Life, The Universe, and Everything

[Doug Coulter]

I swear I didn't buy this collet set, the lathe collet chuck, some collet blocks (square and hex) and so on just to show I have no money in the bank just before the medicos run a means test on me to determine how much to bill me for keeping me alive another month. Honest!

Toys for Doug

My press has a female 1/4-20 thread in the ram.

Joe Pie's threading backwards and outward method works really well and allows high rpm for good surface finish.

And....it fits if you hammer it in. I may make another one about 2 mils larger.

Test piece for flatted holes.

[Donovan Ready]

Happy Thanksgiving, all. Burp...

[Doug Coulter]

Thanks, Donovan - same to all.
Been a little busy with the medicos and new fusion experiment design, but I just had to kind of take a little fun break....
Today was nice weather (high 50's, sun, no wind) and...

Some days, the plan just comes together

The gun I'm building. 6.5 Swede, Mauser 98 action, custom butchered stock, Leupold scope.

This is the 6.5 Swede bull barrel, a varmint sort of load, 95 gr Hornady bullet, moly coated here, shot about half an hour after shooting some lead bullets that left the barrel cleaner than patches and solvent would...(lee liquid alox lube does that). Borescope showed moly about halfway down the barrel, copper after that, and toolmarks are still there from manufacture. Maybe I just need to shoot a lot more. By the deposits on the grooves, it looks like this cheapo A&B barrel actually does have a slight taper down the length - the right one. Either design or I just got lucky.

Got toolmarks?

This is not as good as I expect to get eventually, but hey, it ain't bad - varmints beware - we're at minute of field mouse. But gosh darnit - the hole isn't round and is bigger than .264. This load has an insane jump to the lands of around 100 mils, holy cow. (Edit - 143 mils, measured - I wanted to know so as to make more of these) Run of the box winchester brass - I'm working on some super brass prep stuff, induction annealer, wet tumbling with SS media and my own chemistry, plus weight segregation and the other stuff as usual. I'm full length sizing all this, as I've cut the chambers on the two guns I'm working on to be a pretty tight fit with brass "at spec" so no foolery with fireforming/neck-only-sizing needed.
Here's some shots of the toys.

I came here to time and control things, and I'm all out of 555s.

Induction annealer, around 1kw. Custom coil of small tubing. The big one is just to radiate heat, it came with the source. I still have to build the solenoid trap door to drop the hot brass when it's done.

Side note - I now see why they forbid doping with Metoprolol in the Olympics. Wow, the old hold just settles right down, as if there's no heartbeat. I was actually holding a bit better than the group shows, without really trying, and I'm not that good normally.


As for my fusion experiment, I've decided to make a fusor in a fusor, or in other words, stick another piece of pipe in there to be the outer electrode (it'll have to be a little smaller diameter so as to fit through the door) and drive that with RF + the B+ voltage from the RF stage - And then use the center electrode (grid) to push in some negative DC and to measure the effect of ion presence at varying amounts of ions/gas pressure vs the other speeds and feeds. This avoids having to measure on the same wire I'm driving, and the need for insane coupling capacitors or super broadband isolation transformers - I already have a probe that I trust that is broadband. Should be fairly easy to compensate out the expected capacitive coupling from the RF to the grid, and while the RF source will have to also drive the capacity between the pipe and the vacuum tank, that's no big deal and I'll be comparing what is actually on the pipe with what's actually on the grid (with a known series impedance between the DC supply and the grid). It'll take awhile to build this, but as far as I know, I have all the parts, just need to do some more fab, make another probe, and get it all installed in the big tank that at least has a great vacuum setup.
I'd built and tested a really great ion source back when I thought I could do this on the #2 system, before it became too rotten vacuum wise to work where I want to work. It has a greater than 10k gauss magnet setup with an ejection hole for ions, and draws significant current - and creates lots of ions, even at e-6 mbar, so it'll do here. I just have to keep the power input to it down to keep from heating up the crazy big hollow NdFeB magnets.
So, I at least have a plan for times in between surgeries if I'm up to getting into the shop.

[Donovan Ready]

Ping Doug.

Are you doing OK?

[johnf]

you bet me to it Donovan

[Doug Coulter]

Thanks guys, yeah, I'm doing more or less OK. Like the little girl, when I'm good, I'm very good...the other times, not so much.
The weather here is nasty, so work on ballistics testing is on hold...I won't do it with ice on the bench.
I got rejected for a colonoscopy procedure the other day as I didn't have a person to drive and to watch me for 24 hours after - a requirement these days. I pointed out I have no living family, and my local friends were themselves in hospital with their own issues just now. I mentioned that I guessed I could simply hire someone for that job, and they just threw me out. I guess the implication that I didn't think they were taking responsibility for doing their job right pissed them off. I'll find another doctor for that. I mean, if they need someone to watch you for a day after they work you over, and won't do it themselves...hmmm.

I have a bronchoscopy upcoming sometime in Jan I think - the date isn't yet set and that's the big one we all think. There's a great big ol mass in my left lung, and they want to driver around in there with a roto rooter....I'm not real wild about that prospect, but it does hurt and it won't get better by itself.

So, that's the bad news. The rest of the time I'm trying to have as much fun as humanly possible. When I'm not super ambulatory, it's youtube and chess, which I've taken up again. Otherwise, the spread always has things that need doing and I spend a lot of time out of breath - which is actually an improvement, before the new meds, it was chest pains, now largely gone.

I intend to be very difficult to kill....so far, so good.

You know, once Beethoven was accused of too much drama, and Mozart of too many notes. Somehow, it worked out in the end.
These guys...whew. This is one of their more accessible pieces. Kept me from falling asleep on the couch, that's for sure.
https://youtu.be/B8gOMUjwtwQ

[Donovan Ready]

Nice bit o'music there, thanks.

Good to hear from you, and make sure you get a "friend" for your new doctor's visit. Thank God you aren't on VA as a friend of mine is. He's got to drive 3 hours one way to sit and wait...

[Doug Coulter]

Looks like I'm scheduled to go in for lung surgery 1/5 at 6am. Holy 0 dark hundred! This place is a bit over an hour drive from me. There's a hotel right there, and I'm planning on booking a room in it for at least the day before, maybe one after too. I'll be there today to see cardiologist #3 anyway, and I'll bug the broncho nurse a little (I like that one) while there. Depending on what they say, I'll go book the room. I think they're basically just going to pull my left lung out in large part. The scan I saw...there's some crazy stuff in there that fer sure doesn't belong.
It actually looks nearly identical to the spaceship pictured here, only rotated a little bit - funny legs and all. https://babylon5.fandom.com/wiki/Shadow_Vessel

Now how that's gonna work if I drive myself there but need a ride back...getting the drivers to match the number of vehicles might be a trick, but we'll figure something out. If I'm still alive, and if not, I guess it's gonna be on someone else to worry that.

It'll be good to get back to playing in the lab and the yard - that newest Swede is tons 'o fun.

It's kind been fun looking at the videos from ammo makers saying, nope there's no conspiracy, we're cranking as hard as we can and making bank, thanks. It's just that Biden was a great gun salesman, and if only the 20 million or so new owners bought 2 boxes of ammo each, well, that's quite a lot of the stuff. It's a great time to be a handloader who has been picking up components for years...it's gotten fairly quiet in the neighborhood except for me and the other reloader. I wouldn't have noticed. Many of my guns have never had a single round of factory ammo through them. I can't of course speak to things like the S&W model 14...but the newer ones...

[Donovan Ready]

Jesus. Best wishes and Merry Christmas.

[Doug Coulter]

Just hoping my relationship to Jesus remains on the corporeal side, yeah. We get along...

Merry Christmas to all!

We have a politically-incorrect-colored Christmas this year. That was kind of a surprise, I'm glad I brought in firewood yesterday!

Brrr, running a generator, the solar panels are covered right now. Glad I put thin oil in one so it'd start in the cold.