Mr Keillor would never have made his eloquent pronouncement on the farce of airline security had he still been able to bring his Starbuck's aboard the plane.
Most people will not speak out like this unless and until they can visualize their own ox being gored. In his case the ox is a latte, but, well, we knew that.
His wit is the only thing he brings to the table, and he can turn it on and off like a spigot. The spigot itself has not changed: "'I'm a liberal and we love ridiculous government programs that intrude on personal freedom." I wonder whether he heard his own irony there?
"But where are the conservatives who used to object to this sort of thing?" A little more telling, that.
He'll have his answer to that question here.
No news here, kids. Certainly no new ally.
20060911
Three alternative angles of approach, or Second meet Ninth
Aim_Small_Miss_Small discusses a grand strategy to restore the Second Amendment of the Constitution to a fully-protected civil right:
I agree, but maybe we also need to look at other places where they already agree with us. Note the poll on the right sidebar of The Gun Blogs, where I found the post: which strategy should we RKBA types emphasize to what should the focus of gun rights activists consist of next? Expanding CCW, repealing "sporting purpose" language, et cetera. As you look at the poll results, you'll see there's not enough consensus for us RKBA proponents to concentrate and achieve one of them.
For example, many staunch gun rights activists argue that a national CCW would be a step backwards, because we'd be subordinating a right to a nationwide (read Federal) system of licensing.
Similarly, should we support BATF reform? Bullshit, some of us (including me) will shout back---shut it down instead. No good can come of it.
Between the poll and Aim's post, it occurred to me that we should explore other options that foster divisions, or just as good, doubt, among the antis instead of arguing over the divisions among us. Our options should not discuss guns openly either, because the antis will smell such tactics coming from far, far away and circle the wagons. Focus on collateral, apparently unrelated issues.
It will readily become clear to the gun rights activist that he or she ought to be fighting for other rights anyway, because the infringement of those other rights makes gun control that much easier---standing the old bromide "the Second Amendment is the right that guarantees the rest" on its head.
Recent events supply many possibilities.
Well, there are three ideas, in matters where gun rights activists can expand the effectiveness of their efforts and divide the antis, without even having to utter the word "gun."
. . . we must start and then move [non-committed antis] along gradually with the kinds of things they will find persuasive . . . we need to meet them (on the rhetorical and philosophical battleground) where they are instead of where we wish them to be.
I agree, but maybe we also need to look at other places where they already agree with us. Note the poll on the right sidebar of The Gun Blogs, where I found the post: which strategy should we RKBA types emphasize to what should the focus of gun rights activists consist of next? Expanding CCW, repealing "sporting purpose" language, et cetera. As you look at the poll results, you'll see there's not enough consensus for us RKBA proponents to concentrate and achieve one of them.
For example, many staunch gun rights activists argue that a national CCW would be a step backwards, because we'd be subordinating a right to a nationwide (read Federal) system of licensing.
Similarly, should we support BATF reform? Bullshit, some of us (including me) will shout back---shut it down instead. No good can come of it.
Between the poll and Aim's post, it occurred to me that we should explore other options that foster divisions, or just as good, doubt, among the antis instead of arguing over the divisions among us. Our options should not discuss guns openly either, because the antis will smell such tactics coming from far, far away and circle the wagons. Focus on collateral, apparently unrelated issues.
It will readily become clear to the gun rights activist that he or she ought to be fighting for other rights anyway, because the infringement of those other rights makes gun control that much easier---standing the old bromide "the Second Amendment is the right that guarantees the rest" on its head.
Recent events supply many possibilities.
- Asset forfeiture. Read the travails of the owner of KT Ordnance and you'll see that ATFE---the force-initiation arm of the anti-gun movement---doesn't need gun control per se to screw people over. They didn't charge Mr Celata with any crime. But they did raid him, copy his hard drives, seize his inventory, and then . . . nothing.
They can bankrupt him by continuing to do . . . nothing. While his inventory sits in their vaults, or ships to the scrapyard, Mr Celata goes without the income it could have gotten him, and has to come up with even more money from elsewhere to petition to have his property returned to him. If he does nothing, he loses.
No doubt the same tactic has successfully shut down a number of other businesses serving us gun folk, many of them not even needing a license from ATFE to be businesses because they weren't making firearms or ammunition in the first place.
Asset forfeiture has been used to take cars from beneath the butts of guys looking for prostitutes, other guys looking for abuse drugs, and even more guys merely being accused of looking for prostitutes, accused of looking to score drugs, and accused of numerous other victimless crimes. The City of Denver has used it to seize cars and guns from ordinary folk who've been silly enough to drive through that city with certain models of gun aboard, in spite of Colorado's peaceable journey law and McClure-Volkmer.
Don't argue about the victimless crimes themselves. That's a non-starter among our own community, and it will lead only to failure among the antis. If this were not so, there would be Libertarians in the Oval Office. There aren't, so don't. (Plenty of libertarians like me in the RKBA movement, granted, but we're part of a coalition and we have to cooperate.)
But you definitely can argue about how asset forfeiture is unjust, how it makes the owner's innocence (or absence of being charged) irrelevant to the case the State is making against the property. Sure, it's a long-standing tradition of English law to charge a piece of property, rather than the owner. So what? Why should we even tacitly support a law that allows the State to get away with theft? Do we want our courts, cops, and prosecutors to be corrupted by it?
Taking asset forfeiture away from the Man means taking an arbitrary and frequently-abused power away from anti-gunners. How to sell the dismantling of asset forfeiture to the antis? That could be tough, I haven't an idea yet. Perhaps by linking it to the campaign to end eminent domain abuse, which seems to be trending positively. - Dynamic entry. I don't know whether KT Ordnance's raid was a peaceful, knock first, "hey we got a warrant, let us in," wait for Mr Celata to answer the door kind of raid. If it was, it's rare. Radley Balko will tell you more than you want to know about the overuse of forcible SWAT-type raids, in the dark of night, on the wrong house. He'll also tell you about the trend in using dynamic entries to carry out what used to be plain old police work.
The bodies are piling up. Lawsuits to recover damages from mistaken raids are failing, justice is being denied. Puppies and kittens are not being blended, but shot, stomped, and Tased.
Gun owners aren't the only targets of these raids. They started with the War on Drugs, but now that dynamic entry is becoming the default method of serving a warrant, gun owners are getting their share.
How to sell this to people who are inimical to gun owners? The same way you sell it to the non-libertarian gun owners: Cops are dying in these raids too. And if only a percentage of the lawsuits by innocent victims succeed, you'll see cities and counties in deep financial trouble to pay the judgments.
If you want to appeal to the feminists, call it an outrageous example of testosterone poisoning.
Dynamic entry must be restricted only to saving the life of a hostage. This can, and should, happen state-by-state, much like liberalization of CCW is taking place. - Marginalizing the weird. I have to be careful with this one. Consider: more people believe that extraterrestrial astronauts visit our planet, than that they will ever draw money out of their Social Security accounts. I'm not that sure of the latter anymore myself. That says more about Social Security than about the existence of UFOs.
Lots of people think homeschooling is weird; I definitely do not, but many people do, and I'd wager a good number of them are part of the giant government apparatus that spits out search warrants and arms men to execute them. An animus against homeschooling, or unusual religious practices, can easily be exaggerated into a claim of child abuse. An animus against guns in a home with children is less of a leap.
Unwholesome attention to weirdness easily becomes an intense desire to look for infractions of the law. In case you haven't noticed, there are more than enough laws now to blindly infract.
How to sell this one to the antis? There are lots of other weird people in the world, and we need not give them respect, but they demand to be left alone unless they make real flesh-and-blood victims. The biker, the furry, the kink, the performance artist suspending yourself in midair by hooks through your flesh, the addict to plastic surgery. Leave weird people alone. You might be one.
Well, there are three ideas, in matters where gun rights activists can expand the effectiveness of their efforts and divide the antis, without even having to utter the word "gun."
20060910
Holding his nose cannot be enough
How can Glenn Beck stand to have to talk to Nancy Grace?
Let alone have to hear her voice?
It must be the magic of production, like how the Beatles could record an entire album with only one Beatle present in the studio at any one time. Ringo laid down the percussion, all else could be tweaked by engineers.
Let alone have to hear her voice?
It must be the magic of production, like how the Beatles could record an entire album with only one Beatle present in the studio at any one time. Ringo laid down the percussion, all else could be tweaked by engineers.
Soulcraft
Mlle Sklodovska and I had the house to ourselves today. I scratched an itch---homemade pretzels.
Reminds me of this article that TCM pointed me to recently.
Quote for the day
You say you are worried about your kid getting run over? I dealt with that concern by taking [offspring unit] for a ride in the country and stopping by the side of the road to point out roadkill racoons, particularly three day old gas-bloated ones buzzing with flies. "This is what happens if you play in the street."
The Wheat / Rye Guy
The Wheat / Rye Guy
20060905
Medicine Bow Peak on Labor Day 2006
On impulse, I drove all of us up into the nearest mountains I knew, the ones I saw in the distance on my last speedgoat hunt. The offspring units behaved themselves quite well and seemed to enjoy the 10,847 feet above mean sea level.
20060828
20060826
Nadia debuts
Nadia is a Romanian AKM with laminated furniture, built from a non-matching kit from Classic Arms.
I folded a Tapco receiver flat for her, gave her a Tapco piston and G2 ignition group, and refitted the magazines with Falcon Arms domestic floorplates. A domestic muzzle protector sits out front.
Work to create her was spread out over several weeks, including a couple abortive attempts on the receiver. Some work remains, such as a replacement disconnector spring, a replacement safety lever, and a better rivet fixture for the trigger guard, which is screwed on presently. More sanding and oil for the wood, and another coat of flat black paint for the receiver, after she's been shot in.
She is unfired, waiting for me to find a good place to try her out. I ran the bolt carrier in repeatedly until it's as smooth as I remember Kalashnikovs ever to be.
The cheapest kit I could find was chosen for a reason: if I was going to dick this up, I didn't want a lot of money in it. In retrospect it wasn't difficult, it just demanded patience and a willingness to consult the gods on the bulletin boards.
Everybody should try one before the kits dry up; ATFE knows this homebrewing is going on and they're bent on stopping it the one way they can, by blocking importation of the parts kits unless key components, expensive to make domestically, are destroyed.
I folded a Tapco receiver flat for her, gave her a Tapco piston and G2 ignition group, and refitted the magazines with Falcon Arms domestic floorplates. A domestic muzzle protector sits out front.
Work to create her was spread out over several weeks, including a couple abortive attempts on the receiver. Some work remains, such as a replacement disconnector spring, a replacement safety lever, and a better rivet fixture for the trigger guard, which is screwed on presently. More sanding and oil for the wood, and another coat of flat black paint for the receiver, after she's been shot in.
She is unfired, waiting for me to find a good place to try her out. I ran the bolt carrier in repeatedly until it's as smooth as I remember Kalashnikovs ever to be.
The cheapest kit I could find was chosen for a reason: if I was going to dick this up, I didn't want a lot of money in it. In retrospect it wasn't difficult, it just demanded patience and a willingness to consult the gods on the bulletin boards.
Everybody should try one before the kits dry up; ATFE knows this homebrewing is going on and they're bent on stopping it the one way they can, by blocking importation of the parts kits unless key components, expensive to make domestically, are destroyed.
20060818
An Army of Davids will still need its slings
The biggest reason for the slack posting of late is that since KT Ordnance was raided, I've been obsessed with building my own blaster from parts.
Not just any blaster. A Kalashnikov. An AR will come later, when KT is open for business again and can sell me an 80% receiver blank. But dammit, something had to be done now.
TCM and I discussed it---normally I'd keep my mouth shut and avoid the attention, but if I have the huevos to post on the KT mess, I ought to have the huevos to do what ATFE raided KT to try to stop. Otherwise thedomestic terrorists ATFE will have won.
A plain-jane Romanian AKM copy, with the laminated furniture and vertical foregrip, is almost complete. A few dollars have been sunk in Harbor Freight goodies such as a 12-ton press and a fluxcore wire welder. Pictures to follow.
And a few more Klashes, in particular a wz88 and a Polish AKMS.
I can stop whenever I want.
Not just any blaster. A Kalashnikov. An AR will come later, when KT is open for business again and can sell me an 80% receiver blank. But dammit, something had to be done now.
TCM and I discussed it---normally I'd keep my mouth shut and avoid the attention, but if I have the huevos to post on the KT mess, I ought to have the huevos to do what ATFE raided KT to try to stop. Otherwise the
A plain-jane Romanian AKM copy, with the laminated furniture and vertical foregrip, is almost complete. A few dollars have been sunk in Harbor Freight goodies such as a 12-ton press and a fluxcore wire welder. Pictures to follow.
And a few more Klashes, in particular a wz88 and a Polish AKMS.
I can stop whenever I want.
20060812
Quote for the day, no-liquids-aboard edition
From a highly placed source in the API list:
I heard a Department of Homeland Security public service announcement today asking Americans to report anything suspicious. If I were to call and report that I find it suspicious that we're in a war but we're not controlling our borders, I don't think I'd be well received.
20060726
a little closer to reality, perhaps?
Usually, my posts titled "Idea number xxx" are flights of fancy, if-wishes-were-horses proposals. If I could finance them, I suppose they would be feasible, technologically, but they'd need someone with completely different skillsets to find the willing market and make the sale.
It pleases me that STOL airships are far closer to reality. Of course Dynalifter does not list medium-haul domestic passenger airlift as a potential market, as I had wished. By the time such craft and services are available, if ever, I will have little need to go to the East Coast anymore.
But that's not the point. Maybe I'd buy stock in it.
It pleases me that STOL airships are far closer to reality. Of course Dynalifter does not list medium-haul domestic passenger airlift as a potential market, as I had wished. By the time such craft and services are available, if ever, I will have little need to go to the East Coast anymore.
But that's not the point. Maybe I'd buy stock in it.
20060723
at VC
An interesting post by Ilya Somin, about the divide among libertarians on the US occupation of Iraq. Milton and Rose Friedman are quoted.
Please don't challenge me on the choice of "occupation" for what the US is doing in Iraq. By plain-English definition, that's what we are doing, and I use it with no intent to challenge the intent or wisdom of it.
I left a comment there, after wading through mounds of libertarian blather about abstraction versus the concrete, moralism versus consequentialism or utilitiarianism, and walls of flame. Plus some gems. It deserves the rare, vaunted Second Reading.
It isn't enough to simply oppose or support this conflict. Slogans such as "oppose the war but support the troops" and "regardless of how we got involved, we still have to win" don't even scratch the surface. In a way that transcends foreign policy or the face Uncle Sugar puts on diplomacy, regardless of whether American boots marked Saudi soil, this war was coming to us one way or another. Why we fight it predicates how we fight it, and how we fight it determines whether we will win it. If we are not fighting for the right reasons, we will lose.
Please don't challenge me on the choice of "occupation" for what the US is doing in Iraq. By plain-English definition, that's what we are doing, and I use it with no intent to challenge the intent or wisdom of it.
I left a comment there, after wading through mounds of libertarian blather about abstraction versus the concrete, moralism versus consequentialism or utilitiarianism, and walls of flame. Plus some gems. It deserves the rare, vaunted Second Reading.
It isn't enough to simply oppose or support this conflict. Slogans such as "oppose the war but support the troops" and "regardless of how we got involved, we still have to win" don't even scratch the surface. In a way that transcends foreign policy or the face Uncle Sugar puts on diplomacy, regardless of whether American boots marked Saudi soil, this war was coming to us one way or another. Why we fight it predicates how we fight it, and how we fight it determines whether we will win it. If we are not fighting for the right reasons, we will lose.
20060717
Why the DoD will not switch from SSN to random service numbers
Bruce Schneier:
DoD will not suffer if my SSN is compromised and my identity is stolen. I do.
Unless the incentive can be turned on them, they have no reason to change.
We generally think of computer security as a problem of technology, but often systems fail because of misplaced economic incentives: the people who could protect a system are not the ones who suffer the costs of failure.
DoD will not suffer if my SSN is compromised and my identity is stolen. I do.
Unless the incentive can be turned on them, they have no reason to change.
20060716
Mideast, short and sweet
James Rummel prompts me to remark that the face-packing in the Levant is a bit overdue.
One newsreader earlier this week referred to Israel's defending herself against Qassam rockets and UCAVs as "perpetuating the cycle of violence."
Madam, this is no cycle. The violence over the last few weeks all seems unilateral to me. We can hope that the Lebanese government, if there is one (or if a sensible one is in waiting) will see this as an opportunity to eject unwanted puppeteers and determine their own future, and set their own relations with neighbors.
If the US intervenes as a so-called nation-builder, let them learn from recent experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan. Do not value democracy so highly that this new democracy you build can merely vote down the rule of law, the right to own oneself, and the right to be equal before the law regardless of one's practice of this or that religion. Talk to the speechwriters and find some word other than democracy to bring tears welling in Americans' eyes.
*****
And speaking of James, I'll be taking dinner with him this evening.
One newsreader earlier this week referred to Israel's defending herself against Qassam rockets and UCAVs as "perpetuating the cycle of violence."
Madam, this is no cycle. The violence over the last few weeks all seems unilateral to me. We can hope that the Lebanese government, if there is one (or if a sensible one is in waiting) will see this as an opportunity to eject unwanted puppeteers and determine their own future, and set their own relations with neighbors.
If the US intervenes as a so-called nation-builder, let them learn from recent experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan. Do not value democracy so highly that this new democracy you build can merely vote down the rule of law, the right to own oneself, and the right to be equal before the law regardless of one's practice of this or that religion. Talk to the speechwriters and find some word other than democracy to bring tears welling in Americans' eyes.
*****
And speaking of James, I'll be taking dinner with him this evening.
20060704
To the finish line!!
I know, I know, I haven't posted in a bit. But see, I'm better at being a Gear Guy than I am at waxing politic. So here's a gear post for you.
Background first. I snagged twenty-two (that's 22...) HK-91 steel mags off of GunBroker a couple months back for cheap. They were advertised as having "minor surface rust". I figured, what the heck, a little elbow grease and they'll be as good as new. I posted the winning bid at $42 and they appeared on my doorstep about a week later. Well, lemme' tell ya', minor surface rust, my ass!! They were nasty!! Now I had a decision to make: toss them or continue throwing money at the problem. Being that I am The Cabinet Man, throwing good money after bad has never been reason to stop while I'm ahead. Now, I've never done anything like this before -- never even held an airbush -- so this was uncharted territory for TCM.
So, I had the local headstone/memorial shop sandblast the buggers inside and out for $50. Then I ordered two kinds of finish: Lauer Weaponry's DuraCoat "Black Oxide" and Brownells' Teflon/Moly Oven Cure "Dark Park Gray". Not knowing how much would be required, I ordered a pint (16 ozs) of each. I also ordered an airbrush kit from Lauer that included a 1/4"-to-1/8" adapter so that I could use my air compressor for this task.
When back from the sand blaster, the mags had a nice gritty surface. They were so clean, they were silver colored!! I degreased them with acetone and then used a new toothbrush and compressed air to get rid of the cotton fibers left behind from the cleaning rags. I connected all of the airbrush goodies and was ready to go. (NB: the "instructions" -- and I use that term loosely -- for the airbrush were non-existant. I had to figger' the whole thing out myself. Not impossible mind you, but it didn't leave me with warm-fuzzies. Remember: newbie here...) I cranked down the line pressure off the tank to 45 PSI, pulled on some latex gloves, and was ready to go.
Brownells first.
The directions on the can specify that the metal to be sprayed should be warmed to ~100°F. To do that, I just laid them on a piece of plastic sheeting in the driveway for a few minutes. It worked great. I sprayed on two coats about 1/2-hour apart. The finish dries very quickly to the touch. In the case of bare steel, it was a matter of seconds (literally!!) until the freshly sprayed mag could be handled. After letting the second coat dry another 1/2-hour, I put them in the oven at 300°F for -- you guessed it!! -- a 1/2-hour. And that was that.
Now here are the negative details. First, there is no indication on the Brownells can of what to use for cleanup. Nothing I tried worked. Acetone, kerosene, mineral spirits did nothing. I finally disassembled the airbrush and scraped it clean with rags and pipe cleaners. I got it cleared-out enough to use later with the DuraCoat. Second, since the Teflon/Moly stuff dries so quickly it was tough to keep the airbrush clean and running. I was constantly fussing with the flow nozzle just to keep it clear. Third, the baking process is very stinky. Make sure you have a way to properly ventilate. I opened all the windows and ran the attic fan the second I smelled chemicals. There's a slight lingering odor but not much.
The good. The Teflon/Moly goes on very smooth and even. It's easy product to work with, needing no hardener or reducer. The color is a perfect match to the gray parkerizing I've seen on mil guns. As far as I'm concerned, the Brownells Teflon/Moly is quite idiot proof. (Thank God...) I used just over 1/2 the can of finish (~8 oz) for eleven (11) magazines inside and out.
DuraCoat next.
DuraCoat has no special requirements for preheating the item to be sprayed. Unlike the Brownells stuff, DuraCoat comes with a reasonably clear set of instructions. (It wasn't until I read them that I discovered the need for their reducer for clean-up. I went back to the Lauer site and it does state this, but it's not obvious...) The DuraCoat finish comes with a small bottle of hardener that needs to be mixed at a 1:12 ratio (hardener:finish). Throughout the DuraCoat phase, I mixed the hardener:finish in the color bottle a few tablespoons at a time. Not so good for consistency but it was all I had. Using the DuraCoat proved to be quite a challenge.
First, the DuraCoat is much more like a paint than the Teflon/Moly. It sprays on OK but remains wet for almost a 1/2-hour. This slow drying process made it difficult to spray the entire mag -- inside and out -- in one pass. It's also a very "sticky" finish. After the first couple of magazines, my gloves would stick to everything: the mags, the sprayer, the drop sheets. By the time I finished the eleventh mag, the airbrush was a sticky, globbing mess and my gloves were useless. It was very frustrating.
I also had trouble with paint "blobs" from the airbrush. I don't know much about them so I'm not sure if this was a "feature" of the DuraCoat or of the airbrush. (You can see one of the blobs in the center of the mag pictured below. This is actually one of the minor blobs. There are worse...)
One thing the DuraCoat does have going for it is that "a little goes a long way". I used very little product, less than half what I did for the Teflon/Moly. I also got the sense that a second coat wasn't needed. I still applied two coats to the feed lips and the areas that will contact the rifle (basically the upper third of the mag). Perhaps someone more skilled in such things would have put on two thin coats but my setup wasn't working well enough for me to do that. In hindsight, perhaps a bit of reducer in the mix might have helped with the blobs. I dunno'...
So here is the final result, DuraCoat on the left, Teflon/Moly on the right:
In my opinion -- at least for this application -- I would definitely choose Brownells Teflon/Moly over the DuraCoat. Sure, I had to hassle over the airbrush clogging while using the Teflon/Moly but it produced a much smoother, more even finish. And it was just plain easier to work with. Only time will tell which will wear better. In hindsight (#2), I should have experimented with just a couple of mags for each finish. That way, I'd have 20 mags in Teflon/Moly rather than just 11. Maybe DuraCoat works for other folks (those with better equipment?? with more patience?? with actual training??) but it didn't work so well for me. YMMV...
Thumbs up, Brownells Teflon/Moly Oven Cure!!
TCM
Background first. I snagged twenty-two (that's 22...) HK-91 steel mags off of GunBroker a couple months back for cheap. They were advertised as having "minor surface rust". I figured, what the heck, a little elbow grease and they'll be as good as new. I posted the winning bid at $42 and they appeared on my doorstep about a week later. Well, lemme' tell ya', minor surface rust, my ass!! They were nasty!! Now I had a decision to make: toss them or continue throwing money at the problem. Being that I am The Cabinet Man, throwing good money after bad has never been reason to stop while I'm ahead. Now, I've never done anything like this before -- never even held an airbush -- so this was uncharted territory for TCM.
So, I had the local headstone/memorial shop sandblast the buggers inside and out for $50. Then I ordered two kinds of finish: Lauer Weaponry's DuraCoat "Black Oxide" and Brownells' Teflon/Moly Oven Cure "Dark Park Gray". Not knowing how much would be required, I ordered a pint (16 ozs) of each. I also ordered an airbrush kit from Lauer that included a 1/4"-to-1/8" adapter so that I could use my air compressor for this task.
When back from the sand blaster, the mags had a nice gritty surface. They were so clean, they were silver colored!! I degreased them with acetone and then used a new toothbrush and compressed air to get rid of the cotton fibers left behind from the cleaning rags. I connected all of the airbrush goodies and was ready to go. (NB: the "instructions" -- and I use that term loosely -- for the airbrush were non-existant. I had to figger' the whole thing out myself. Not impossible mind you, but it didn't leave me with warm-fuzzies. Remember: newbie here...) I cranked down the line pressure off the tank to 45 PSI, pulled on some latex gloves, and was ready to go.
Brownells first.
The directions on the can specify that the metal to be sprayed should be warmed to ~100°F. To do that, I just laid them on a piece of plastic sheeting in the driveway for a few minutes. It worked great. I sprayed on two coats about 1/2-hour apart. The finish dries very quickly to the touch. In the case of bare steel, it was a matter of seconds (literally!!) until the freshly sprayed mag could be handled. After letting the second coat dry another 1/2-hour, I put them in the oven at 300°F for -- you guessed it!! -- a 1/2-hour. And that was that.
Now here are the negative details. First, there is no indication on the Brownells can of what to use for cleanup. Nothing I tried worked. Acetone, kerosene, mineral spirits did nothing. I finally disassembled the airbrush and scraped it clean with rags and pipe cleaners. I got it cleared-out enough to use later with the DuraCoat. Second, since the Teflon/Moly stuff dries so quickly it was tough to keep the airbrush clean and running. I was constantly fussing with the flow nozzle just to keep it clear. Third, the baking process is very stinky. Make sure you have a way to properly ventilate. I opened all the windows and ran the attic fan the second I smelled chemicals. There's a slight lingering odor but not much.
The good. The Teflon/Moly goes on very smooth and even. It's easy product to work with, needing no hardener or reducer. The color is a perfect match to the gray parkerizing I've seen on mil guns. As far as I'm concerned, the Brownells Teflon/Moly is quite idiot proof. (Thank God...) I used just over 1/2 the can of finish (~8 oz) for eleven (11) magazines inside and out.
DuraCoat next.
DuraCoat has no special requirements for preheating the item to be sprayed. Unlike the Brownells stuff, DuraCoat comes with a reasonably clear set of instructions. (It wasn't until I read them that I discovered the need for their reducer for clean-up. I went back to the Lauer site and it does state this, but it's not obvious...) The DuraCoat finish comes with a small bottle of hardener that needs to be mixed at a 1:12 ratio (hardener:finish). Throughout the DuraCoat phase, I mixed the hardener:finish in the color bottle a few tablespoons at a time. Not so good for consistency but it was all I had. Using the DuraCoat proved to be quite a challenge.
First, the DuraCoat is much more like a paint than the Teflon/Moly. It sprays on OK but remains wet for almost a 1/2-hour. This slow drying process made it difficult to spray the entire mag -- inside and out -- in one pass. It's also a very "sticky" finish. After the first couple of magazines, my gloves would stick to everything: the mags, the sprayer, the drop sheets. By the time I finished the eleventh mag, the airbrush was a sticky, globbing mess and my gloves were useless. It was very frustrating.
I also had trouble with paint "blobs" from the airbrush. I don't know much about them so I'm not sure if this was a "feature" of the DuraCoat or of the airbrush. (You can see one of the blobs in the center of the mag pictured below. This is actually one of the minor blobs. There are worse...)
One thing the DuraCoat does have going for it is that "a little goes a long way". I used very little product, less than half what I did for the Teflon/Moly. I also got the sense that a second coat wasn't needed. I still applied two coats to the feed lips and the areas that will contact the rifle (basically the upper third of the mag). Perhaps someone more skilled in such things would have put on two thin coats but my setup wasn't working well enough for me to do that. In hindsight, perhaps a bit of reducer in the mix might have helped with the blobs. I dunno'...
So here is the final result, DuraCoat on the left, Teflon/Moly on the right:
In my opinion -- at least for this application -- I would definitely choose Brownells Teflon/Moly over the DuraCoat. Sure, I had to hassle over the airbrush clogging while using the Teflon/Moly but it produced a much smoother, more even finish. And it was just plain easier to work with. Only time will tell which will wear better. In hindsight (#2), I should have experimented with just a couple of mags for each finish. That way, I'd have 20 mags in Teflon/Moly rather than just 11. Maybe DuraCoat works for other folks (those with better equipment?? with more patience?? with actual training??) but it didn't work so well for me. YMMV...
Thumbs up, Brownells Teflon/Moly Oven Cure!!
TCM
20060701
Since it's Disney Channel Games week, . . .
Screw the games with guys racing each other inside inflated balls. The sidekicks on Disney's shows are, shall we say, more interesting. Since as a father I have to watch this stuff anyway---otherwise the offspring units will be Very Pissed and not eat their broccoli---throw us dads a bone.
Mix it up with the Spike crowd and expand your viewership, Mickey. Work the studio system to the full extent and make sure these
Alyson Michalka represents Phil of the Future.
Anneliese Van der pol shouts it out for That's So Raven.
Wrestling in vanilla pudding.
Old gray mare ain't what she used to be
My sister-in-law's Volvo sedan has rolled its odometer twice. Not sure what's wrong with it now, but many of the motorized electrics don't work, such as a window or two, and other maintenance items are adding up to the conclusion that it needs to be replaced.
SIL wants a hybrid. I stress that hybrids' price premiums will not break even on the saved fuel unless gasoline prices climb above maybe $5 a gallon and stay there, or much of that price premium disappears in 6 months. She's also 6'3" or so, and of, er, ample proportions. The little streamlined monocoques of the Prius or the hybrid Honda will probably not fit her.
She has a loooong commute from Herndon VA to Frederick MD every damn day. Any place she'll move to early in the life of this car will create a commute of comparable distance.
If she wants the fuel economy and the long engine life, and the option to use a biologically derived fuel, I'm thinking diesel, as I am thinking of it for myself. Will a woman of SIL's proportions fit into a Jetta TDI? (yeah, they take a price premium too---ever price a pre-owned TDI? Still, it's manageable.)
Are any other carmakers offering or planning performance-diesels for passenger cars?
SIL wants a hybrid. I stress that hybrids' price premiums will not break even on the saved fuel unless gasoline prices climb above maybe $5 a gallon and stay there, or much of that price premium disappears in 6 months. She's also 6'3" or so, and of, er, ample proportions. The little streamlined monocoques of the Prius or the hybrid Honda will probably not fit her.
She has a loooong commute from Herndon VA to Frederick MD every damn day. Any place she'll move to early in the life of this car will create a commute of comparable distance.
If she wants the fuel economy and the long engine life, and the option to use a biologically derived fuel, I'm thinking diesel, as I am thinking of it for myself. Will a woman of SIL's proportions fit into a Jetta TDI? (yeah, they take a price premium too---ever price a pre-owned TDI? Still, it's manageable.)
Are any other carmakers offering or planning performance-diesels for passenger cars?
Speedfreaks
We are with in-laws in Western NY, and took in Six Flags at Darien Lake yesterday.
Firstborn enjoys the fast coasters, though she becomes a sobbing mess while waiting to get into the car. "Is she OK?" ask concerned riders just before we climb in. "Is she gonna be alright?" Makes me feel like a child abuser. But the sobbing is gone after the first steep drop.
Predator was very good, but Ride of Steel is the shiznit. After that, two turns on the Viper and she was done with rollercoasters for the day.
Firstborn enjoys the fast coasters, though she becomes a sobbing mess while waiting to get into the car. "Is she OK?" ask concerned riders just before we climb in. "Is she gonna be alright?" Makes me feel like a child abuser. But the sobbing is gone after the first steep drop.
Predator was very good, but Ride of Steel is the shiznit. After that, two turns on the Viper and she was done with rollercoasters for the day.
Carhenge
Now that we live within a couple hours' drive of this place, all I needed was an afternoon free as the excuse to get there.
More on this later when I craft a satellite overhead comparison of this to the original. How faithful were the builders? Have differences in its location on the Earth been compensated for?
20060621
Idea 437
The problem is that, in meatspace wargames such as at Ft Polk, there is an explicit trade-off between MILES gear that is utterly digital, or simulated munitions that possess real external and terminal ballistics. The digital gear supports extensive automated systems to characterize the armed engagement, at the cost of significant loss of authenticity.
The solution would add the support for scalable automation (position, time, operator, manner of impact, option for umpiring or other mediation) to the physical entity of a moving, material, nonlethal bullet that will penetrate enough concealment (but not body armor) to drive the point home, like paintballs do.
How cheap are RFID tags nowadays?
Develop a plastic bullet containing an RFID and an impact-activated transponder.
Develop a cartridge around that bullet, that either cycles the service rifle or cycles a training top-end for the service rifle.
When the ammunition is issued to the soldier, a transponder interrogates it so the supervising system knows which soldier is carrying it.
Without knowing much about RFID tags and their RF capabilities, I'm guessing that the location of a given tag or swarm of tags could easily be triangulated by a limited number of networked location-aware transponders. I'm also guessing that the tag can be interrogated in milliseconds. And that it can be powered by the acceleration of a small magnet through a wire coil, both packed comfortably aboard the bullet, so the tag gets an ample shot of DC both when it is shot down the barrel and when it bounces to a stop.
At the end of the exercise, golf carts equipped with transponders and vacuum cleaners scour the play area and sweep the spent bullets up, either for re-use or disposal.
Nothing in this concept is incompatible with the existing MILES gear. Both systems can overlap, and probably should, because the RFID-tagged bullets will not duplicate the exterior ballistics---the range and accuracy---of real rifle bullets. If they did, they would be real rifle bullets and carry the lethality of real rifle bullets.
The laser systems can also teach the wrong lessons. Lasers can’t penetrate drywall or foliage; bullets can. The laser vests, according to the RAND report, “equate concealment and cover, a dangerous lesson for ground forces who sometimes demonstrate a frightening ignorance of the difference between the two.” (The JRTC sometimes uses paintball-like “simunitions,” but they don’t have the information-gathering capabilities of the lasers.)
The solution would add the support for scalable automation (position, time, operator, manner of impact, option for umpiring or other mediation) to the physical entity of a moving, material, nonlethal bullet that will penetrate enough concealment (but not body armor) to drive the point home, like paintballs do.
How cheap are RFID tags nowadays?
Develop a plastic bullet containing an RFID and an impact-activated transponder.
- When the round is fired, it squawks a timestamp and position coordinates provided by the rifle.
- When it hits something, it squawks its identity and a timestamp.
- When it hits a trainee, the trainee's load rig (containing a compatible transponder) hears the identity, estimates how near the bullet came to vital organs, and barks out a hit, wound, or miss, and so forth. Even a bullet impacting a tree or rock in front of the soldier will register with the soldier's rig.
Develop a cartridge around that bullet, that either cycles the service rifle or cycles a training top-end for the service rifle.
When the ammunition is issued to the soldier, a transponder interrogates it so the supervising system knows which soldier is carrying it.
Without knowing much about RFID tags and their RF capabilities, I'm guessing that the location of a given tag or swarm of tags could easily be triangulated by a limited number of networked location-aware transponders. I'm also guessing that the tag can be interrogated in milliseconds. And that it can be powered by the acceleration of a small magnet through a wire coil, both packed comfortably aboard the bullet, so the tag gets an ample shot of DC both when it is shot down the barrel and when it bounces to a stop.
At the end of the exercise, golf carts equipped with transponders and vacuum cleaners scour the play area and sweep the spent bullets up, either for re-use or disposal.
Nothing in this concept is incompatible with the existing MILES gear. Both systems can overlap, and probably should, because the RFID-tagged bullets will not duplicate the exterior ballistics---the range and accuracy---of real rifle bullets. If they did, they would be real rifle bullets and carry the lethality of real rifle bullets.
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