I’ve decided I really don’t like FedEx delivery. The last two times they have delivered, they have delivered late. For the company that made a name for itself by being on time with the best tracking is now performing worse than the USPS.

When last we left you, we were doing something in the shop. Progress has been made.

This shows a different view of the shop. On the right, the Bridgeport is cutting a slot in the homemade toolholders.

These 3 are BXA sized, but the front slot is for 1/2″ tools. The key is that the top of the tool is at nearly the same height as if you had a 5/8″ tool in a regular BXA holder. It will be using 1/4-20 set screws for clamping and 3/8-16 for the height adjust.

The red tray over the lathe is shop made. Originally, there would have been a plate to hold collets for the lathe. I did not have the collet chuck, the collet closer nor did I have the tray. I had the post and the ring to hold the draw bar.

A few years ago, I made up this thing. It has three separators to keep the toolholders from sliding down or off. The plate is steel, but the separators are aluminum angle. This was a great improvement and organization system.

The three rows are “right hand turning tools”, “left hand/facing tools”, and boring bars.

I actually have more tools than I have holders, thus the need to make the toolholders. I’m waiting for a dovetail cutter to arrive before I can complete the toolholders.

There is another 12 inches for 6 more toolholders. 4 will be 5/8 slots and 2 will be 3/4 slots.

You can see the rotary table on the mill. I used the rotary table to finish the alignment boss for the chuck. You can see the shiny backing plate attached to the second chuck. Once it was attached to the chuck, I moved both to the lathe to face and turn it to size.

The jaws have been removed from the second chuck to allow it to fit against the jaws.

Yesterday’s progress didn’t feel like that much. I finished the slots in the first three toolholders. I got this picture, so I can break down the chuck in chuck setup. I drilled and tapped the holes in the retaining plate for the rotary table., and I started cutting the groove for the spring washer.

On the rotary table, you can see a small lever pointing to the right. That is the lever to rotate the eccentric to engage or disengage the worm. That disk is a replacement for the original. That is now completed.

Once that was done, I removed the retaining collar, the worm backlash adjust, the eccentric retaining plate.

With that, the eccentric came out with no issues. The worm came out by unscrewing it.

It was here that I realized that I had to cut a groove in the eccentric, not the central. Bummer.

This required changing out the chuck for the four jaw.

Which meant I had to actually clean the four jaw chuck. That went well. It still has 3 tight jaws, but it is much, much better.

Once the four jaw was back together, I realized that the cradle for the 3 jaw doesn’t fit the four jaw. This meant it was a pain in the rump to get it on. It happened.

Then I had to dial in the eccentric so it ran true. What this means is that by moving to opposing jaws, you can move the workpiece. By putting a dial indicator on the boss, you can measure the difference between opposite sides. You then move things until the reading stays the same as you rotate it.

I dialed everything in to within 0.001. For a groove, this is more than good enough.

I then realized I didn’t have a grooving tool. So I ground one.

Just as I started to cut the groove, Something felt off. I think the workpiece slipped in the chuck. I’m not sure that I tightened all the jaws fully.

This means I have to dial it back in again. Not a bit deal, but that is a today job, not a yesterday job.

The only task, after completing the groove, is to cut flats on the worm. This is a slight issue as I do not have any metric 5C collets to hold it.

This means that I will need to get ER40 collet blocks to go with my 5C collet blocks. A cheap set of metric ER40 collets covers nearly the same range as 5C and is pretty cheap.

What I will likely do is to use a pair of matched V-Blocks to hold it and use a square to make both sides parallel.

Again, this is not critical. It just has to be good enough for the crank arm to fit over and to be locked in place by the screw.

As we have discussed, multiple times, the courts are only allowed to act when there is an active dispute. This is most often seen in “The Question” put to the court.

The formation of those questions can make or break a case.

As cases move through the appeals process, the parties will state the question in the most favorable light to that party.

The state might say: The question is whether the state has the authority to regulate the sale of dangerous implements?

The People might phrase it as: Does the Constitution protect The People’s right to acquire arms?

Part of the problem is that we all fall into the trap of using the enemy’s language. When we do, we have lost at least part of the battle, and maybe the war.

Judge VanDyke wrote a powerful dissent in Duncan. In that dissent, he wrote about how the courts should analyze Second Amendment cases. His answer, to the Ninth Circuit, was that they should use strict scrutiny.

We have learned that the correct answer is we use the text and this Nation’s historical tradition of firearms regulation.

When we use text and history, we win.

What this means, is that we should never be fighting for strict scrutiny. Any level of scrutiny is a request for the judiciary to balance away our rights.

The question(s) should not have are in common use for lawful purposes. The reason is simple, that is not what the plain text of the Second Amendment says. It says, “shall not be infringed.”

Remember, it is text first. Does the conduct of the individual, wishing to possess semiautomatic banned by Illinois, implicate the plain text of the Second Amendment and if so, has the state provided examples of firearms regulation in keeping with this Nation’s historical traditions?

Now, my phrasing isn’t the best. I hope you get the idea. When we simplify the question (K.I.S.S.) then it becomes clear that this isn’t about “lawful purposes”, nor is it about “law-abiding”, nor “responsible” citizens. It is text, and historical tradition of firearms regulations.

The state has not met their burden of proving that historical tradition.

For context, here is the state’s response:

Notice that the question presented by the state has nothing to do with the constitutionality of the law in question, it is about the interlocutory state of the case.

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

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

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

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

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

My dovetail cutter is too small.

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

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

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

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

In court cases.

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

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

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

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