You see my dilemma.  Which is why, for the last way too many years, I've just stuck with my tried and true, go to weapon of choice, the hatchet.

I know how to use it, I know the laws about carrying (it's for home defense), I know how to repair it, clean, sharpen it, etc.  There is no chance of accidental discharge.  They're cheap, and unless your intruder/assailant has a better weapon (a firearm), it's intimidating.  They pull a knife or a bat and you pull out a hatchet, they're going to think twice about their choices in life.  Only crazy people carry around hatchets.

The only drawback is it's really not good for the sort of situation we've been having in Minneapolis.

Not a bad choice, or one of those little wood baseball bats they make/made for kids... same concept.
It can be swung or thrust in the solar plexus... doesn't bloody things up as much but will still do a job on an assailant.

In reply to Jareth Mooncalled (msg # 488):

i favor small axes and stilettos for personal defense, but the trick is they can be difficult to maintain your defense with. it's easy to get carried away, and leaving defensive wounds on your attacker, is a risk that can see your defense, go out the window. your strokes must be true, and deadly, allowing one, or two tops, and not all over their damned arms and elsewhere. only in the target area.
This message had punctuation tweaked by the player at 03:23, Thu 04 June 2020.

none of that matters of course, when the shit hits the fan.

In reply to Svendegard Yurick (msg # 491):

Yeah, lets try to keep the excrement out of the ventilation...despite some bloody idiots that are doing there best otherwise. Seems a bit of pressure relief after COVID-19 isolation...

In reply to Christine Bjorn (msg # 492):

undoubtedly! striking whilst the iron is hot, and letting no good crisis go to waste.

Down here in Florida we're already getting our second wave sice we 'reopened' (inofficially) two weeks ago.

Here in Arizona too. Numbers (weren't very high in this county) have doubled and the State is seeing 700-1,000 new cases a day at this point.

I grew up with guns -- learned to shoot a .22 at eight, shot my uncle's .357 Magnum (revolver) and .300 Winchester Magnum (rifle) at about twelve.  I've owned guns for as long as I could legally do so, mostly handguns, because as defensive weapons go, a handgun has some serious advantages over a rifle or shotgun -- not least that it's more likely to be in easy reach when you need it.

I also had a concealed carry permit in Washington state (Seattle) before I moved to North Carolina, and did in fact carry (a little .380 pistol) when/where legal for several years.

Practice is (slightly) overrated.  I learned how to form a sight picture by reading, as a child, and since then, I've been able to hit what I was aiming at as long as I could see it well enough (bad eyesight does not help).  In my twenties, I could empty a revolver from the hip in just over a second, and put all the bullets on a pie tin at twenty feet or so (probably can't do that any more, but my Witness holds more rounds and that kind of shooting is a stunt, anyway).

Now, tactical and defensive shooting do require some training and practice, which I have not had -- but the former isn't a necessary skill for home defense, and the latter is more a case of "do what you have to, when it's necessary, and not before."

Some people are afraid of guns; I'm distinctly uncomfortable with knives (as weapons) and other edged implements (as weapons).  My comfort zone is aiming and pulling a trigger.

Ditto.  And then we moved fromt he moutnains to Chicago, so the rifles were sold.  Then we moved to Florida and eventually the pistols were sold for money to bills.  And I've never had a need for a firearm as an adult.


I've handled all sorts of weapons all my life.  I trained in marital arts with a few (dueling polearms and staves mostly).  I have no fear of using weapons... except maybe three-part staves.  I know how often I beaned myself learning to use nunchuks and manriki-gusari, so... and at my age?  I'd bean myself a right good one.

In reply to Jareth Mooncalled (msg # 497):

Day two of furniture assembly.  I am now the proud builder of a bench and 4 chairs, no sign yet of table. Got a flock of commissions,  one left for Appendix N, and three for the Hungarian. I should be able to post tomorrow,  but will be home with fam over the weekend. Thank you for your patience.
As the heat of this wave of the pandemic subsides,  my bosses have decided it is QA time for lead.
This message was last edited by the GM at 18:08, Fri 05 June 2020.

In reply to Narrator (msg # 498):

Finally done building furniture.  I have a surfeit of allen keys in my possession.
Back on tomorrow.


Also, With Kalima will be joined by Benny Morales. Y'all need a healer... or you will.

Hey, boss, some guy called, said his name was Allen.  He was looking for his keys...

That's a relief.  I hate it when the grey's show up looking for alIen keys...

In reply to Jareth Mooncalled (msg # 501):

Four came with the dining room set, Two more with the sectional, and a seventh with a shoe rack. I think I got another with my ikea gaming shelves as well...
The amount of home organization tha th has gone on since my wife has been working from home is extreme.  Place looks a lot better though.

I'd keep them all.  Especially if you have duplicates.  Ikea allen keys are notorious* for being mild† steel which strips out leaving you with useless allen keys if you have to make frequent tightenings (expect the dining table and chairs to require frequent tightening, the sectional may or may not depending on if the screws are in load/stress bearing positions or not).


* But nowhere near as notorious as the the even softer hex screws which strip if you so much as look at them funny.  Or look at them seriously.  I recomend looking at them casually.

† Okay, they are tool steel, but they are way softer than any Real^TM tool steel hex keys I've ever used.  Use an Ikea allen key on a Real^TM bolt and put any actual oomph into tightening it (or if it's stuck and your loosening it) and you'll immediately strip the Ikea allen key.  Stick to using Ikea keys on Ikea products only...

They're probably almost all duplicates.  Most "some assembly required" furniture items is designed around the 4mm socket; this is done because that size is large enough to apply considerable torque (assuming the key and socket stand up to it), and is one of the few sizes that are present in both Metric and US Customary sized key sets -- it's the same as 5/32 (okay, technically, 4mm is a couple thousandths of an inch bigger -- hence why the sockets are made 4mm even in stuff built in USA).

That way, anyone with a set of Allen keys of either persuasion can tighten and loosen the bolts, even if all the original keys have been lost.  One of the few cases in consumer design where doing it the cheap way (only one key needed in most kits, and by buying millions the same they're almost free) is doing the consumer a favor.

The other reasonably common "crossover" sizes, BTW, are 5/64 (= 2mm), 5/16 (= 8mm), and 5/8 (=16mm) but one is too small for most furniture applications, the others bigger than needed for most home assembly.

Why do I know this?  I repair power tools, a mix of "made in USA", "made in China to US design" and "100% Chinese" -- and I get lots of use out of my 4mm hex driver (and a fair amount out of my 16mm combination wrench).

I recommend buying a packet of real hex keys and replacing them. 'Real Tool steel', yeah right, just like the 'real stainless steel' that rusts in 12 months in a dry environment. Their certificates are nothing more than computer printouts. My brother went to China a few years ago representing a mining company wanting hardened liner plates. When he asked them for material certificate, the offered to print out any certificates he wanted...even offering to changing material for the same physical item! They sourced it from Germany...

6mm / 1/4" share a similar similarity, as do 12mm / 1/2" (approx 0.25mm difference). I have interchanged both of the above...though with bolts sometimes the thread DOES differ slightly, which is annoying.

Well a ½ inch is 12.7 mm, so the 13 mm wrench should work if you don't need to apply much oomph. otherwise you could strip a bolt/nut.

Buried for work today, sorry, and the weekend was all out of the house.  Catch up tomorrow.

A quarter inch (6.35 mm) is more than 1/3 millimeter oversize for 6mm, and as you can see, 13mm is almost 1/3 millimeter oversize for 1/2 (12.7mm).  May not seem like much, but if you need a wrench (vs. fingers), it's too much; you'll round off the corners of a bolt head or Allen key as soon as you try to actually tighten (or loosen, if it's already tight).

The only bolt size and thread I recall that's close is M5, at 0.8mm; that's close to 20 tpi, though the diameter is just oversize for #10.  I've occasionally seen threads that were specified in metric diameter and pitch to interchange with SAE sizes -- it ain't pretty.  Hobby machinists, however, who often have US size lathes and need to cut metric threads, or vice versa, have learned ways to approximate "well enough" -- and it usually involves, among other trickery, cutting the thread with considerable clearance, so the pitch difference won't lock everything in the thickness of the nut.  Preferred method, in this case, is to obtain a suitable tap and die and cut a correct thread.

There are days (mot many mind you) when I wish the US would adopt the metric system properly, instead of clinging to the Imperial, desperately wishing the rest of the world would return to the glory days of Centauri Republic...

In reply to Ardenas Barehand (msg # 508):

Quite true, but in a pinch, sticking a flat tip screwdriver in the gap may let you get by ... but it's a worst case, no other way solution.
There used to be yet a third standard which used a different ... Whitworth! that was it ... My Dad had purchased a Jaguar sedan and normal ¾ inch wrenches wouldn't fit the supposed ¾ inch nuts. What a F***ing mess ... anybody need a couple of Whitworth wrenches I still have hanging around?
There used to be Imperial Gallons as well as regular gallons too!

The United States is on the metric system.

"Bull!" I hear -- go look up the statute definitions of the inch, pound, and (fluid) ounce.  Every one is defined in terms of an SI unit -- an inch is legally 25.4 millimeters, a pound 453.5 and change grams, a (fluid) ounce almost 29.6 milliliters.

We just go to a bunch of extra work (and occasionally lose a multibillion dollar space probe) because Americans can't be bothered to learn an actual system of measurement.  The dollar became decimal at its birth, in large part because Jefferson and Hamilton (in a rare moment of agreement) wanted something simpler for people to deal with than pence, shillings, pounds, and all the weird coins that go along with them -- and Americans, when I was young (before the Brits decimalized the Pound Sterling) used to complain about how complex English money was -- yet they continue to insist on using a system that's just as Byzantine for everything else except money.  Inches, feet, yards, miles (and let's not forget rods, chains, and furlongs -- I mean really, does the length of a field make a sensible unit of measure?), ounces, pounds, stone, hundredweight, three different tons (short, standard, and long), and an ounce of gold doesn't weigh the same as an ounce of feathers or an ounce of butter (and let's not forget a firkin of butter isn't a firkin of ale, and neither one is a firkin of butter or ale).  And a fluid ounce doesn't weigh any of those ounces, at least not if it's water.

I learned to think in both systems in engineering courses in college, around 1980, including both slugs and poundals, as well as being able to convert to about four different metric systems (SI was new then, and lots of literature was in MKS or CGS -- and the number of ergs in a Joule isn't a multiple of a thousand because ergs are dyne-centimeters, and Newtons are kilogram meter per squared second.

Good grief, just use SI for everything and get over it!

Hold up, we don't use rods chains or furlongs anymore.  We do use fathoms, nautical miles, and knots still though.  I geuss those naval types are really long on traditions.

And fucking acres.  They fuck me right the fuck up and originally were a furlong in length and chain in width (they aren't anymore, now it's 4,840 yds² or or 10 chains²).  We also don't really use hectares anymore despite them actually being a clean metric length (10,000 square meters).


That's only partially true, in that a troy* ounce doesn't weigh an ounce, but for all other measures, an ounce is 1/16th of pound.  Unless you're in a traditional kitchen, but you're more likely to find those in Britain than you are in America.  I know, I've worked kitchens all my life, it's a rare one that still plays silly buggers with the butter ounce nonsense.

But that's because even most kitchens have simply started using the avoirdupois system rather than try to teach people the difference between a butter ounce and regular ounce.

* There are still those who measure in grains, usually metallurgists, ammo reloaders, and archers, but atleast they're all using the same measurement (1 grain = 64.79891 milligrams).


Nobody outside of Britalndia uses firkins anymore.  Okay, wait, maybe some craft breweres, probably in the American Northeast, or some crazed hipsters, might use firkins.


That's because it's a fluid ounce, which is a unit of volume, and if you're measuring that way, all fluid ounces measure the same.  Yes, even water.  However, outside of bartending do we in America even really use fuid ounces anymore?  I know I've personally mentally switch over to liters.


Normally I'd agree, but I don't want to have to learn to use meters.