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Posted on 09/25/2008 6:43:34 AM PDT by HairOfTheDog
Welcome to The Hobbit Hole!
Sing hey! for the bath at close of day
That washes the weary mud away!
A loon is he that will not sing:
O! Water Hot is anoble thing!
O! Sweet is the sound of falling rain.
and the brook that leaps from hill to plain;
but better than rain or rippling streams
is Water Hot that smokes and steams.
O! Water cold we may pour at need
down a thirsty throat and be glad indeed;
but better is Beer, if drink we lack,
and Water Hot poured down the back.
O! Water is fair that leaps on high
in a fountain white beneath the sky;
but never did fountain sound so sweet
as splashing Hot Water with my feet!
The Thin Red Line was successful because when it came time to close with and kill with cold steel, they didn’t just talk about it, they did it. It was common knowledge amongst the European armies that most of the time, when units closed, one side would break before bayonets crossed... not so with the Brits...
A standard tactic of the Redcoats was to let the enemy advance to about 20 paces (or less) cut loose a devastating volley, then advance thru the smoke to cut to ribbons the reeling survivors...
Americans have the same reputation as Brits... we like cold steel...
I got another one...
Here's Luke at church:
LOL! Took me a second.
Dint know you wuz a snake-handler.
My mom goes to a church of mostly older folk— put it this way, she could join the youth group—
—I asked her if they were all speaking in gums—
In a follow-up to last week's installment, I actually found some of the items I mentioned earlier. First, the Colt Python that goes along with the Officer's Model in my father's "Double Diamond" set:
I put the original grips back on both. I'm not sure what the wood is, since I do not have immediate access to all the packaging and extra materials, but it looks almost like teak. It's certainly not walnut. The Python grips have the serial number written inside, indicating that they were hand-fitted.
I also found the extra-cost matched set of belt buckles, obtained only if you mailed in the order card. The blank area on the bottom actually has the serial numbers of the guns engraved there, but they were obscured for photographic purposes. I wonder how many ordered them?
Finally, I had a pleasant surprise when I found the fancy walnut grips my father made for his Diamondback. It had been so long, I forgot all about them. He machined them (set them up in his milling machine, and worked on them as if they were steel), and I did the checkering and final finish.
As I remember now, he said they were so pretty, he was afraid to use them. But the factory grips were such a "blah" grade of walnut that I wouldn't use them on a Saturday Night Special. So he bought some "packies", and put these away for safekeeping. Well, they've been safe for almost 40 years, so now they're reunited with the revolver again.
Man, those are gorgeous. Looooove the wood grips—all of ‘em.
I'm thinking I'll let 'em have colored lenses. These date back to the 1870s: 
These are so funky! Love those side panels, and the color of the lenses!
Good heavens, man... That’s some seriously pretty stuff.
I had a post all done earlier that at the last minute I fumblefingered on my bberry and lost it.
The long and short of it was that for Rose’s purpose there was an important angle to your earlier post about shotguns. Yes they give a nice lateral spread of shot... But at least as important as that is that they give a *linear* spread of shot as well.
That is... They provide that “cloud” of shot, but it is a four-dimensional problem. Not just three. Time is the neglected dimension.
Perhaps a way to say it is that the “tubular cloud” that a target bird must fly into is the way those things work.
Anyway... My .02
And, like Rosie, I'm amazed at the quality of the wood! I want to reach out and touch the grips ... and there's something about the Diamondback that just makes you want to pick it up. The combination of the bluing and the texturizing of the grips is way cool.
Neat pron, WinMag!
*snort*
LOL! You so BAD!
“In other news, I have an S-shaped septum.”
That’s funny, I have an R-shaped rectum.
TMI
LOL
Those *are* groovy. :-)
I’m no opthomologist but I’d guess that green lenses would be good on snow, maybe water.
They do have a Sixties feel. In fact, when I was hunting up the spectacle information, one of the pix was of John Lennon --- apparently he wore antique frames.
Speaking of antique frames, I'm pinging 2J to this message ... she likes the old frames, as I recall ...
I'm gonna put these on the hunter who has cataracts ...
There are ways of producing something that works like checkering on a mass-produced basis, but the real stuff takes quality wood, a good eye, and infinite patience. Hand-cut checkering ranges from about 12 lines-per-inch to over 32. The wood should be hard as iron so you actually can cut the diamonds, and not just mush up the wood fibers. With softer wood, handling over the years can flatten out the diamonds, too.
If you're looking for more decorative effect, you can add carved borders, inlays of contrasting wood, or maybe your initials inlaid in a silver grip cap. Guns for royalty often had every square inch carved with allegorical or hunting scenes. But the trend for the last couple hundred years is to let the wood itself do most of the "talking".
Even among the same species of wood, trees that grow slowly in dry, rocky ground will be much denser and harder than the same tree growing in a lush river bottom. They will also have wilder and more contrasty grain patterns. Black walnut used to be common in barns and fence posts, because the tannic acid in it makes it more bug-proof. That was the common "soft" walnut.
But wood from ancient trees grown in harsh conditions was always prized for its hardness and spectacular figure. But it's always been a long-term project. You need a tree that's a couple hundred years old so you get enough heartwood, then you slab it and let it stabilize for 10-20 years before looking at what you can make out of it.
America had almost infinite forests compared to Europe, so Germany was using laminated beech for its military rifles while the US could still find plenty of walnut to use. Plainer hardwoods, laminated wood, and plastics can make good, and for some uses, superior stocks. But they don't have the fire and "soul" of something that was perhaps 300 years in the making.
Pictures just don't do fancy wood justice. You have to see them in real life. Even with handgun grips, which my dad made from $20 blocks of wood that were left over from making stock blanks, I've had my breath taken away when I apply the first coat of finish, and "wet down" the grips for the first time, bringing everything into view. I know they will be beautiful, because the original slabbed wood was beautiful. I just never know how much more beautiful the final product will be until then.
I consider it one of God's minor miracles than He can hide such spectacular beauty inside what looks like a scroungy old tree trunk. Diamonds start out looking like rock salt. Craftsmanship can bring out amazing beauty in both. It just takes a good eye, experience, and the patience to put effort into the process, with faith that the end result will more than pay for what you put in.
Good night, Hobbit Hole!
Good morning, Hobbit Hole.
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