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.

Before the Bruen opinion, the Supreme Court heard arguments in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc., et al., v. City of New York, New York, et al.. This case had been working its way up through the court system for many years.

The Second Circuit heard the case on August 17, 2016, and issued their opinion on February 23, 2018.

From this, we can see that the arguments used then are the same they are using today. They are hyper focused on the part which allows them to wiggle and not on the part where the Supreme Court told the inferior courts “The People have a right to keep and bear arms.”.

The remark about Heller and McDonald not giving the “scope” of the Second Amendment nor telling the inferior courts how to analyze Second Amendment cases is a self reference, back to the Second Circuit court.

The state argued for over 5 years that the law was absolutely required to protect the subjects of New York City and New York State.

From June 2018 through January 2019, the state continued to represent that this law was required. That blood would run in the streets if it was struck down. That the Supreme Court should not grant certiorari.

Part of the reason that the Second Circuit court said that this law was required was because people with NYC “target licenses” were going to the range without abiding by the rules on how to store and transport firearms to the range.

No harm was caused by The People not following the exact rules, but the NYPD decided the only answer, and least restrictive answer, was to eliminate “target licenses”.

On Jan 22, 2019, Certiorari was granted.

On April 12, 2019, the state informed the Supreme Court that a new rule was being considered by the state and asking for the court to hold all briefings on the case until that rule making process was completed.

Of course, everybody with an interest in the Second Amendment went into over drive filing briefs. All the normal names were there. The briefs continued until Nov. 20, 2019. The case was argued two weeks later, on Dec. 2nd.

4 months later, the court issued their judgement. The case was vacated and remanded because of mootness.

This is and has been the states’ method when they are about to lose. It is more important to them that no unfavorable opinions be issued than it is to stand their grounds on “moral” principles.

And that is precisely what is happening in this case. The governor of Hawaii asked for a new law allowing for the possession of butterfly knives. The legislature passed the law.

The state is now arguing to the Ninth Circuit en banc panel that the case should be vacated and remanded because it is a moot issue, not withstanding that “possessing” and “bearing” are two different parts of the right to keep and bear arms.

Being the Ninth Circus, this is the type of argument that they will often find “convincing”

I am that whale. I’m overweight. I gross myself out when I look at my body in a mirror. I hate stepping on a scale.

I’m the guy who has to have a special office chair because regular chairs will break under my load.

The last time I flew, I was stuffed into economy, near the back of the plane. I didn’t complain. I just took my seat.

Getting into the seat was a struggle. My hips barely fit. The belt was a tight fit, but it did fit.

I felt sorry for the young lady who was forced to sit next to me. I believe there was a pleasant conversation, but I am large enough that even that “normal” sized person was forced to actually touch the stranger beside her.

Regardless, I was disgusted.

I gained wait after that flight during the panic. With exercise and a change in diet, I did start to come down in weight.

But I seem to have gained most of it back. According to my lady, I look and feel healthier, in that my size has reduced. But it doesn’t help the mental angst that I have from being fat.

When I read Miguel’s post about the woman demanding airlines be “more inclusive of plus size travel”, it hurt.

So I walked away. I know that he was not addressing me. Nevertheless, as more than one person has said, friendly fire isn’t.

So how do I differentiate myself from that person?

Simple, that article is about an entitled near human that wants special snowflake treatment. She isn’t interested in getting health. She isn’t interested in losing weight.

It hurts to walk. I left my right ACL at Bear Mountain, NY more than 30 years ago. It hurts if I have to walk any distance. I tried the treadmill for about a year, I had to stop because the doctor gave me a choice, keep walking/running on the treadmill, or we can schedule your knee replacement.

So I got an exercise bike.

I get on that bike 5 days a week. Sick or not, tired or not. My goal is 45 minutes per ride. I was up to 30 minutes when the old bike broke. I’m back up to 20–25 minutes and working towards getting healthier.

I’m out in the shop doing things. 4+ hours in the shop standing is a type of exercise. When I come in the door, my ass is dragging. There are three steps from the garage to the family room. I use my arms for extra stability because my legs wobble.

There are another two steps into the kitchen. It is a struggle to get up those steps.

Today, I was so tired when I came in for dinner that I forgot to take off my apron. I went back to the garage to put it away. I didn’t ask the kid to do it. And yes, those steps were just as painful and just as hard the second time.

So when I read about entitled fat people, I need to remember that my goal is to get health. I will continue to work on it.

I was watching Dead Boy Detectives with my lady and wife when a blast from the past showed up as part of the soundtrack.

Yes’s Owner of a Lonely Heart from their album 90125. You can go find it if you wish.

The song got me thinking about some of my old favorites. One of those is Pinball Wizard by The Who.

I learned to play the pinball when I was about 12. When I went to University, they had two pinball machines in each dorm snack shop. Those machines ate 100s of quarters. Back when it was a quarter per game and five balls per game.

This was the soundtrack of those days of playing the silver ball.

Harrel v. Raoul Illinois semi-auto ban: Scheduled for second conference!

Bianchi v. Brown Maryland semi-auto ban: Cert denied. Likely because this is pre-judgement. Fourth Circuit has heard this case en banc but has not issued their opinion.

Harrel is a good case to be heard by the Supreme Court. This is great news!

I said that my brain was mostly dead. I couldn’t even copy and paste correctly.

The brain is mostly dead. I marked this article back in December 2023 for reading and writing about.

When it comes to the Second Amendment, there are at least four primary ancillary rights that arise from the plain text:

1. the right to train with firearms
2. the right to purchase firearms
3. the right to purchase firearmsthe right to make firearms
4. and the right to acquire ammunition

Yesterday I completed that thread protector.

This was required to finish the alignment spigot, which is required to mount the backplate to the rotary table, which is required to mount the chuck to the rotary table which is required to hold the mandrel to hold gear blanks, which is required to make gears, which are required to make the Casinator.

See, this is firearms related.

This was the first time I used an internal grooving tool. It was the first time I’ve run the lathe in reverse to do any cutting.

While there were no precision requirements for the thread protector, I still treated it as if I were making a backplate for a chuck to be mounted on the lathe. This gave me practice in measuring bores correctly, and hitting my numbers.

I am going to decide if I coat it in LPS-3 or if I give it a bluing treatment.

When we are dealing with political “stuff”, there are three different things at play.

Rights. A right pre-exists us. Everybody has the right to be armed. Everybody has the right to speak freely. Everybody has the right to seek happiness. These rights are endowed by their Creator

Authority. Authority is permission to exercise some power.

Power. Power is the ability to do something.

As an example, the state has the power to imprison you. They do not have the right to do so. They may have been granted the authority, by The People, to do so.

Our Constitution does not grant us any rights. It does not give any power to the state. It authorizes the state to do some things. As part of that authorization, the state has gathered power to itself.

People are greedy. Anybody who claims we are not is likely lying to you or themselves, or both. Greed is not bad.

I want toys for the safe. I want toys for the shop. I want toys for the house. I want good food. I want good water.

There are 1000s of things I want. There are things that I need.

My greed makes me want to get the things I want.

I need to decide on what is the best way to get the things I want. I could decide to steal these things. This does not have a long term positive outcome.

Because I want, and because I need, I have to find a way to get money. I have decided that the best way for me to get money is to marry well, sell my skills to others, and sell things that I make.

When I am selling things that I make, I need to sell them at a price that will earn me a profit. The size of that profit is set by greed. If the price is too high, I will not be able to sell very many. If the price is too low, I will not be able to make enough profit. I want to find the price that generates enough profit and enough sales to make an overall profit that I’m happy with.

That is greed at work.

Unfortunately, greed also causes people to look for advantages. One of the easiest methods of getting an advantage is to change the rules such that you have some sort of advantage over others.

You are making a widget. You have been making widgets for years. You have a strong customer base and many return customers.

A new player comes into town and starts to manufacture widgets in competition with you. They are not making much headway, as your long-term efforts and excellent product keep people coming to you to purchase.

The new player decides that they need an advantage. They know there are potential safety issues with the widgets that they are making. It is easily mitigated by using a known procedure.

They go to the government and lobby to “Make Widgets Safer.” “Protect The Children From Bad Widgets!”. They get a new regulation passed which requires a compliance report on using the particular procedure in making widgets.

The government is now using a power they may not have the authority to use. Regardless, they do have the power. They have more power than you do.

You now have to hire a person to perform compliance reporting along with compliance testing. Your costs have now gone up to the point where your competitor’s price/quality is closer to yours, and they start to take customers from you.

The question then becomes, by what authority did the state impose that compliance regulation on you?

The state always has the power. When some purple haired whale yells that your penis replacement AR-15 isn’t going to stop the state, they are explicitly saying that the state has more power than you.

Their opinion is that the state should exercise that power to force you to do whatever it is they want you to do.

Save for your retirement? Yep, the state has the power to force that on you.

Pay for illegal aliens to have an education? Yep, the state has the power to force you to do that.

Buy car insurance? Yes, some individual states have forced you to purchase car insurance.

Buy health insurance? In a bill, we had to pass to know what was in it, the state did exactly that, they forced you to buy health insurance.

That is the exercise of power.

Does the state have the authority to do so? That is an entirely different question. You need to look at what the Constitution authorizes the state to do. What you find is that the lawyers have twisted small things to make it look like an authorization.

If you look at the original NFA, it was based on a tax. The state is authorized by Article I, Section 8, Clause 1:

This is the first of the enumerated authorizations. The state can tax just about anything they want.

But, their authorization to tax “just about anything” was modified in 1791 to exclude taxes on arms. …, the right of The People to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed. The word “infringed” means to “hinder”, thus a tax on keeping or bearing arms is an infringement and unconstitutional.

To conclude, we, The People, have rights and powers. The state has power but no rights.

Our rights are protected by different parts of the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights. The state is authorized by the Constitution to exercise some of its powers.

If the federal government is not authorized to exercise a power, that authorization goes back to the individual states and The People.

Do NOT let anybody claim that the state has “rights”, it does not. It has power. It is either exercising the power under the authority of the Constitution or it is abusing its powers.

The weekend is nearly here! I’m actually looking forward to it.

We’ve had a win out in the Ninth Circuit. Stand-bye to have the merits panel’s opinion stayed and the en banc panel decided for the state.

We are expecting to hear from the Supreme Court on Rahimi in June.

The Supreme Court had conference yesterday, the 16th. In that conference, they discussed a number of 2A cases. I’m keeping an eye on that. What we want to see is cases bound over for another conference.

If they are going to deny the case, they will just do it. If they are not going to hear the case but will hold it pending some other case, it will not be scheduled for another conference.

On the other hand, if they schedule for another conference, that means that multiple law clerks and justices will be taking a hard look at the case to see if there is a good reason to NOT hear it.

We should know that later today or Monday.

I’m pretty sure you are all tired of hearing me talk about shop work. Shop work is part of my health plan. I spend about 12 hours per day sitting. Either in front of my computer or with family or driving. This is not good. I’m currently spending 3 to 6 hours per day in the shop.

This time in the shop is time on my feet. I’m starting the process of recovering the shop from my leftover mess. It is getting better.

Those hours on my feet moving is causing pain in the evenings, but it is the pain I’ve earned.

I’ve noticed several new people commenting. WECLOME! Please tell us a little bit about what you are looking for with GFZ.

The rotary table arrived the other day. Monday the dividing plates arrived.

The plates look great. The package was not so great. Amazon slapped a mailing label on the box and dropped it in the mail. It arrived with pieces missing.

There are supposed to be three screws and a handle/indexing plunger. These were missing.

But, that is ok, there is lots to do before the replacement parts arrive.

The rotary table needs one modification and one change. The worm shaft is keyed for the dial handle. Which is wonderful.

You can’t use a keyed shaft in the adjustment arm. The adjustment arm is a slot and a hole. The hole has a set screw to hold the handle at the right distance from the dividing plate. The slot fits over the worm shaft over two flats. It is held in place by a center screw. The same screw that holds the handle on.

The worm shaft is missing those flats. I will need to mill the flats in place to make it all work correctly.

The dividing plate mounts to a collar with three screws. The collar exists and is held to the elliptic housing with two set screws. The collar has the 0 index as well as a 10-second vernier scale. The collar does not have the three drilled and tapped holes to mount the dividing plates.

I’ve manufactured a replacement collar. I still need to drill and tap the holes for the set screws. Then I’ll drill and tape for the screws that are on the way to hold the dividing plate to the collar.

All good!

Making that collar was interesting. It is the first time I’ve used a sacrificial mandrel, and the first time I’ve used the superglue trick. That’s where you superglue the part to something you can hold on the lathe. When you are done, you heat the part and the superglue will release.

This worked much better than I expected.

I faced off both sides of an 8.0 by 1.25 disk of aluminum for the backing plate. I then made the registration boss. That boss is oversized. Once the backplate is mounted to the rotary table, which is centered, I can mill the registration boss to final dimension on the rotary table, this will maintain concentricity. I.e. the center of the rotary table will be the center of the chuck.

The plate needs to be drilled and counter sinks done to mount to the rotary table.

The rotary table does NOT have drilled and tapped holes. Instead, it has T-Slots. I am making the T-Nut blanks. They need to be cut apart, squared up, and then drilled and tapped 3/8 16. The T-Nut blanks have been tested, and they are a snug sliding fit into the T-Slots of the rotary table.

If I get lucky, I will finish making the backplate today. The only question I still have is the mounting holes for the chuck. I will hit up my local hardware store to buy the 3 screws I need to make it all work.

Hopefully, I will be cutting gears next week.

With the rotary table, some Casinator operations become easier. I’m excited about a productive week, working on the Casinator.