How To Aggravate Police Racism

From Breitbart:

HOUSTON, Texas – Armed Black Panther members marched in front of the Waller County jail and shouted, “You’re gonna stop doing what you’re doing, or we will start creeping up on you in the darkness.”

The statement was made just two weeks prior to the assassination of a Harris County deputy sheriff.
Shannon Miles, a black male, allegedly came “creeping up” behind Harris County Deputy Darren Goforth in the darkness on the night of August 28. While Goforth stood at a convenience store pumping gas into his patrol vehicle, Miles allegedly raised a pistol and shot him dead.

No Wonder He Felt Victimized

The suicide note from the guy who shot the reporters has surfaced.  From the August 31, 2015 Daily Mail:

The cold-blooded killer who gunned down two of his former colleagues on live TV last week was afraid of getting older and worried that his days as a $2,000-a-night male prostitute were over.

Vester Lee Flanagan II revealed his insecurities in a suicide letter and last phone call to close friend Robert Avent, of Vallejo, California.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3216957/When-heads-stop-turning-s-AWFUL-TV-gunman-complained-lack-sex-lamented-glory-days-2-000-night-prostitute-suicide-letter.html#ixzz3kSSZjBrB
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

Milling A Piece of Aluminum to 2.686"

In a proper shop, I would use a metal bandsaw to cut down to 2.75" and then machine to 2.686", but metal bandsaws are really expensive.  Instead I wrote a program where you tell it the height and width of the workpiece, and what height of finished part you want, along with millling rate, amount to remove on each pass, and away it goes.  The left side is a little uneven because of first cutting experiments.  I may also need to square the mill.  The mill is moving faster than it appears, because of 30 fps video synchronizing with spindle speed.

More lessons learned: The mill get knocking the workpiece out of the oddball vise above, so I went back to the Sherline mill vise.  Did not fix the problem.  As the center of gravity (or is it center of pressure?) rises above the vise jaws, it gets harder and harder to hold theworkpiece in the jaws.  So I have reduced feedrate to 2 in/min and 0.005" removed per pass.  This makes it even slower.  When I get into production for this part, Iwill find avendor who can give me a 2 3/4" wide workpiece.

By the way, feed rate and depth of cut are inversely related.  At 1 in/min, you can cut much deeper than at 3 in/min.  I need one of these.

Peter G: Your Order is Ready

More Learning

If you are thinking of getting into CNC milling, think of the Sherline product as a learning tool, because its weak motor means you won't get any project finished until Americans start going to church again, and letting it influence their lives.  I need to mill a 3" wide piece of 6061 aluminum doown to 2.686".  I wrote a snmall specific application to mill any piece of aluminum to a specific height.  I can remove 0.01" layers at a time, at 3 in/min.  On a big mill, you could take off much bigger layers than that.  The temptation to buy bigger gets stronger and stronger.  Sherline's lathes seem to have enough power, but the same motor on the lathe seems underpowered.

I am learning a number of tricks.  When actually milling, feed 3 in/min.  On the return stroke across a milled surface or when moving an axis without any milling, use 100 in/min.

UPDATE:  For some reason 10 in/min at 0.01" is working well, leaving a perfectly smooth, almost mirrored surface.

Gutsy Trump

From August 27, 2015 CNN:

Washington (CNN)Donald Trump said Thursday he is opposed to tightening gun laws in the U.S. but is in favor of addressing mental health to prevent shootings, one day after a man shot two journalists on live television.

"This isn't a gun problem, this is a mental problem," Trump told CNN's Chris Cuomo on "New Day." "It's not a question of the laws, it's really the people."

Calling the gunman a "very sick man," Trump said mental illness is "a massive problem" in the U.S. He suggested more resources should be devoted to addressing mental health -- hoping to prevent shootings like the one in Virginia, which he called "really, very sad."

Flying With Loaded Magazines

The last time I checked a handgun, TSA insisted that ammunition in magazines was not allowed in the locked firearms case, only stored in a ammunition box.  This meant discarding a bunch of JHPs, and going the a bit of work reloading at the far end.  This time, I am including a copy of TSA's web page:

Firearms must be unloaded and locked in a hard-sided container and transported as checked baggage only. Firearm parts, including firearms frames and receivers, must also be placed in checked baggage and are prohibited in carry-on baggage.

Ammunition

• Firearm magazines and ammunition clips, whether loaded or empty, must be securely boxed or included within a hard-sided case containing an unloaded firearm.
• Small arms ammunition, including ammunition not exceeding .75 caliber for rifle or pistol and shotgun shells of any gauge, may be carried in the same hard-sided case as the firearm, as described in the packing guidelines above.

Is this clear enough?

It appears some airlines have additional silly rules:

Ensure small arms ammunition is packed in the manufacturer's original package or securely packed in fiber, wood, plastic or metal boxes and provide separation for cartridges.

What are they worried about?  EMP?

Accuracy Guarantee on Ammo

I bought some armor piercing .223 from Lucky Gunner, and I was surprised to see an accuracy guarantee:

 

I have bought SS109 before, but never with an accuracy guarantee.

Washington D.C. Gun Control and the Battle of Bladensburg

Often considered the most embarrassing battle of the War of 1812, James Gibson explains the failure as a consequence of a city ordinance banning the militia from having flints for their arms.  Some stupid is not new.

King of the Beasts

Curiously, I can't find any uses of his phrase in books before 1800.

Isn't This Prejudice?

From August 29, 2015 New York Times:

Texas Deputy Killed ‘Because He Wore a Uniform,’ Sheriff Says

Assuming someone is bad because they wear a police uniform?
BlueLivesMatter!

NP3Plus?

I have toyed with idea of having my Browning Hi-Power refinished in hard chrome, primarily for esthetic reasons.  I admit, it makes me sound like El /presidente in a bad 1960s Mission: Impossible episode, but I like shiny handguns.  Then I noticed NP3+, which Robar does.  This is an electroless nickel finish with PTFE bonded into the material, making the gun self-lubricating and easy to clean.  This looks good in pictures.  Has anyone had it done or owned a gun with this finish?  It's a bit prcey, but they do not only the exterior but also the internal parts as well.  This review is very positive.

Like A Real Factory

Yesterday was a milestone for ScopeRoller: I had two operatives at work simultaneously.  The teenager who lives across the road was unsure if he would be available, so I hired one of my readers to help.  One was turning acetal down to diameter on the lathe, while the other was drilling, tapping,  and assembling orders.  At some point, I am going to have to start collecting and paying payrioll taxes.  I've never done that before and I am not entirely sure of what to do.  There's a couple at church who used to run a cookware shop, and I will ask them.

I had planned to start making the interior part of the design by turning aluminum rod to size, then cutting 30 degree slices of it with the chop saw, but my first experience trying to do that makes  think I will stick with acetal.  Blades won't last.  I think I will also upgrade my lathe to CNC.  I can tell the computer to remove .010" per pass, which on acetal will be quite risk-free.  Start it up and come back when it is down to the right diameter.

UPDATE: More orders rolling in.  It's hard to keep raw materials in stock!

Fun With Makefiles

I have stuff  in two directories, vhal and milltop.  I want a dependency on a .h and .c file in the vhal directory.

(INCL)=../vhal
CC=gcc
DEPS=../vhal/vhal.h ../vhal/parseargs.c

all: milltop ../vhal/parseargs.c $(INCL)vhal.h milltop.ngc

milltop: milltop.c $(DEPS)
    $(CC) -o $@ -g milltop.c -I$(INCL)

milltop.ngc: milltop
    ./milltop -mr0.25 -pt3.203 -f3.0 -w0.522 -l3.055 -h2.686 -mof 0.25 >milltop.ngc

Why does it think that there is nothing after the -I argument?  Once upon a time, I would have made milltop dependent on milltop.c, vhal.h, and parseargs.o but I am not seeing the %.o: %.c dependency rules in example Makefiles.

More Revisions to My Milling

I am going to revise my plan to 3 in/min feed rate, which is just a command line parameter change, and add a new parameter, mill overlap factor, which controls how much of the mill diameter I move on each pass.  Right now it is hard coded at 33%.  I am making this a parameter so that I can reduce to 25%.  My goal is to make this so foolproof that I can start it up and feel safe with it unattended.

A Twofer

Identity politics is nasty business.  It was nasty when Democrats asserted that this was a white man's republic, and it isn't any nicer now that other identity groups are preeminent.  From August 26, 2015 Daily Mail:

'Why did I do it? I put down a deposit for a gun on 6/19/15. The Church shooting in Charleston happened on 6/17/15…'

'What sent me over the top was the church shooting. And my hollow point bullets have the victims’ initials on them.'

'As for Dylann Roof? You [redacted]! You want a race war [redacted]? BRING IT THEN YOU WHITE …[redacted]!!!”

At the same time, he professes a deep respect for other mass shooters like Virginia Tech gunman Seung-Hui Cho.

'Also, I was influenced by Seung–Hui Cho. That’s my boy right there. He got NEARLY double the amount that Eric Harris and Dylann Klebold got…just sayin’.

He goes on to say that he has faced both racial and sexual discrimination as a black, gay man and that he was just waiting to explode.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3211529/WDBJ7-reporter-Alison-Parker-Adam-Ward-shot-live-TV-Moneta-gunman.html#ixzz3jycL5HLs
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

I guess same-sex marriage was not enough.

UPDATE: As my wife pointed out, the left keeps banging the drum with the race card, and then gets upset that they provoke gun violence.  "If you keep saying there are monsters in the castle, eventually the peasants will show up with torches."

A Question For My Readers

Why is burning thec American flag or making porn that appears to involve children protected as free speech because it is expressive conduct, but refusing to make a same-sex wedding cake is not?

Why Worrying About Iran Getting the Bomb Is Silly

From Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists:

What would happen if an 800-kiloton nuclear warhead detonated above midtown Manhattan?

Why Peer Review Does Not Mean Much

I have always found that when it comes to history journals, peer review means "conforms to the prejudices and assumptions of the status quo" which is why Michael Bellesiles had no problem getting outright lies published.  Now we see bigger problems.  From August 18, 2015 Washington
Post:

Made-up identities assigned to fake e-mail addresses. Real identities stolen for fraudulent reviews. Study authors who write glowing reviews of their own research, then pass them off as an independent report.

These are the tactics of peer review manipulators, an apparently growing problem in the world of academic publishing.

Peer review is supposed to be the pride of the rigorous academic publishing process. Journals get every paper reviewed and approved by experts in the field, ensuring that problematic research doesn’t make it to print.

But increasingly journals are finding out that those supposedly authoritative checks are being rigged.
In the latest episode of the fake peer review phenomenon, one of the world’s largest academic publishers, Springer, has retracted 64 articles from 10 of its journals after discovering that their reviews were linked to fake e-mail addresses. The announcement comes nine months after 43 studies were retracted by BioMed Central (one of Springer’s imprints) for the same reason.

The Real Reason For Global Warming Hysteria

To make a billionaire richer.  From August 19, 2015 Fox News:

Billionaire investor George Soros, who has demonized fossil fuels for years through his think tanks and political contributions, seems to have warmed up to Big Coal now that stocks are dirt cheap.
The left-wing hedge fund legend has raised eyebrows with major purchases of stock in two large coal companies, firms his critics say he helped bring to their knees. While buying low is the hallmark of any shrewd investor, buying coal goes against the political and environmental ideology Soros has long espoused.

“I find it very interesting that George Soros would buy shares in those coal companies,” said Daniel Simmons, vice president for Policy at the Washington DC-based free market energy group, Institute for Energy Research. “I am confused given the non profits he funds and how hard they have worked to demonize coal.”

Soros, whose Climate Policy Initiative think tank recently urged the world to stop using fossil fuels in general and coal in particular, snapped up 1 million shares of Peabody Energy and half a million shares of Arch Coal, giving him significant stakes in what’s left of the U.S. coal industry.
The trades would have cost Soros a lot more six years ago, when Peabody, which trades under the symbol BTU, was at about $90 a share. Under the Obama administration, which has punished the coal industry with costly mandates and regulation, Peabody shares have fallen to around $1....

 The 85-year-old hedge fund manager has a net worth of $24.2 billion, according to Forbes.com, which makes him the 19th wealthiest person in U.S. and second among hedge fund managers.

The most recent filing shows Soros Fund Management holds stakes in 263 companies with a total value of nearly $11 billion.

The filing shows the purchases of 553,200 shares of Arch Coal for $188,000 and an investment of $2,254,000 into Peabody Energy for 1,029,400 shares, which means he’s lost money on both so far. Peabody, the biggest coal producer in the U.S. by output, said in a recent statement that it “has been trying to turn itself around as it faces challenges from low natural-gas prices, a glut of global coal supplies, weakened demand from China and a growing public call to cut carbon emissions.”

No surprise.  Soros is unapologetic for helping the Nazis loot his fellow Jews.  Is it any surprise he used his property(Obama and the Democratic Party) to destroy coal stocks so he could buy them cheap?  No surprise that Bernie Sanders is allied with Soros.

That Friend's Guns

I won't claim these are great pictures.

1.  Mossberg 146 B

2.  Savage Tactical 223 with Tasco Scope (24 x 44)

3.  Springfield 1903 Match Rifle

4.  Mossberg Garden Gun

5.  Montgomery Ward “Savage” 22 with Weaver Marksman Scope (4x) 

     Model: 85-S885-TA

6.  Remington 870 Trap Gun w/ vented rib; ivory bead front sight; 28” barrel

7.  Remington 870 Pump 12 gauge riot gun; folding stock; 8 shot mag. ext.

9.  Remington Model 1934 22

10.  Sheridan Blue Streak Air Gun 5mm

11.  Marlin 336 30/30

14.  Remington 1934 22 (fairly worn trigger)

15.  Crossman 22 cal. Air gun

Unexpected Use

I have been wrestling with finding a cell phone pouch for my Samsung Galaxy S4 for some time.  This pouch was elegant, but the belt loops failed after getting in and out of the Jaguar several times.  This pouch was of higher quality, with some nice features, but the steel clip bent out so it no longer held on to my belt very well.  At  Gun Blogger Rendezvous X, one of the door prizes was a Blackhawk Belt Mounted M4 Single Mag Pouch.  And guess what?  The phone fits perfectly, even with the earphones in the bottom.  The Velcro belt loop works well, and is strong enough that anything that rips it will probably carry me away.

Let Us Now Praise Great Cars

The Jaguar XF is about the most pleasant road trip car I can imagine, except for the V8 version.  Comfortable, frighteningly fast with my wife driving it, and quiet.  It averaged 25.6 mpg and 60.7 mph on this trip.

Ti Outdoors

Today we used the Ti Outdoors firearm training simulator, at Reno Guns & Range.  This is a cross between the ultimate first person shooter game and an awesome training tool.  Target practice is useful, but firing in realistic scenarios is more useful.  Some of the personal protection scenarios are very realistic: robbery at an ATM; carjacking; crazy boyfriend smashing in his girlfriend's truck windows to get to her; convenience store robber.  Others are unlikely: complete breakdown of law and order with criminals using automatic weapons; zombie apocalypse.  Still, you aim at the attackers using modified real pistols (Glock, H&K, SigSauer) which use CO2 to simulate recoil and power the infrared beams that hit the screen, and the computer produce bulet holes on the screen to show where you would have hit.  Some of our group are competitive IPSC shooters, and they were very good.  They indicated that I did pretty well.  I was doing the college classroom/active shooter scenario in a classroom much like one in which I often teach,  Some scenarios are shoot/don't shoot choices, which are very useful.

Here's my wife shooting one of the unrealistic scenarios, Chaos City. Yes, she needs some practice, especially on mag changes, and she was firing a Glock--not her carrry gun:

I would love to see one of these in Boise.  I have contacted them to find out system cost.  I could see setting it up in my garage.

Also, Mitch Gerlinger whose business card lists hios title with MOA Targets LLC as "Chief Guy in Charge of Stuff" was also a spectacular shooter.  But his out of control hobby (day job: geologist) is making steel targets.  I would expect that.

It's Alive!

This animation of my photos of the Gardner gun is disturbing:

I am not sure if Google Photos created this automatically, or if some human thought this would be cute.

It Looks Like Steampunk Art!

It is a modern recreation of the Gardner gun, a post-Civil War crank-driven machine gun similar to the Gatling gun although simpler.  This example fires .45-70 ,in case you know of a herd of bison that need hunting very rapidly.

The repeatability of those two barrels is pretty amazing.  At the range the sand was being thrown up at 300 yards in the same spot again and again.  Here Lucky Gunner's rep is loading.

Inside, the steampunk impression continues. Brass outside (cast not machined) and steel inside, with a combination of cams, rack and pinion, and gears that would make Jules Verne proud.

The range was Washoe County shooting range, in the middle of nowhere.  A very nice range.  I had a chance to practice with my Browning Hi-Power ()the one that now has a 4 1/8 pound trigger).  Much improved combat accuracy since the trigger job.  I still need some more practice before I feel comfortable carrying it for an active shooter disaster.

Interesting Problem

A friend in Nevada is on the way out, and his wife wants to start liberating cash from his guns for the medical bills.  In some ideal world, I would buy them all, and resell them in ?Idaho.  But GCA68 does not allow this.  All the guns in theory should go to an FFL in Nevada, then to an FFL in Idaho, who then does the 4473 so that I can sell them.  Of course, an FFL here could just buy them, but at a miserable price.  Suggestions?

Some of these are likely collector items, like an AR-180,and  a Springfield 1903 match rifle.

UPDATE: You can ship directly to an FFL in another state.

Web Sites Do Not Require Sanity

From Exopolitics:

Today a transcript was released of an interview featuring Randy Cramer (aka Captain Kaye) who claims to have spent 17 years on Mars in the initial phase of a 20 year tour of duty from 1987 to 2007 with a secret space program. The transcript of the interview conducted on April 8, 2014, makes it possible to more easily compare Cramer’s claims with that of another more recent whistleblower, Corey Goode (aka GoodETxSG), who also says he spent time at secret bases established on Mars during his own 20 year tour of duty over the same time period with another secret space program. A comparison of their testimonies shows consistency in their respective claims of secret bases on Mars run by corporations. Most surprising is that their claims of Mars having a breathable atmosphere hospitable to small animal life and vegetation, is supported by NASA’s own Mars orbiter and rover images.

No, not a relative.

Heroes

A day to be proud of our armed forces, even when unarmed.  From the August 21, 2015 Daily Mail:
 Unarmed US Marines foil suspected terrorist attack onboard high-speed train between Amsterdam and Paris after they take down Kalashnikov-wielding Moroccan gunman known to intelligence services

• A suspected Moroccan terrorist opened fire with a Kalashnikov on board a high speed train in northern France
• Eyewitnesses said two U.S. Marines on the train disarmed the 26-year-old gunman and pinned him to the ground 
• French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve praised the Marines who almost certainly 'averted a disaster' 
• The gunman is understood to have boarded the train, which had more than 500 passengers, in Brussels, Belgium 

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3206426/U-S-Marines-armed-gunman-onboard-high-speed-train-Amsterdam-Paris.html#ixzz3jUhAJHdi

Lots of positive comments from people around the world.  The question now is, Will Obama punish them for making Islamic extremists love us less?

Where's the TV-movie? Later reports indicate U.S. Air Force, and Oregon National Guard.  Still wonderful!

jaguar very stable above 100 mph

I am pleased at how stable and controllable the Jaguar is above 100.  Yes in boondocks Nevada.

Beginning to Give Up Hope For The Sherline CNC Mill

Apparently, trying to take 0.01" off a 3" wide piece of aluminum, is, according to Sherline support, something even a Bruidgeport can't do.  I think this was a communication failure.  I experimented and found that 3/8" roughing mill can take off 0.02" at 5 inches/minute of feed reliably without jams.

Saggy Pants Ban

There's a community college with a dress code that prohibits saggy pants.  Yup!  Racism!  A ban on a  fashion trend associated with being fresh out of jail (where you aren't allowed belts) is racist!

The real "War on Women"

Last year, Democrats said Republicans were waging a "War on Women" for arguing that employers should not be required to pay for birth control on their insurance plans.  This year the left is criticizing a culture of rape on college campuses.  Now a "War on  Women" and culture of rape reported in the left's favorite newspaper: and by a group the Left can't do anything more serious to than hashtag war.  From the August 13, 2015 New York Times:

QADIYA, Iraq — In the moments before he raped the 12-year-old girl, the Islamic State fighter took the time to explain that what he was about to do was not a sin.

Because the preteen girl practiced a religion other than Islam, the Quran not only gave him the right to rape her — it condoned and encouraged it, he insisted.
He bound her hands and gagged her. Then he knelt beside the bed and prostrated himself in prayer before getting on top of her.

When it was over, he knelt to pray again, bookending the rape with acts of religious devotion....

The systematic rape of women and girls from the Yazidi religious minority has become deeply enmeshed in the organization and the radical theology of the Islamic State in the year since the group announced it was reviving slavery as an institution. Interviews with 21 women and girls who recently escaped the Islamic State, as well as an examination of the group’s official communications, illuminate how the practice has been enshrined in the group’s core tenets.

“I kept telling him it hurts — please stop,” said the girl, whose body is so small an adult could circle her waist with two hands. “He told me that according to Islam he is allowed to rape an unbeliever. He said that by raping me, he is drawing closer to God,” she said in an interview alongside her family in a refugee camp here, to which she escaped after 11 months of captivity.

The systematic rape of women and girls from the Yazidi religious minority has become deeply enmeshed in the organization and the radical theology of the Islamic State in the year since the group announced it was reviving slavery as an institution. Interviews with 21 women and girls who recently escaped the Islamic State, as well as an examination of the group’s official communications, illuminate how the practice has been enshrined in the group’s core tenets.
The trade in Yazidi women and girls has created a persistent infrastructure, with a network of warehouses where the victims are held, viewing rooms where they are inspected and marketed, and a dedicated fleet of buses used to transport them.
A total of 5,270 Yazidis were abducted last year, and at least 3,144 are still being held, according to community leaders. To handle them, the Islamic State has developed a detailed bureaucracy of sex slavery, including sales contracts notarized by the ISIS-run Islamic courts. And the practice has become an established recruiting tool to lure men from deeply conservative Muslim societies, where casual sex is taboo and dating is forbidden.

A growing body of internal policy memos and theological discussions has established guidelines for slavery, including a lengthy how-to manual issued by the Islamic State Research and Fatwa Department just last month. Repeatedly, the ISIS leadership has emphasized a narrow and selective reading of the Quran and other religious rulings to not only justify violence, but also to elevate and celebrate each sexual assault as spiritually beneficial, even virtuous....

The Islamic State recently made it clear that sex with Christian and Jewish women captured in battle is also permissible, according to a new 34-page manual issued this summer by the terror group’s Research and Fatwa Department.

Just about the only prohibition is having sex with a pregnant slave, and the manual describes how an owner must wait for a female captive to have her menstruating cycle, in order to “make sure there is nothing in her womb,” before having intercourse with her. Of the 21 women and girls interviewed for this article, among the only ones who had not been raped were the women who were already pregnant at the moment of their capture, as well as those who were past menopause.

Beyond that, there appears to be no bounds to what is sexually permissible. Child rape is explicitly condoned: “It is permissible to have intercourse with the female slave who hasn’t reached puberty, if she is fit for intercourse,” according to a translation by the Middle East Media Research Institute of a pamphlet published on Twitter last December.

Today's Machining Lesson

I could not take off .01" of aluminum in  one pass wit a 1/2" end mill.  At 0.001" and even 0.002", no problem.  However, my strategy of excavating a .4" deep path 1/8" wide in several passes and then another half the mill diameter next to it (even with the 1/4" end mill) did not work smoothly.  Perhaps I should take all .002" across the entire area, then come back and take the next .002" until I have excavated the area I need.  Should I be using a face mill?  Not for what they cost.

I determined the 1/2" end mill requires more power than the Sherline has. I am rewriting as above.

Also discovered a 3/8" roughing mill that seems to be doing the job.

Learning

I put a 1/2" thick 3.2 wide piece of 6061 aluminum and ran the side milling operation.  This is wider than what I was planning for production.   The left side came okay, but showed mwe I needed to use the 1/8" mill to get close to a square corner.  On the other side, it wasn't on the edge and plunge milling justy vibrated everything badly.  That's why I am learning on this piece of scrap!

Windows Sucks

.My wife's PC suddenly can't print the network printer although test pages print fine.  Word claims no printer installed.

UPDATE: Rebooting solved the problem (whatever it was). 

I Can't Believe I Can't Get Make to Work In Linux

I have been using make since the 1980s, yet when I run make against this Makefile, I get Error 5:

all: bottom slot sides vhalbottom.ngc vhalslot.ngc vhalsides.ngc

bottom: bottom.c vhal.h
    gcc -o bottom -g bottom.c

slot: slot.c vhal.h
    gcc -o slot -g slot.c

sides: sides.c vhal.h
    gcc -o sides -g sides.c

vhalslot.ngc: slot
    ./slot -mr0.25 -pt0.509 -f50 -w3.199 >vhalslot.ngc

I
vhalsides.ngc: sides
    ./sides -mr0.25 -pt0.509 -f50 -w3.199 >vhalsides.ngc

vhalbottom.ngc: bottom
    ./bottom -mr0.25 -pt0.509 -f50 -w3.199 >vhalbottom.ngc



I have file permissions to make the *.ngc files writeable, and ot work as all the executables have x permission.  What has changed in the last few years to make make not work as it used to.

Curiously, make works although giving error 5

WMDs in Iraq

remember when that was a lie of the Bush Administration?  From one of the Kurdish news agencies (a group with experience of being on the receiving end of Iraqi chemical weapons):

Germany confirms Peshmerga fighting ISIS were attacked by chemical weapons 

This spring, the Kurdish government informed its allies that Peshmerga forces were attacked with chlorine gas. Late last year, ISIS repotedly seized an Iraqi chemical weapons factory with about 2,500 rockets, containing the deadly nerve agent Sarin.

About 80 German soldiers are stationed in the Kurdistan Region to train the Peshmerga forces. Germany is one of the few countries supplying the Kurdish troops directly through Erbil and not through the Iraqi central government in Bagdad.

Manufacturing In SemiAuto Mode

I am approaching the ability to machine the part I need from aluminum, but enough orders for the easy products to make  are arriving that those have to take priority.  One part I usually make by planing acetal scrap I bought at a bargain price to a particular size, drilling a hole through, and fitting it into several different tripod legs.  As an exsperiment, I tried milling it to size.  It was slower than using the planer, but more precise and a bit more fun to mill by clicking the mouse.  I tried using a fly cutter, but the results were not so pretty.  The best part, however, was drilling the holes .783" from the end.  Yes, you can do that with a manual mill, but it was so nice to tell the mill to move that distance from the end then drop the center drill into the surface.  This hole is the pilot hole for a twist drill on the drill press.

I had originally planned to make the part in two separate orientations, which means two separate determinations of where X, Y, and Z are relative to the workpiece, but now I have decided to do everything with the workpiece in one position.  There is a slice that comes off the back, in this case top of workpiece, then I rough out a slot with an end mill.  These steps are done.  Next, turn the round cut from the 1/2" endmill into something with square interior corners by running a 1/8" end mill along the interior of the slot, and then cut two edges with the same end mill.

Beginning To Dislike Windows 7

It keeps installing updates that appear to be incompatible with USB drivers on my ThinkPad.

There was apparently a new USB 3.0 driver from Lenovo dated August 5.  Everthing seems to work now.

Trust Me,At Some Point My Life Will NOT Revolve Around CNC Milling

But for now, it does.  I rewrote the C program that generates my gCode to accept mill radius, workpiece thickness, depth of cut, and a few others values as command line arguments, not because the final product is that variable, but because I have so many sizes of scrap to try the mill on.

Material Differences

So far, I have machined white acetal, black acetal, and 6061 aluminum with the mill.  White (or natural) acetal comes off in little tiny chips and looks pretty good.  Black acetal produces long strings, like a very bad reggae style and seems to want a higher spindle speed to remove .030" at a time.  But aluminum tends to clog the lead screw, so it requires oil.  Acetal is self-lubricating, as it evaporates as it cuts.

Islam's Twisted Code

This news account from one of the Middle Eastern news organizations just floors me:http://www.emirates247.com/news/emirates/dad-lets-daughter-die-rather-than-be-touched-by-strange-rescuer-2015-08-09-1.599613

The father prevented life guards from rescuing his drowning daughter out of fear that a strange man touching his daughter would dishonor her.  ISIS is auctioning off little girls ad sees nothing wrong with it.  Bizarre.

Approaching Operational

I am now reaching production by approximation.  I took a piece of acetal that was roughed to the shape I need, put it in the mill, zeroed the axes, and started it running.  Here you can see it milling air.

And here it is down to cutting .01" of acetal on each pass. Yes, I can mill a lot deeper than that, but this is for when I put aluminum in the vise.

The advantage of acetal for testing is that I have vast quantities of acetal scrap for testing, and it doesn't wear out the cutting tools.

UPDATE: Got tired of waiting, so I revised the program to cut 0.03" per pass and increased the feed rate.

Gun Control As A Projection Problem

I have long thought enthusiasm for gun control can best be explained as a projection problem.  People weak on self-control assume that everyone else is as weak as they are.  Like this August 10, 2015 Fox News story that Shall Not Be Questioned linked to:
 

A White House staffer was arrested late Friday after allegedly shooting a gun at her boyfriend, an officer with the U.S. Capitol Police, during a heated argument, authorities said.

Barvetta Singletary, 37, who is a special assistant to President Obama and also holds the title of house legislative liaison, was charged with domestic violence in the incident, which police say occurred at her home in Upper Marlboro, Md.

Police say she summoned her boyfriend, who was not identified, by text message, and the two had sex. Afterward, according to the criminal complaint, Singletary went to the man’s car with him and accused him of dating other women. Inside the car, Singletary allegedly took the man’s cellphones and his service weapon, demanding passwords to unlock messages stored on the phones.

The Melting Arctic

From June 1818 Edinburgh Review:

Time For other Republicans To Move Right

Trump got a lot of bad press for his remarks to Megyn Kelly during the debate.  But his poll numbers are rising.  And much of the establishment Republican opposition to Trump's emphasis on illegals is the belief that Republicans need to be down on their knees worshipping not just Corporate America (who would be happy to see wages fall from increased immigration) but minority voters.  What to make of this Trump defense video?


These gals are probably not typical of black voters.  Most will doubtless do what their Democratic masters tell them to do, ignoring that illegal immigration is why young black men can't find decent paying jobs.

Maybe if Republicans don't like Trump being the voice of the party, they should steal his issue.

Fun With Chop Saws

These are commonly called chop saws but more accurately double bevel miter saws (because you change the angle of the cut in two different axes).  The new one has some nice features such as being a compound saw, which slides across a substantial distance, so you can cut pieces much wider than the diameter of the saw blade, and a laser that projects a line onto the workpiece.  There is one annoying downside.  The old Ryobi had a clamp for locking the workpiece against the back fence:

This actually worked well not only when cutting a piece of wood or aluminum in two, but also when I needed to take off a slice of tube or rod.  I constructed a number of fixtures from square aluminum tubes with 3/8"-16 bolts to hold round objects firmly, while the clamps locked the square tubes against the back fence.

 

This makes it possible to lock down round workpieces quite strongly.  When cutting 1" sections of acetal, all I had to do was loosen the bolts with a wrench, advance the material, tighten down the bolts, and make another cut--all while keeping fingers well back from the blade.

Of course, as the round workpiece neared the end it became more difficult to cut short sections without the blade hitting the end of the holder.  So early on, in fact before the square holders, I started using these steel L-brackets with a 3/8"-16 bolt to hold the rods in place.  The back of the bracket would be clamped to the back fence.

The 3 is the diameter of rod this is for cutting.  Each cut, I loosen the clamp and move the workpiece further into the saw blade.  Of course this requires drilling and tapping a 3/8"-16 hole in the center of the rod.

The new Ryobi does not use the same workpiece clamps.

These clamp from the top and it is more a hint than a constraint.  For my purposes, useless.  Also the right side clamp blocks bringing down the blade at 30 degrees, one of my very necessary angles.  The good news is that unlike the old Ryobi, the new one's fence is flat on the back, so C-clamps can be used just fine.

These are not quite as elegant as the old Ryobi's clamps, but they work and they are general purpose tools.

Finally, you will notice the back fence on the right has a ruler, somethiong I had to add to the old Ryobi.

This is not quite as accurate as what I had created on the old Ryobi.  It tends to cut stuff about 1/16" too long, but I can compensate for that.