Natural Tunnel State Park

Just over the border in Virginia. Railroad runs through a natural tunnel exposed by collapse of sinkhole at both ends. Really big sinkhole, like 300 foot cliffs.

The train still runs daily delivering coal to Eastman Chemical.  The guide said it was for hydrocarbon extraction. 

The trail down to the tunnel is somewhat demanding but there is a chairlift to the bottom. 

Upgrading Broken Focuser

I think I mentioned that a couple telescope parts did not survive the move undamaged. One of them was the refractor's focuser. I bent the damaged parts back into what looked to be the original shapes, but the focuser is rough and it binds. before the move, I had considered replacing the focuser with a dual-speed focuser. These have two knobs; one is the coarse focus typical on telescopes; the other turns at 1/10th speed, allowing very fine focus changes. So I ordered the GSO 2" Linear Bearing Crayford Focuser (made in Taiwan). It is an gorgeous piece of machining:

The only downside is that the flange is 112.5mm OD and the refractor's tube is 125mm ID. So, I need to make an adapter. To quote the opening sequence from The Six-Millionaire Dollar Man:

Gentlemen, we can rebuild him. We have the technology. 

At least, I do. I have a 6" 4-jaw chuck. No, Sherline lathes do not normally go this large. In the past, I have made riser blocks for the headstock and tool holder to allow turning big stuff. 

1. I will start with a 6" x 6" aluminum square.

2. Drill and tap a 3/4"-16 center hole. (This is the Sherline headstock spindle size as well as the size of the rotating table adapter.)

3. Remove 6" chuck.

4. Rotate workpiece onto headstock spindle.

5. Turn workpiece to 124.8mm OD.

6. Make riser block for the tilting table on which rotating table will sit. (I need the clearance to rotate this large of a workpiece.)

7. Tilting table to 90 degrees.

8. Put workpiece on rotating table adapter.

9. Turn workpiece 120 degrees at a time. 

10. Center drill each hole.

11. Repeat for two more holes.

12. Replace center drill with twist drill for a through hole deep enough to get through the 112.8mm layer.

13. Return workpiece to 6" chuck on headstock spindle.

14. Use cutting tool to cut 105mm hole.

15. Use boring bore to enlarge center hole to 112.7mm.

More Reasons Why Voting Democrat Would Be Really Foolish

 10/26/26 Real Clear Investigations:

The U.S. has been running a real-time experiment on two approaches to criminal justice: the Biden-era emphasis on social justice versus the Trump administration’s embrace of traditional law and order. The results are now in.

The Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) reported this morning that felony violent crime fell 25% in 2025. Rape declined 13%, robbery fell 27%, and aggravated assault dropped 31%. Property crime fell 19%. Except for rape, these are the largest one-year reductions recorded since data collection began 53 years ago.

The reductions followed substantial increases during the previous four years, when felony violent crime rose 59% and violent crime, including misdemeanor simple assault, increased 42%....

Murder also declined sharply last year. The U.S. recorded about 4.1 murders per 100,000 people in 2025, a record low, down from roughly 5.1 per 100,000 in 2024. The murder rate has continued to drop. If preliminary FBI data showing an additional 18.4% decline during the first seven months of 2026 hold for the full year, the murder rate would fall to approximately 3.36 per 100,000.

“We are witnessing a historic plunge in crime to levels never seen before in the United States,” Professor Carl Moody, a crime researcher at the College of William & Mary, told RealClearInvestigations. “As a result, we are all safer in our communities than we ever have been. We should all thank our law enforcement professionals.”

These declines go far beyond normal cyclical fluctuations in crime. The murder rate has fallen to record lows. Crime also shows a clear pattern over time. Felony violent crime declined during Trump’s first term, surged under Biden, and is now plunging during Trump’s second term. The pandemic can’t explain Biden’s increase: Felony violent crime rose 59% from 2021 to 2024, including a 4% increase in 2024.

Tick-b-Gone

 Permethrin is an insecticide. Treat clothes with it and insects do not survive.

How to Treat Clothing With Permethrin

The most important thing to remember when spraying your clothing with permethrin is that you must follow the instructions on the product label. If you don’t, you could be violating federal law, Conlon says. (Because permethrin is a pesticide, the Environmental Protection Agency regulates its use.)

It’s also important to follow the instructions on the label to ensure you’re using the pesticide as safely as possible, says Michael Hansen, PhD, a senior scientist at Consumer Reports. “It’s an endocrine-disrupting compound," he says. That means “if it gets into your system, there can be effects on the hormonal system."

The CDC notes that permethrin and related chemical compounds can cause serious health problems in people exposed to high doses. “You don’t want to be inhaling it or getting it directly on your skin," Hansen says. Hansen also says that some recent studies suggest permethrin and other synthetic pyrethoids may be linked to adverse effects at lower doses, too.

If you follow the directions on the label, however, the dose of permethrin you receive by wearing treated clothing is considered safe, even for pregnant women. (Higher concentrations of permethrin are used in medications for treating both head lice and scabies.)

Permethrin Safety Tips

Spray only your clothing. We said it before, but it’s worth repeating: Permethrin spray is only for your clothes and gear. Don’t apply it to your skin. And when treating clothes, stick to outerwear. The Environmental Protection Agency says that you shouldn’t treat underwear with permethrin.

Spray while the clothes are off your body. Hang them on hangers outside, and spray them down while they hang. Don’t apply permethrin to your clothes while you’re wearing them, and don’t apply permethrin indoors, where you could risk inhaling it.

Never spray around cats. Keep your feline friends away from the area while you’re treating your clothes because permethrin is highly toxic to cats. According to Sawyer, which makes permethrin products, treated clothing is not dangerous to cats once it has dried.

Spray enough, but not too much. Mather says he often sees people making the mistake of giving their clothes a quick spritz of permethrin, even while wearing the clothing. But it takes a slightly heavier hand for full protection. Mather says you should spray enough for your clothes to become damp (they should look a little darker in color) and not spray the clothing you’re wearing. You don’t need to drench them—to where they’ll drip if you wring them out—but they do need a thorough coat.

The product labels can help give you a good idea of how much to use. For example, the label on Sawyer’s permethrin aerosol spray says that a 4.5-ounce bottle will treat a shirt, a pair of pants, and a pair of socks.

Let the clothes dry completely. Before you wear them, they should be totally dry. That should take a few hours, depending on the humidity of the day.

Re-treat when necessary. Manufacturers of pretreated clothing say their products are still effective after many washes. But the clothes you treat yourself need to be re-treated much more often. Sawyer says you need to re-treat after six weeks or six washings, for example. Even clothes or gear you don’t wash need re-treating; Mather says he sprays his own and his family’s shoes monthly.

Cleaning Supplies

We disposed of all the gun cleaning chemicals (CLP, Hoppes #9, Stainless Steel Lube) before we moved.  It also appears that the rest (Gun Snakes, bore brushes, half my bore patches) went with the liquids. I needed to start over today, which simplifies my collection. Two gun snakes, a collection of bore brushes to go with the cleaning rods that escaped the purge, Hoppes #9, and CLP. I may need to order stainless steel lube.

I went shooting at lunch time at Shooter's Source, an indoor pistol range and gun store in Kingsport.  Nice range.

I have not shot my Government Model in several years. It has a 4 1/2 pound trigger, which more than compensates for the intrinsic slop of the 1911's intentional slide to frame tolerances. At 7 yards, firing one round a second,  is good enough for most shots center of mass. 

The Walther works great. Again, one shot per second puts all the shots in the center of mass. 'The inadequate gun you carry is better than the major caliber you do not carry because of weight or bulkiness "

I have not fired or cleaned the Government Model in several years and I found myself saying, "How does this reassemble?" The Browning Hi-Power is different in several ways.  It took a while but I finally figured it out.

My First Ever Tick

I was drifting off to sleep last night and I felt something odd on my belly. A little itchy lump like a small scab except it would not scratch off. Yes, a tick. We put in a plastic bag. From the pictures, it appeared to be a deer tick and a rash was beginning to bulls eye around it, so we ran off the an ER about 10:30. There was no waiting get in. They confirmed it was a deer tick. The doctor said Lyme disease, Rocky Mountain spotted fever are pretty rare here from ticks (he has never seen either) but to be sure, I was given two doxycyclines and a tetanus shot. He used some lidocaine and a scalpel to remove the head which was still in my flesh. I had taken all my evening medications just before getting into bed so I was on the edge of sleep the entire time. 

Put Together Both Reflectors Today

It was also the day of discovery for broken parts, fortunately none optical. The amount of force involved in the moving truck guillotine our dining room table. It is no surprise other parts experienced unreasonable forces.

The upper cage of Big Bertha has a diagonal mirror assembly that reflects the light from the primary mirror into the eyepiece focuser. There are four screws at the top of the cage. Three are collimation screws for making very subtle adjustments of diagonal mirror position. Like half a turn of a 32 threads per inch screw (.031" per turn). There is also a center screw that positions the whole diagonal mirror holder fore and after in the tube.  This has an adjustment knurled nut. The screw was bent about 60 degrees.  One I extracted it from the diagonal holder, I put it in the vise wrapped.in rubber and clamped it in two axes until straight again. To my surprise,  it all worked perfectly. 

At the stern, there were several weights to improve balance, held in a 1/4-20 thumbscrew which was hideously bent. If i had another of these unusually long brass thumbscrews,  i would have just replaced it. It is a weird size and i picked brass to avoid chewing up thr aluminum mirror cell into which yhis  screws.This time I both straightened it rethreaded it by first two axis squeezing in a vise wrapped in rubber sheeting, then holding it by the thumb end in the vise and turning a steel hex nut down its length until any thread discrepancies were turned out. (I thought i took a picture of this. )

Another disappointment was that the 5" refractor got banged hard enough   through all the foam rubber for the diagonal and focus knob to get shoved into the tailpiece (thr human end of the tube) so hard that the thumb locking screw that prevents the diagonal from falling out was so hopelessly bent that the focus knobs would not move the focus tube out. When I tried to usei pliers to unscrew the locking screw it broke off where it turned into the focuse tube. Oh no 

The tailpiece is held in the tube by three machine screws. I removed them expecting that the broken locking screw could be removed with a screw extractor, which I hate to use. To my pleasure, just enough of the thread body was proud of the tube to get my fingernails on and unscrew it. Now the focuser tube comes out. The hideously expensive and clever Ukrainian chromatic aberration corrector was not damaged; it cost more than the rest of the refractor and made it equivalent in optical quality to some that cost $3000 

Problem solved, right? No. The rack and pinion assembly was also beaten up. Once I opened it, the shaft on which the pinion gear sits was bent as was the metal plate that holds the pinion gear at the right tension to the rack.

Back to the vise to straighten the shaft and bend the metal plate back to the original shape.  It looks right but it does not turn as smooth as it should. 

I had thought a while back of replacing the focuser with a dual speed focuser. These have different speeds on the ends of the shaft and are really nice for getting very sharp focus. Instead I replaced one of the focus knobs with one I turned in aluminum twice the diameter.  This almost the same result because you can make very tiny movements of that bigger knob to get almost the same result.

I guess i now have a reason to do that upgrade.  The GSO dual focus tailpiece has a 112.5mm outer diameter flange. The interior tube diameter is 125mm. I just need to turn a piece 112.6mm ID and 124.9mm OD to adapt it.

The final fun of the day was putting the 8" mirror back in its tube. This is hard for several reasons. 

1. The cell is perhaps 1/8" smaller diameter than the tube ID. If you are not exactly square going in. It will get stuck. 

2.The holes into which the machine screws turn that hold the cell in the tube are not easy to find once the cell is approximately the right position. 

3. When I drilled these holes in the 1990s, I had no terribly precise way to get holes exactly 120 degrees apart. I used a tape measure and I am very close. You still need to remember not to tighten down any screws until all are started. 

This is always a pain to do but Rhonda has the patience to help me do these hard tasks. 

The day was not over. Big Berrha is a half-Surrier truss Dobsonian.  There is an upper csge  with eyepiece and diagonal and a lower cage holding thr mirror. They are held at the right distance by 6 1" diameter aluminum poles forming three triangles for light stiffness. Unless you are eight feet tall, putting the upper cage on top of those poles is difficult especially poo especially because those six poles look like you are wrestling a confused insect. 

Rhonda has much better spatial reasoning than me so she figured out that it made more sense to put the upper cage on the poles and lower the poles into their lower cage receivers.  

Big Bertha is reassembled; she collimated more easily than I expected. Tomorrow i will collimate the 8". I am hoping the concrete pad where the telescopes will roll in front of the shop will be done setting by Wednesday.