Video: Forgotten Weapons: British Submachine Gun Overview: Lanchester, Sten, Sterling, and More!

I have lately become very interested in sub machine gun class weapons, or SMGs.  I’ve built a number of 9mm ARs over the years and while they are interesting and fun to shoot, there’s not much history to dig into.  So, I have been researching British Stens for a while now and the history that led up to them and the thinking behind “good enough” to get the job done vs. perfection is fascinating.  It’s really intriguing when you see what folks can create when expediency is the name of the game.

To launch the series, I am posting this awesome video from Ian over at Forgotten Weapons.  He always does an excellent job researching what he is going to cover and then walking the viewer through what he is presenting.  In this video he provides an overview about the British Lanchester, Sten and Sterling.


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20 tips for getting better results with epoxy

I use a ton of epoxy as part of my work plus fixing all kinds of stuff at home, on cars, guns, knives and more.  I’d like to take a few minutes share some lessons learned with you to bear in mind on your next project that involves epoxy:

  1. Buy quality epoxy – not cheap junk.  Epoxy is a generic term and a lot of the no-name blister pack retail stuff is crap.  Go for brand names.  If they list real specs about the formulation then it is probably legit.
  2. I recommend industrial epoxies and not the consumer stuff.  My hands down favorite epoxy is Brownell’s Acra Glas liquid.  It is strong and resists breaking down from repeated impacts very well.  It’s one down side is that it takes a long time to set up so it may not be your best bet if you need something to be fixed and back in service quickly.
  3. Know your application and match the formula to your need – there is no magical formula that does everything.  You may need a putty, a fast cure, a short pot life, higher heat resistance, improved impact resistance, shear strength, etc.  Figure out what you need and then look for the epoxy that will work best for you.  At any given time I probably have 3-4 different formulations on hand.
  4. The longer it takes an epoxy to cure the stronger it is.  All things being equal, an epoxy that cures in 24 hours will be stronger than one that claims to do so in 5, 10 or 30 minutes.
  5. Read the package – setting up vs. curing and reaching full strength are two very different things.
  6. If you want to get epoxy to flow into wood or difficult areas, heat it up.  The liquid thins as it warms up but note this will also speed up how fast it sets up and cures.
  7. As epoxy gets colder, it takes longer and longer to cure.  If you are working outside, use a space heater, flood light or other heat source to keep the epoxy and the work piece area being repaired at least 70F.  I shoot for 80-90F.
  8. Epoxy can get really thick as it gets cold and not want to come out of the containers.  Either keep it inside where it is warm or at least warm it up before you use it,
  9. Epoxy resin can sugar with age just like honey.  What I mean is that will develop a solid mass in the resin bottle – it’s not really sugar!  If you heat up a container of water, take the resin container’s lid off and then set it the container in the water, the resin will warm up and the solid will dissolve back into liquid.  I buy 28oz or larger bottles of Acra-Glas that I don’t always use right away so when it sugars, I do this.
  10. As mentioned above, I buy my epoxy in bulk.  Acra-Glas can be measured by volume and it has a ratio of 1 hardener to 4 resin.  The way I deal with this is very simple – I use 10cc syringes without needles.  I have on syringe in a cup that I use for hardener and one syringe stored in a cup that I use for hardener.  The reason I do this is that the two parts do not react to the air very fast.  I may be able to use one syringe for a several weeks/months before it stops working so I set the syringe in its dedicated cup when done to be used again.  I do not use fresh syringes every time.  A 100 count syringe pack will last me at least a year.
  11. You can definitely color epoxy.  You can buy purpose-made dyes such as So-Strong or add in powdered tempra paint.
  12. You can add fillers for strength or looks.  When filling gaps, I mix 1/32″ milled glass fibers with the epoxy.  The ratio depends on the epoxy you are using, how thick/pasty you want the result to be or how much you want it to still flow into place.
  13. To get rid of bubbles you either need to draw a vacuum, apply pressure or at least use a heat gun to thin the epoxy once it is applied and this allows the trapped air to escape.
  14. When I am gluing big objects together, such as wood panels, forms, or other construction I will use a cartridge based epoxy.  My favorite is Hysol E-20HP.  To use a cartridge, you need the dispensing gun and also the correct mixing tip.  This allows you to squeeze the trigger and properly mixed epoxy comes out of the tip.  When you are done, you just let the tip harden in place sealing the epoxy.  When you are ready to use the gun again, you simply remove the plugged tip with a new one.  This allows for you to deploy a bead of epoxy very quickly but the con is that you throw away a tip every time you stop.  You also can’t color the epoxy first but it is fast and convenient on larger projects.
  15. The surface must be clean for epoxy to work best.  Remove dust, dirt, oil, etc.
  16. A rough surface is always better than a smooth surface.  I always recommend sanding, brushing or blasting a surface to improve adhesion.  Not only do you increase the surface area but you also are creating a texture where the epoxy can get under the base material in thousands of tiny places to really grab hold.
  17. Wear disposable gloves to avoid making a mess.  I buy boxes of the Harbor Freight 5 mil nitrile gloves when they go on sale for $5.99/box of 100.  They really are a good value for a medium-light duty disposable glove.
  18. If you need to clamp parts together, wrap the assemble with wax paper to avoid gluing your clamps to the work piece – yeah, I’ve done that.
  19. Whenever possible, I prefer to clamp work together to get this best bond.
  20. Check, double-check and come back in again later and check your work again to make sure nothing has shifted.

I hope these tips help you with your next project.


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A quick and easy way to snug up a loose flip-up lens cap so it stays on

I like flip-up scope caps and, in general, I have had very good luck with Butler Creek.  Recently, I bought a scope cap for my Hawke air rifle scope’s front objective and the thing wasn’t tight enough to stay on when I would flip it up.  There’s a very simple way to fix a loose cap that I want to share.

This isn’t a magical fix – you do want a cap to be real close to the size you need.  In my case the cap was just a hair too big.  For the “fix”, remove the objective and smear a bit of black silicone RTV glue or Black Goop works too) around the inside of the cap and let the glue fully cure with the cap off the scope.  DO NOT STICK IT ON THE SCOPE WHILE WET!  You are using the glue to add mass and fill the space – you do not want to glue your scope on.  I let my dry overnight and the problem is always fixed.

Here is the lens cap and I used black Goop on this one and let it dry & cure all the way before I reinstalled it.  It’s nice and snug now.

Here’s the finished product on my Galadius:

I hope this helps you out.  I prefer black just for looks but you could use any color of rubbery cement you have – just keep it inside the cap out of sight.  What I use more than anything is Permatex Black RTV just because I keep in stock for repairs.


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Boy does this make splitting kindling easy

I grew up helping my dad cut trees, stack firewood, and splitting kindling.  Of the three, kindling always took the most time – trying to get the wood to balance and then hitting it with the axe.  When I got older and had a splitter, I would use the splitter to crack up a load of kindling while I was at it as well.  That worked great if I had the splitter running but if I needed something right away, out came the axe and the balancing act.

I was reading through some stuff over the summer and heard about something called a Kindling Cracker from Australia.  It looked gimicky so I read up on it and the thing actually works — it gets great reviews actually.  Basically you set the piece of wood to split on this cracker that has the blade facing up side the unit and hit the wood with a small sledge, foundry hammer, etc.  What I especially like is that you can get the kindling down to very small sizes – I could never do that with an axe or hatchet — at least not easily.

It works great!  You could screw it into something if you wanted but I cart it around to where I want to crack the kindling at plus it doesn’t get left out in the winter.  I think this thing is great and have bee building up a pile of kindling for the winter and also my BBQ.

  

The ring diameter does limit the size of log you start with but its easy enough for me to find wood that will fit – I have several cords to choose from at any given time.  I did learn quickly on to pick small enough pieces of wood so they would not jam during splitting but that was another easy lesson learned.

Because it is steel, it holds the logs quite nicely and I find I can get nice thin kindling because you can set the wood right on the blade to start however you want.  The above is my actual chopping block.  I keep the Kindling Cracker in my garage where it is nice and dry and take it over there when I want to split wood.  It’s very convenient, safe and effective – I’m very happy with it.


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Did you know most consumer vehicle undercoatings are rip offs?

We recently bought a new van and I wanted to undercoat it so it would last — being old school that was the first thing I thought of anyways.  The next was to do some searching around with Google about undercoatings so I could get the best product to use.  You know what I found out?  When most cars and trucks are made, the manufacturers do a ton of stuff now to prevent corrosion straight from the factory – so much so that you may find it hard pressed to find a shop that even does undercoating/rust proofing any more.  The car companies have improved their alloys, finishes and even learned not to leave exposed lips for mud to settle in to and sit – think about how the old wheel wells had the reinforcing lip all the way around that dirt/mud could sit in and hold salty water or even just water against the metal – of course it would rust.  So now you look in to wheel wells and through one method or another that flange is either not there or protected.

So I want to share some things I learned.  First, rubberized spray on undercoatings often caused more problems than they solved.  Now, you may be wondering why – I know I did.  You see, it is a spay on finish the adheres to whatever surface it can stick to – paint, rubber, metal, dirt, etc.  Over time, that undercoating develops small holes from stuff hitting it and then a pocket starts to form, salty water enters in and is held against the very steel it is trying to protect!  So to make a long story short, after reading tons of posts about the various spray on rubber undercoatings one must conclude they are not worth investing in any longer.

Second, rust proofing sounds great but there really is no such thing.  You are delaying the inevitable if we are talking about steel and salt water – eventually something is going to rust.

Okay, enough doom and gloonm, let’s say you live in a state, like Michigan, where they salt the heck out of the roads in the winter.  What do you do to protect new cars even more than what the factory did *or* you want to try and save older vehicles even if they have started to rust?  The answer, interestingly enough, was developed long ago – Fluid Film.  Eureka Chemical Company, yes that really is their name – started in the 1940s when they developed a product with an unlikely source to help the Navy prevent corrosion – the not-so-secret ingredient is lanolin from sheep. If you want to read the whole story, click here.

Let me cut to the chase – the reason this stuff works is that it oozes and seals itself if nicked.  DoD, NASA, Coast Guard, Delta and others are still using this stuff!  After doing a lot of reading, I bought a five gallon pail off Amazon, an applicator gun and a pail pump dispenser.  They sell an aerosol can version but I really don’t have much experience with it but am a bit leery of it because the liquid is so thin that comes out compared to what I can spray with the applicator gun.

This is my second year using it on our vehicles and it almost makes it a few months before you can tell it has dried out / faded.  In other words, it doesn’t quite make it the whole winter. I get rid of looser dirt by spraying it down, let it try and go to town spraying this stuff on everything – even the exhaust as it will just bake off after the first time it gets good and hot.

Honestly, I think the FuildFilm helps – our newest car after our van is a 2002 Camry and I spray the heck out of it and our other older cars (the oldest is a 1992 Corolla) and my old 1996 Land Cruiser.  I go through about a quart per car/truck liberally applying it real thick all over the under carriage.  I also spray door hinges, locks and hood latch.  The stuff smells funny for the first day or so but seems to really do the trick.  I just finished putting it on our vehicles for the second year.  I’m about half way through the five gallon pail so if you want to test it out some, you could start with a gallon pail – that would do 4-6 cars or trucks depending on how thick you apply it.

So, thought I would pass along what I learned – don’t bother with rubberized undercoatings and definitely check out FluidFilm.

Note, my local Autozone also sells the below aerosol cans.  I really do not know how long it will protect what you spray it on.  It is way, way thinner than the stuff that comes in the pails.


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My Welding Helmet is an Antra AH6-260-0000 Solar Power Auto Darkening Welding Helmet

A few guys who read my blog post about assembling my SWAG press brake asked about my helmet.  It’s an Antra AH6-260-0000 Solar Power Auto Darkening Welding Helmet that I bought in October 2014 according to my records.  My old helmet died and would no longer automatically switch on and off so I did some digging.  These days I pay a lot of attention to reviews on Amazon and this helmet got great reviews.

At this time, October 3, 2017, the helmet has an amazing 761 reviews with a score of 4.5 out of 5 stars.  That score speaks volumes right there.  I’m very happy with mine and have never had a problem – I use it with my Millermatic 211 MIG.  It’s sensitive enough and switches very fast – I don’t see any flash at all plus it turns off fast which is a plus when I am doing lots of small quick welds on sheet metal.

The viewing port is good sized at 3.86 x 1.73″ and the shade can vary from 4/5-9 and 9-13.  On the low end it could work with plasma if you really wanted it to and the upper end of the scale makes it suitable for TIG and MIG welding certainly.

I’d also tell you that it is very comfortable.  It’s fairly light and the headgear does its job plus has a generous sized sweat band.

Now there are two real important things for me with a helmet and this has both – it must have a solar cell and battery backup plus the lens must change fast.  The reaction time is a very important safety matter that a lot of guys do not realize.  If a helmet changes slowly then damage to the eye due to arc flash accumulates.  The Antra is rated to change in 1/25,000th of a second.  That is pretty darned fast and like I said, I have never seen a flash.  I trigger my MIG, the arc starts and bang – the lens is dark.

My last comment is that you can get spare parts for it too.  A lot of helmets do not have anything and you are more or less buying a disposable unit at that point. 

So, if you are looking for a welding helmet, I sure recommend this one after using it for three years with my MIG.

By the way, to protect it, I bought a Raider BCS-88 helmet bag as my shop is dusty.  I still store it in my welding cabinet but it stays a lot cleaner now.

 


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Installed a 20 Ton Air Over Hydraulic Bottle On My Shop Press

My shop press is actually rated for 30 tons but I have used a 20 ton bottle for a safety margin.  Until recently, my preference has been a hand pumped 20 ton bottle on my press.  The reason for this is that when pressing barrels, pins, etc. I like to “feel” how much pressure I am applying.  Years back, I bought a 20 ton air over hydraulic bottle from Harbor Freight as guys told me it was faster.  What this means is that an air-operated mechanism pumps a piston and extends the bottle.  For a variety of reasons, it sat by the press and never got installed – mainly I did not have an airline there and I didn’t really have the need – as my grips business increased, free time to build AKs decreased.

At any rate, with the new SWAG shop press, I didn’t want to stand around pumping the bottle so I ran an airline and installed the bottle.

Installing it was a breeze (not including running the air line).  I just screwed in the head of the ram of the old bottle enough to pull it out.  I then slid in the new bottle and adjusted the screw head until it was nice and snug.  Done.  I’m using regular 3/8″ air line with 1/4″ Milton quick connect fittings and it seems to have plenty of air.

Boy is the end result nice — I can use the air system to run the ram down to where I want to then take over by hand and feel what is going on.  What a time saver.

One annoying issue I had to overcome was the pressure relief valve.  The bottle still has one of the little “+” shaped valves that you have to slide the handle onto.  SWAG makes a replacement handle you can slide onto the shaft and reinstall the pin but my budget was spent and then some.  Instead. I found some tubing in my shop and made a little “T” handle and cut a relief into one end with my band saw for the pin to slide into.  It’s way more convenient than using the long pump lever arm.

So the that’s it for the bottle. The next post will talk about the lower bending die and the series is done.


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When Strength and Quality Matter Most