Weekend!
I have been told that there are a number of things where you should never skimp on the price, if you can at all afford it.
You can’t pay too much for the best possible pair of shoes, I’ve been told.
I’ve been told a similar thing when it comes to mattresses. Buy the best one you can possibly afford, I heard. You’re going to have it for 10 years. Spend the money.
Recently I discovered another item where it just might be worth it to spend the extra bucks. Maybe for a birthday. Maybe for the Holiday Season. Maybe even for an anniversary.
It’s a showerhead. Specifically, this one.
We recently purchased this showerhead and, lemme tell ya, it is SOOOOOOOOOOOOOO much better than the one that came with your house, unless your house happened to come with this showerhead.
It’s got, lemme count, TWELVE different settings on it ranging from “just washing up, trying to get out of here” to “HOLY COW I NEED TO BUY A STEREO SYSTEM FOR MY BATHROOM”. Different settings for washing one’s beard, different settings for going, you know, all over. Different settings for rinsing off after lathering up. It’s got the handheld thing if you want to pretend to be Elvis, it’s got strong magnets for when you’ve decided to wash your ducktail out of your bangs.
The showerhead that came with your house, I’m sure, is perfectly fine for your needs… but, if you sometimes think about ways to improve the next 5000 showers you’re going to be taking?
Seriously. You need to invest in this showerhead.
You can even hide behind making it a birthday or Holiday or anniversary gift.
So… what are you doing this weekend?
It’s also awesome not to have to clean the old one for the first time after more than a decade…
(But Jay’s right, it’s glorious.)Report
Found some honey at a good price, so I bought 5lbs.
I think I have 6 left from last year.
About ready to start another batch of mead.
That will be later.
This weekend, I have planned a year-long nap that I’m going to scrunch all into one day.
Then I’m going to throw some espresso into the coffee grounds.
After that is anybody’s guess.Report
will,
out here we distill the honey. Makes a great product — still stuck in legal limbo.
Wiggle Whiskey’s Landlocked if you wanna google it.Report
For me it’s the bathtub that makes the difference. At our new house the tub has really steep sides all around, so there’s no lower back support. What’s with that? A bigger project than replacing the shower head though…
@will-h a friend of mine keeps bees, and sells for a very good price the honey that is not quite farmer’s market worthy / low enough moisture to pass inspection. I should probably hit her up, it’s getting time to make mead here too.
This weekend there’s a kid birthday party, and maybe we can go to a matinee of Yazmina Reza’s Art depending on how overwhelmed with work Fledermaus feels, and there’s a house party, and a garden to dig in, and having bought the requisite parts I could get started building my bike over to front disc brakes. But looking at all that list, probably I won’t.Report
Yeah, it took me less than 10 minutes to change out the showerhead and a third of that was trying to disentangle the dang thing from its packaging.
(I admit to rarely taking baths.)Report
A rare couple of free days for me. Going antiquing (I go visit family next week so I don’t even need to do any grocery shopping, really) and taking tomorrow totally off.
My showerhead is 15 years old and I probably need to replace it but I’m cheap that way and I also keep taking times where I take it off, soak it in vinegar for a day (we have very, very hard water here) and then it’s good again. So like I said, I’m cheap, and I could spend showerhead money on books instead….Report
Two weekends ago, I mined the backstop for lead. Pulled about four pounds. Last weekend I casted 150 rounds from a portion. Shot that and mined again. Tuesday, casted another 150 rounds.
The barrel of the 1851 design revolver had a strange down turn in the rifling at the muzzle. Groupings just wouldn’t tighten up. The thing would literally not shoot where you were aiming it. Not sure whether it was a factory defect or adjustment. A little metal filing, a rod hone and some lapping compound had it trued up. I’ve read where many smiths say not to take metal away from or attempt to adjust the bore at the muzzle, but this was one of those times it was clearly needed.
Shooting a old styled revolver is different than the semi-automatics. Typically the semi-autos have a built in recess that fits between your thumb and index finger. Most slingshots have the same recess, so I became used to using it. The revolver doesn’t have it. The hammer is where it typically would be, and for proper operation of the hammer it becomes important to keep that area clear.
That might not sound like a big deal, but the mechanics of recoil and accuracy in a pistol are largely dependent on the grip. So not only did I have that issue with the rifling, but learning to change the grip was a big hurdle.
Somewhere in there of adjusting the grip I noticed my wrist didn’t feel like it was in a natural position. I continued to adjust in every way I could think of, but it just didn’t feel comfortable. Adding my secondary hand tended to make the problem worse. So I went inside, poured a cold cup of iced tea and started in studying the problem.
To hold the pistol vertical I had to cant my wrist clockwise. In doing so, the wrist muscles are stretched and the recoil forces travel through the cant wrist then is distributed off center to the bones of my forearm. Mechanically it is a awful arrangement, biologically, uncomfortable.
So I started just lining everything up where it would be mechanically much better and where the recoil loads would travel in a logical manner. In the final arrangement the pistol was canted about 35 degrees. (Not full on gangster, but about halfway there).
The very next grouping tightened up considerably, nearly reduced in half. No more flyers. The grip was completely comfortable and could be maintained for several minutes without the wrist fatigue of being canted.
After the groups tightened up I started increasing the range. This typically shows problems in trigger pull. The groups opened up a little, but eventually they closed with minor attention. I tested it on a semi-auto pistol, and was continuing to see similar improved results.
I had thought for awhile about why canting at that angle was comfortable. It finally occured to me that I drive mostly at ten and two on the steering wheel. After decades of driving at two, it turns out that I shoot a pistol best at two. Ha.
Prolly water a few trees and tomatoes this weekend. Install a pressure tank to add a little extra capacity to the water system.Report
Interesting, I’d never thought about the body mechanics of holding a revolver.
When you cast bullets, do you affix them to modern style cartridges, or is this black powder style shooting with the propellant loaded separately?Report
It’s black powder style, so far have just used components applied seperately. Paper cartridges can be used.
I recently purchased some tobacco papers last week to reproducing some cartridges of the era. Here is a general process that shows somewhat how to make them:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-2HUcfAyaaQReport
What are you using to prevent chain fire? I haven’t shot BP in 30 odd years, but on the revolvers we used Vaseline. I’m sure Track has something more… old timey, but cuious to what you are using. I have a little .31 Remington replica my dad and I built back in the ‘8o’s, but haven’t really played with it.Report
The bullets are a few thousandths over size, what I usually look for is a even lead ring shaved off the bullet. If it conical I just look for a even press into the chamber.
Most of the reproductions have been made be modern machine tools so the chambers in the cylinder have pretty tight tolerances, and are rarely out of round.
If there is something that indicates a non seal around the bullet, I load a bullet in every cylinder without the powder and take off the nipples. Shining light where the nipples fit I look at the front of the cylinder and look for light shining past where the bullet should seal. Use a wood dowel to press out the bullets when done.
Every once in a while someone will run across a out of round cylinder, and this is how we find them. Also some old timers ream the chambers out because they lose strength in their hands enough to load one. I have one of those, checked it, but he left enough metal it still seals correctly, but doesnt shave the ring.
I tryed the vaseline not for sealing the chamber, but because the 1851s tend to have a tight fit between the face of the cylinder and the back of the barrel. The carbon residue makes that interface abrasive so I polish the interface and add a little vaseline on the front face of the cylinder. If I were going to carry all day I have a general purpose automotive grease I would seal the chambers with and leave a light coat on the polished cylinder face.
Chain fires are more often created from the cap end. I spend a few seconds extra when installing them to make sure they seal. I place them as centered as possible over the nipple, then use a small wooden dowel to push the primers on in one firm press. That insures the somewhat soft primer material in the cap seals the nipple. Try not to use old caps and if you do make sure the primer material is soft enough to press the seal without crumbling.
I have seen flexible tube cap seals that both prevent moisture and gas fire from entering the cap nipple interface. None for a .36 so will probably make a set from rubber tubing.
That said, I haven’t had a single chain fire in over a thousand cycles through the .36, thats without using felt wads or cap seals. The .44s I have the wads for and use them, it’s a lot more energy involved if things went pear shaped.Report
Some birthday party for a friend of the GF. Then going to see a friends play she produced.
And fallout 4….and jujitsu.Report
Movie night with Junior as we speak. BFG, not bad. Farmer’s market and a big family dinner for Mother’s Day on Sunday. Maybe tomorrow I will sleep in, shower, and then put clean pajamas back on and climb back in to bed. That’s so rare and such a beautiful thing in my home. Surrobabe is 29 of 40 weeks this weekend and growing like a weed. I hired an amazing doula for the big day. My OB suggested I stop riding my bicycle because he’s worried I’ll fall off. Poppycock!Report
I’m going through some guidebooks to plan my vacation to Europe.Report
Dude. Just go to Paris and spent a week in the Louvre. Or two weeks. You could spend two weeks there.Report
Working on my new business, learning and what not. Just did my first mailer to customers today, made more exciting by my eye not quite doing the normal thing. (I look like Marty Feldman now.) Oh, and learning to drive with an eye patch!Report
This week saw the completion and public release of a project I’ve been working on for 3 years, so it’s been a big week for me. I don’t have much on this weekend, but I’m taking the next two weeks off work.Report