the security, in the form of armed security. They people are disarmed before entering the courtroom. The courtroom is secured at all entry points to prevent people from bypassing the security screening.

In addition, that place should only be made a sensitive place if it provides a safe location outside the security parameter for you to secure your arms.

This means that my pooling place is not a sensitive location. The state does not provide any real security.

This means that airports, outside security checkpoint are not sensitive places.

In addition, the areas beyond the security checkpoint are also not sensitive places. This is because the TSA does a shit job of screening. TSA’s security record is so poor that El Al still performs their security screenings of all passengers.

An El Al aircraft is a sensitive place.

Mark Smith has spoken many times about the relationship between sensitive places and Supreme Court cases. The commonality in the locations singled out by the Supreme Court as sensitive is that they provide comprehensive security.

This case was another challenge to 18 U.S.C. §922(k) possession of a firearm with an obliterated serial number.

Mr. Avila is a bad dude. He was charged with four counts, 2 counts of distributing fentanyl, 1 count of distributing cocaine, and 1 count of felon in possession of a firearm.

Mr. Avila, through his state provided attorney, asked the court if §922(k) was constitutional. This was construed by the court as a motion to dismiss count 4, §922(k).

This case is now dead because Mr. Avila pleaded guilty, and I’m not paying to find out exactly what he pleaded guilty to and what he got out of it.

I’m sure we all play the game of “Guess what their opinion will be based on how they describe the problem.” I do that with court orders/opinions.

That jab of “A short two years later” is nasty. It is nasty because, as a court, he knows that a right delayed is a right denied. Waiting 2 years for our rights is “A short two years.”. I’m not feeling good about this judge right now.

We again have that jab, this court is saying that because inferior courts had decided to turn the Second Amendment’s protections into a joke, the Supreme Court should have done the same.

The citations are correct. There is nothing extraordinarily bad about them. What they are, though, is second best.

When the Supreme Court says, “We hold …” they are telling you the answer. After they give the holding, the rest is dicta, explaining that holding.

The court plays word games again. Is a firearm an arm, with in the meaning of the Second Amendment? All firearms are arms. Is a firearm without a serial number an arm? Yes. The state argues constantly that “ghost” guns are arms that should and can be regulated. Is a firearm with a serial number an arm? Yes. Quod erat demonstrandum

If a firearm with a serial number is an arm, and a firearm without a serial number is an arm, then a firearm who’s serial number has been removed is still an arm.

Even though the court did not explicitly say that the plain text of the Second Amendment doesn’t cover the individuals’ conduct, they did not say what part of this Nation’s historical tradition of firearms regulation is analogous to §922(k).

This means the court profoundly erred in this decision.

A bit further, the court actually says it:

We are seeing this argument over and over again. After Bruen, I expected the fight to be in the realm of “sensitive” places. And that battle is happening. It does not appear to be a winning argument for the state. Mainly because after the Bruen court told the states that they can’t just declare a large area a “sensitive” place because cops sometimes patrol, the states then proceeded to do just that.

On the other hand, the courts and the state turning when the Second Amendment’s plain text covers an individual’s conduct, the Constitution presumptively protects that conduct. [xCite item=”75DAVPP7″ pos=4] into a first step hurdle.

Is it an arm? Well, duh, it’s a gun. That makes it an arm. Go read Heller‘s definition of what an “arm” is. There are no asterisks in the Second Amendment. There is nothing that says, “we are only talking about these types of arms.” or “we aren’t talking about those types of arms.” It is all arms.

A common thread in many of the left’s attacks is just how dumb we are. How out of touch with reality we are.

Listening to some city rat tell me that I can’t survive without the cities because of stock markets just makes me cringe.

Years ago, I was in a room with my mentor, his girlfriend, a mutual friend as well. We were working on some difficult programming to solve a complex 3D problem in a reasonable time.

His girlfriend popped up and said, “Come on, guys, this isn’t rocket science.”

We grumbled, then looked up at each other and laughed. “Um, yeah, it is.” We were working on an issue with the Hubble Space Telescope for NASA.

My point in this, is that people can have skills that are not obvious. People on the right often have physical and mechanical skills that the left does not consider important.

I like this song because it is another example of people underestimating some old dude just because he’s old:

(2100 words)
This is the second most satisfying hobby I’ve had. The first being firearms.

My first experience was watching a retired machinist running a shaper at the Smithsonian. It was being run from a line shaft.

Watching that cutter push its way through a hunk of steel, leaving a little curl of metal behind and a smooth surface, fascinated me. I started looking into getting some sort of machine tools while be broke as …

To that end, I started looking into David Gingery’s Build Your Own Metal Working Shop from Scrap

This is a series of books that take you through building a “complete” metal working shop starting with almost nothing. He starts by having you create a foundry. After creating a foundry, learning to make patterns and cast aluminum, you make the castings for a metal lathe. Once you have a lathe, you then make a shaper, then a horizontal milling machine, a drill press, and then some accessories.

This sounded like about what I could afford. I had the wood working tools to make the patterns, it was only a matter of making castings and from those casting, real machines.

I made parts of the shaper, parts of the lathe, most of the dividing head, and never completed any of them. For reasons.

It turns out that pattern making is hard. Molding is difficult, casting is not easy, and machining all those parts is a little a pain.

In the process, I did learn a little bit.

At the same time, I was watching YouTube videos, attempting to learn something useful.

Then I got lucky. I had a new job. I had some cash in hand. I was talking to the gentleman who was selling cool patriotic stuff. He was selling expanding batons. I looked at those and thought, “I could make those”. With that, I explained that I was about to purchase a lathe and asked if he would be willing to buy batons if I made them.

“I have an old SouthBend Lathe, if you are interested.”

I went to look. He had the lathe, he had tooling for it, it was oily (a good sign), no real sign of rust. And he had a Bridgeport Mill. And a horizontal bandsaw.

It was too good of a deal to pass up. I purchased it all for $1750, delivered. It is important to understand what a deal this was. Three lathe chucks, $1000 each. A mill vise, $700. The machines themselves. This was a freaking win fall.

This is the absolute best way to start. Find somebody who is selling for way below cost and luck out. You have the three machines you will want in your shop.

Buying New

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(1600 words)
There are two cases that have been kicking around for nearly a decade now. They have been to the Supreme Court, granted certiorari, had the inferior court’s opinion vacated, and then remanded down to the inferior court “in light of the opinion in Bruen”

One is Duncan v. Becerra. This is part of the games people play when they know they are losing. In short: the District court found for The People. The Ninth shit on The People. The Supreme Court said to the Ninth, “You got it wrong, morons, do it over, right.”. The Ninth sent it back to the district “in light of Bruen” with “It was done wrong, do it over.” The district found for The People again. The Ninth decided that a merits panel might find for The People, which they would not allow. So they took the case en banc and have yet to hear oral arguments.

The other is Bianchi v. Frosh which is now Bianchi v. Brown because it has been going on so long, the AG of Maryland has changed.

The United States operates under the concept of “Common Law”.

The dictionary definition doesn’t help much. The key in common law is the use of precedent. Under common law, judges should use the decisions of previous courts to make current decisions. This leads to everybody being treated equally under the law, theoretically.
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Two years ago, I started writing for GFZ. I had been supporting Miguel and J.Kb. for a while before that. Sunday will be my 950th article.

Hagar is a true author. She has multiple books that have been published. Nothing that’s gone viral and made her boat loads of money, but she writes. It is her job.

She also produces a vlog about writing, another about cooking and reenacting. She does all of these things.

One of the questions she is asked, “What do you do when you have writer’s block?”

The answer is simple, “You write.” It is your job, it is what you do.

I don’t know how much I read in a day, but it is 1000s of words per day. I read technical manuals. I’m 3/4s of the way through Left of Bang, I’m reading documentation and doing research. Plus, I am a programmer who sells my time writing code for people.

This is not a paying gig. It is something I do because I love to write and because I made a promise to myself, I would publish at least one article per day to GFZ.

If I have to travel, I’ll write multiple articles and schedule them. Then I only have to write one or two articles while on travel.

I was looking at writing something case related when I came across:

As I’m listening to William Kirk read parts of the brief on behalf of the state in Grant v. Lamont, 23-1344, (2d Cir.) I was cringing.

There was nothing in this that I had not read in other filings by the state.

Watch his video on just how nasty the state is, then go read the document yourself. I don’t feel like being more depressed.

Brief on Behalf of the State, 23-1344 2d Cir.

On my, it is finally Friday. Two hours of teaching classes, then a bit of driving.

At least I’ll be driving my truck, not my wife’s car, and it isn’t a long drive. Last week was 36 hours of driving in four 9-hour days. This is just a short drive to Mordor.

There are many 2A cases petitioning for a writ of certiorari before the Supreme Court.

They were distributed for Conference. That conference happens on the 16th of may.

This is a big deal. The steps to get to this stage are long and convoluted. As an example, one of the cases seeking cert was filed on December 1, 2020. It was decided in favor of the state on March 4, 2021. It was appealed to the Fourth Circuit court, where oral arguments were never even scheduled. The court issued their opinion on September 17th, 2021 in favor of the state. It was then appealed to the Supreme Court. There it sat until August 1st when the Supreme Court granted certiorari, vacated the Fourth Circuit’s opinion and remanded it for further consideration in light of Bruen

That was nearly 2 years ago. Since that time, that case has been heard by a 3 judge merits panel for the Fourth. The merits panel never issued their opinion. Instead, the en banc court took the case and oral arguments before the entire Fourth Circuit court on March 20th, 2024.

This case, even before oral arguments were heard before the Fourth had already petitioned the Supreme Court for cert.

The week following the 16th, we will see some action on these 2A cases. There are only a few options, 3 I’m sure of and 1 I am not. 1) They can deny cert. Those cases in interlocutory state will continue litigation, with the Supreme Court hearing the case in a few years’ time. 2) They can grant cert. The case will be heard by the Supreme Court. I do not know whether it will be heard this term or next. Regardless, less than a year for the Supreme Court to issue their opinion. 3) They can leave the case in limbo, redistributing for Conference as they want. At some point, this will devolve into state 1 or 2.

Option 4 is that they can grant certiorari and then immediately issue an order. A “Grant, Vacate, and Remand.” order. I don’t know if this has ever happened. If it does happen, it will be a slap in the face to the state. (The SCOTUS would just deny cert if they would decide in favor of the People.)

The comments are open. You poor readers will have to hear about cutting gears next week, if I can locate my dividing head. Somewhere in this house is a 50 pound 10x10x17 cardboard box with a never opened dividing head.

Machining is the process of removing material to revile the part that was living inside the raw material.

We use two different forms of material, cast/forge and “stock”. A cast item is an item that is formed to a particular shape that is further refined by the machining process. Stock is a standard shape that we then refine by the machining process.

Consider attempting to make an engine. The engine has many features within that have to be precisely machined, it also has many parts where “close counts” and other areas where it doesn’t matter at all. Plus, there are many voids. Places with no material.

Anything place that is void must have material removed. When machining an 80% lower, you must first drill some holes in the correct locations, then you have to remove all the material in the fire control pocket. As a forging, that pocket is filled with material that must be removed.

If it was a casting, then the rough outline of that pocket would be there. You would then use machining to remove the remainder to bring the pocket to dimension.

Same with an engine, same with many things. There are voids where we do not want any material. Using a casting allows for complex shapes and pre-placed voids.

So I’m going to talk about a chuck back.
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