Neanderpundit

Crown Point gunshow back in town, and though its usually more fudge and jerky than most, this time there were some actual firearms being sold.

One Finnish Nagant. A little high, but to shoot the rifle that was carried by the White Death? Mighta been worth it. A couple of nice old Parker shotguns. The highest number of sporterized Arisakas I’ve ever seen in one spot. A couple of them done very nicely.

I was a bit disapointed to not see the Strike Hold folks. I kinda can’t blame them, they’re putting forth all that effort and the return has to be horrid. Good news is, I can get MY strike-hold from them anytime!!

I’ve just about decided on the Bersa Thunder, though I have to shoot one first. Once I do, I’m gonna scrape up the scratch to buy two identical ones, and use them for competiton, carry. It doesn’t seem like it makes a bunch of sense to compete with a gun you don’t carry every day, or to carry a gun you’re not very good at using. Anyway, they didn’t have any at the show. My usual thing is to go for bigbore stuff, and of this there was little, other than a homemade cape rifle, which used to be a lot more common than they are now. (A 45-70 barrel welded into the right barrel of a double barrel shotgun. Done right, they’re not bad guns, but this one started out bad)

Saw one nice Hakim. If I could put my hands on one in decent shape in 30-06, I might consider it.

Went looking for an M4 bayonet, and determined that I want the plastic handled one.The “new” repro leather handled ones suck. Pitiably, they were all a bit spendy. Maybe next time.

When I type a post, and press ‘publish” that means, you know, I want to publish it. Not that I want you to lose all my valuable keystrokes, you nimrods.

Anyway, as I ewas saying, before WordPress threw out my keystrokes, why is it that I can toss and turn all night long, but sleep like a baby when the alarm goes off?

Woke up this Ayem to realize the Sploder tags expired today. Well, not so much today as two years ago, I’ve renewed but left the new plates over the sun visor. hell, they haven’t changed in 18 years.

had to get the sploder through emissions, and was pleased to note that it still, at nigh on to 370,000 miles, passes emissions with flying colors.

Last fall, I treated the tiller with some Sta-Bil, but by spring, most of it had evaporated. There was a fair amount of varnish in the carb, and it’s taken some doing to get it all clear again.

I have tilled three, maybe four times this season, I want to have the ground like flour when I plant. it’s pretty good now, I’ve been tilling in organics and grass clippings and compost for about ten years.

The tiller, which I got from Calvinis a Troy Bilt. it’s old enough it has like a four digit serial number. And today it wouldn’t start, for the first time in my life, and probably it’s life.

So I pull off the filter, and it’s flooded through and through. I’m amazed it turns over. I pull the float bowl.

The idle passage had been varnished up, but I had cleared that. The main passage had varnished up, but I had cleared that as well. There were plenty of places filled with varnish, and I cleaned them all.

You’d think, wouldn’t you, that fuel that had deposited varnish in so many places and clogged up so many things, would clog a pinhole in a float. But you’d be wrong. The varnish managed to completely clog a 1/16″ hole, and yet leave a hole open (and fill the float with fuel!) through a hole I could only see through the 20 power lens of my desk microscope.

So I did what all 8 year olds do, I put the damned float in the Weber grill, turned the grill on medium, and baked the gas out of the tiny, tiny hole.

Of course I lit it.

And then I put a drop of solder over the hole, and reassembled the tiller, and ran one more trip through the garden. We’ll see how it does long term.