Update, Grendel

I touched up the serial numbers on my KTO lower for the Grendel. Acetone removed the adhesive holding the template on the receiver.


Then a short turn in the sandblaster, and a brief immersion in dilute sodium hydroxide to open up the aluminum's pores.

Then I rigged up an anodizing bath as described by tomh. Sulfuric acid was available at the auto parts store, and much cheaper than I expected. The voltage was provided by the pickup truck. Aluminum rod threaded into the pistol grip screw hole suspended the lower in the bath and away from the cathode. A piece of roll flashing served as cathode.



Now the part is being boiled in distilled water to close the pores up and finish hardening the anodized layer.

Tomorrow maybe the teflon-moly treatment, and then I can assemble the lower half of the Grendel on it. All the remaining parts are here and frankly they're kinda pissed I haven't put them all together yet.

next notebook killer, f'sher, improved

Still waiting for a notebook killer that merges a real computer with PDA. Ain't there yet but with the rise of sub-$200 netbooks, we're getting closer.

As some phones have gone touchscreen, other phones are adding unusable miniature QWERTY or pseudoQWERTY keyboards. I can't read the fine print on the keys.

I dislike them both, mostly because they both feature QWERTY keyboards, with or without the keys as moving parts. I can outrace either with Graffiti on a Palm, as long as I'm racing only myself.

So let's see, ummmmm, PalmOne roll out a computer-heavy smartphone with a screen that reads Graffiti. No flip-open with screen above and keyboard below: just screen.

Let Wacom help with the screen, stylus, and enhancements to the handwriting interface, say with ctrl, alt, right click, and other keys wrapped around the edges of the plate and accessible by the holding hand. The dominant hand is free to wield a stylus that supports click and delete functions like those of Wacom tablets. Keep fingerprints and cosmetics off the screen, please.

Rework a light but serious OS---a Linux flavor maybe---to accept Graffiti input from a stylus, and still sense a QWERTY keyboard if and when attached. Let OpenOffice or Sun port their office productivity suite aboard, with ducts for Graffiti input.

Package a phone module that can register on the majority of the cellular networks. Or ship multiple cellular flavors.

Forget the mic and speaker, just remote them to a Bluetooth headset, that's what everyone will be using anyway. I've resisted a smartphone this long in part because I need to read something off a PDA while talking on the phone.

Pack a webcam aboard, and Skype, and wifi, so you can work away from the cellular network when alternatives are available.

Home-Made Bandoleers (or Bandoliers, if you prefer...)

Sorry to be late getting this post up. I've been indescribably swamped at work since mid-December and it's only now easing up enough for me to do things like sleep and post.

Those who know Fûze fairly well know that he's the crowned king of DIY (Do It Yourself). I'm not sure there are many "sweat equity" production projects he's not willing to attempt: AK building, brewing, reloading, tanning, butchering, etc. He's not afraid of tools nor reckless experimentation. Fûze doesn't undertake these efforts to save money so much as to acquire the skills/knowledge they require. And if my fawning over his aptitude in this regard doesn't make it obvious, I'm horribly jealous. Being the perfectionist that I am, I'm less willing to tolerate failure and, thus, less likely to experiment. But I have my moments.

There has been some discussion of late on various rifleman websites concerning the dearth of mil-surp bandoleers, specifically those for 5-round 7.62 NATO stripper clips. I have a few of the Aussie bandoleers for this application and they are indeed nice. But I like my SKSs and AKs, too, and I wanted something to hold 10-round 7.62x39 stripper clips. Having solved this for myself a few years back, I thought I'd discuss my DIY solution with you folks -- our four dedicated readers.

I started out with a mess of these:



That's a Home Depot two-pocket nail pouch. They're heavy cotton and have two narrow tie straps at each end. The cost was a whopping 77¢ each. I ripped-out the middle (double) stitching -- which took no small amount of time -- and turned each one inside-out to hide the violently orange HD logo. Then I had three vertical stitches run, making four pockets. Like this:



Not wanting the end result to be white, I picked up some fabric dye in "earth tone" colors. In this case, green, brown, and black. The original project involved 36 pouches so I dyed 12 in each of the three colors. Using a stainless steel kitchen sink, I submersed each batch of 12 pouches in the (very hot!) water-and-dye mix and let them marinate for about a 1/2-hour, stirring occasionally. I then rinsed each batch several times and ran them thru the washer-n-dryer to remove what dye was remaining and to shrink them to their final size. (I washed each batch separately to prevent color bleeding.) I ended up with this:


The lighting made the colors a little weird; they're darker than what's in the pic. Trust me, they're green, brown, and black! (OK, maybe not black, but definitely charcoal...)

Each of the four pouch pockets will easily hold three 10-round 7.62x39 stripper clips, for a total of 120 rounds:



Doing the (simple) math, that's enough to fully recharge four 30-round AK mags or prep your SKS barrel for heat treating!

Just as an experiment, I took one of the pouches and applied some sew-on hook-n-loop (aka, Velcro) tabs to the top of each pocket. I thought this might offer some additional "retention security". It did, marginally, but I didn't think the ROI justified the effort and I didn't bother to "upgrade" any of the other pouches.

So, since this post was initially prompted by blogs addressing 7.62 NATO pouches, I wanted to see how mine worked with those 5-round stripper clips. The result was this:



I can get six charged stripper clips into each pocket. They seem to be retained well enough, but only a "march thru the boonies" experiment would tell. I can say that due to the depth of the pocket, the bottom three clips are kinda' tricky to retrieve. Not impossible, but I'd hate to be fussing with it while dodging incoming fire. (YMMV...) If someone wanted to apply these bandoleers specifically to 7.62 NATO stripper clips, they could simply cut each pouch in half horizontally and restitch the bottom.

And just to see what else we can stick in these pockets I tried these 30-round mags:



As far as I'm concerned, the AK mags are a "no-go". Too top heavy and they'd likely rattle. The AR mags would work in a pinch. They're not held very securely, though the pouches would probably work well with 20-round'ers. Then again, showing up at a firefight with 20-round AR mags is akin to showing up at a firefight with an AR. (Did I say that??...) The pockets will not hold M14, FAL, or HK-91 mags, though I suspect sewing the pouches for three pockets would do that nicely. Obviously, there's plenty of room in each pocket for M1 Garand en blocs, though they don't occupy the space optimally.

So, there's a weekend DIY project for ya'. Not a lot of moving parts and it can be done while catching your favorite "athletic entertainment programming" on the talkin' picture box.

Ciao!!

TCM

Schooling

Never did overlays before.

Tis the season

Apparently everybody got a Wii for Christmas this year except the homeless and those who got their Wiis last Christmas.

Not that there's anything wrong with that.

My daughter has beaten me out of putting a glottal stop between the i and the i. "Daa-aaaa--aad, it's not We-ee, it's just Wee."

So a number of Miis piped in from other peoples' Wiis is a Miiting? I'm putting a claim on that term, muthas.

best damn kim chi made by a Polack in Wyoming

ingredients:
1 large head of napa cabbage
1 nub of ginger root, about 3 tbsp when peeled and minced
garlic, about the same amount as ginger root
1/4 cup kosher salt
1 tbsp brown sugar
1/4 cup Sri Racha sauce
1/4 cup fish sauce

Rinse and quarter the cabbage. Discard yellowish or gnarly outer leaves. Cut out the stalk. Slice through each quarter to leave the cabbage in strips about 2cm wide.

Place the cabbage in a large container, scatter with the kosher salt and mix it well. Cover with sterile water.

Place a clean gallon Ziploc freezer bag in the container, atop the cabbage. Fill the bag with tap water so its weight rests on the cabbage, pressing it under the brine. Cover and let rest in cold, dark place overnight.

Tomorrow, remove the bag weighing the cabbage down and set it aside on a clean surface. The bag should have squashed the cabbage to less than half its original volume and there will be much more liquid resting on top of it.

Drain the cabbage in a strainer and catch all the brine. Put the cabbage back in the container. Mince the garlic and ginger root. Mix with the brown sugar. Add a dash of chili powder or hot pepper flakes. Add these to the cabbage. Add the Sri Racha sauce and fish sauce. Toss the cabbage around to mix (use a gloved hand or tongs).

Put the heavy bag back atop the cabbage. Add just enough of the brine back in to cover the cabbage again. Pitch the rest.

Cover and put in cold, dark place. It's ready to eat in another 24 hours or so. Keep it cold but not freezing until it's gone.

With all the trimmings

Blogroller James Rummel points to very old advertisements for the Thanksgiving dinner of pre-NFA Lugers. James admits to a fascination for a pistol with all of the trimmings---optics, stock, muzzle devices, extended barrels and such.

This reminds me of one of only two great unrequited loves and unfulfilled material yearnings of my life.

Reprint permission for the photo comes courtesy of www.automagpistol.com


The AutoMag. A rotating-bolt pistol, all stainless, with shoulder stock if you wanted it, and changes of top-end for your taste of barrel length, compensator, and optics.

It fired cartridges based on the 7.62 NATO case cut short, straightwalled, and turned inside to take a .44 bullet. Or necked down to .41 (ideal Thumper cartridge) or .357.