Neanderpundit

Met my friend Werner at the Indy 1500, Wandered around and got some odds and ends. I shot the Africa match at the club yesterday and lost 28 seconds due to two non-firing factory carts. I measured, the firing pin strike is just as deep as carts that touched off, so I’ma have a little discussion with Hornady.

meanwhile I’m going to start rolling my own for the 45-70, for purposes of shooting more and knowing my ammo better. So I bought a set of Lee dies ($30!!!!) and a double cavity lee mold, from the lady selling them at the show.

I have watched this crap on Ebay, and frankly, the Lee stuff is cheaper spanking new from her than it is used on ebay!

Anyway, I am about set now, and lord knows I have plenty 45-70 brass. I need to get the press &etc. up the stairs into the temp controlled area of the house. Gonna be loading some 500 nitro for the same reason, makes it easier to shoot better when you don’t have to spend $10 a round.

Werner and I went to the Saigon Restaurant out on the west side of 38, and let me highly recommend this place if you like vietnamese food. I had the Bo Luc Lac which was unspeakably toothsome, in flavor and in texture, and in the sheer quantity of meat that they put on the plate for $10.

Werner had the beef salad which was close enough to the Thai variety that he decided on the spot he’d be back there. I probably will too.

Then on to the blogmeet where we had kind of expected Exeter and his Technicolor Cheese Wedge (Thanks Kerry!) but alas, no show. I was sort of looking forward to hearing this.

Anyway, turns out I was the teenage werewolf because shortly after I arrived everyone left. But then I had come late as it was; it was certainly great to see everyone and I hope to be able to spend more time next time.
I got copies of Concealed Carry from Mad St Jack, who was nice enough to give me his copies since Tam was out.
We really should have a blogmeet at the Nappanee gunshow, that would be a hoot, and bacon. Anyway, Brigid has as usual a much more complete writeup. I need to go mow the lawn.

Update: Lawn mowed, 11 new orifices in my hide filled with yellowjacket venom (There were other, smaller ones, but the big ones count 11, including one on my temple that is giving me a real throbber of a headache right now) Pain in my ass. And several other places.

This is where the complexity of the geometry starts to bite

If you aren’t cutting a square, which almost nobody does, then you have to make sure the part you’re cutting is capable of being cut. This shape, no matter how simple, cannot be cut.

You cannot cut a sharp inside corner using a round tool, The only thing you can cut is a round inside corner, and cut the sharp corner, if it is necessary, in a separate operation.

Look at the slide opening in my PPX.

There are NO sharp inside corners. Even the breechface has rounded corners, the barrel has simply been designed to mate with that. This means that no consecutive operations are required to make it square. That means when you put this chunk of metal into a machine, it comes out complete, and is ready for finishing and assembly. The 1911 slide, by comparison, needs about 30 operations after it is initially machined.

More manufacturing yapping.

Locus of points is a way of showing geometric data, among other things. For instance:

What is the locus of points of all the points 5 inches from 0,0? That would be a circle, 10″ in diameter. What is the locus of points of the center of a 4″ dia circle travelling around a 10″ square, remaining in contact with the square at all times?

Here’s an illustration. Click to embiggenate.

You can see the original black square. On the right, the blue represents the circle, the green is the locus of points of that center. On the left in pink you can see how the circle drags that center along as it moves, and the orange shows how it brings the center with it as it rolls around the corner.

all machining depends on understanding this. A lot of people never get it, but to many it is intuitive. Most cutting tools are circular, and knowing what they have to cut (In this place, the black square) and what their radius is, it is a simple matter to program a path (The green line) that is the path that must be taken to machine the part that size and shape.

it gets a lot more complex than this, but you have to understand this first. This- and the sort of relative processes that take place in robots, are what my very smart cousin call “N Dimension Geometers” The explanation he gave went mostly in every direction but my skull but I gather that it means the size and shape of things in relation to their location and how they are represented in 1, 2, 3, 4,… n dimensions. I just know there are simple rules to follow and so long as you do, you can bend all this equipment to your will. If you don’t get it, be a barber. There’s no shame in not understanding this, it’s not easy.