When we last talked, parts were spread across my bench, which as we all saw is a disaster. But the repair parts have arrived, just in time for the wife to drag me off to the coast. I checked to make sure that everything ordered was there, and then had to back burner the whole project for a couple weeks. But, I had time to wrap it up just last weekend. So, here we go:
There is stuff for a few other projects in there, but you can see the “new” seal sitting by the old seal. My choice is to use an actual seal provided by the manufacturer, but that isn’t always an option for older air guns.
This seal was, I believe, new old stock, meaning that it has been sitting around for 90 years or so. And it is as hard as a rock. So I gave it a soak in oil to make it pliable. Oil soaking the seals allows for greater malleability, meaning, in practical terms, that an out of round bore in the compression tube can be sealed. The downside is you can get what is called dieseling, the oil burning up under the heat of compression. Not the worst thing in the world, but it can shorten the life of various parts.
But after a couple days, nothing had absorbed, so I dug in my spare parts and found another cup seal, left over from when I redid my Walther. These are basic leather pump seals, at one time available any any decent hardware store. Now, you need to go online to find them, as they aren’t used commonly enough anymore for stores to keep new ones in stock. They used to be found in every bicycle pump, well pump at the farm, and in many other basic appliances from the first half of the 20th century.
And after that was nice and loose, I installed it with a buffer below, to help prevent damage to the transfer port, the small opening that allows the proper amount of air to reach the pellet. I lubed up the spring, a trick I had learned from many older, English air gun mechanics. This keeps the spring from rubbing against the compression cylinder wall, and losing power through friction, thus it works much like engine oil. Also, at the bottom of the picture, you can see where the piston connects with the sear.
I put the barrel lock back in place and reassembled her. The Barrel lock, seen here and in many older air guns was used to keep seal pressure positive when locking up before the advent of stronger locking mechanisms that came about post-WWII. The trigger on this model is pretty simple, containing the sear as an integral part and thus having a direct contection to the piston.
I didn’t have my bifocals on, so I just took a couple test shots to make sure all was well
All done. It is nice to be able to bring a 95 year old machine, of any type, back to life so easily.
Finding parts for old air guns is hit-or-miss, and worse here in the United States. But, we have JG Air Guns, while over in England, there is Protek, TW Chambers, and John Knibbs. It isn’t too surprising that there is so much more in England for this hobby, as they treat air guns the same way that we treat full bore fire arms; they have shooting ranges devoted to them, websites, and specialty dealers.
So, get that old pumper or break barrel shooting again!
This is great. At least you didn’t have to cut your own leather seals. My turn next, I need to clean up my 40 year old Benjamin pump pistol.
All done. It is nice to be able to bring a 95 year old machine, of any type, back to life so easily.
🙂
Excellent, Zwak!
Wouldn’t seals made of urethane or something be better?
The Urethane Seal got put on the endangered species list, so you can’t harvest them anymore.
*puts away club*
Neat.
Most excellent.
Cool, it’s always nice when you put something back together and it works again.
Screwed up and posted this in the ded-thred.
It was by design. They were just picking up where they left off, after being so rudely interrupted by the terrorists who blew up the WTC.
What kind of optics will you put on it?
In fact, the tale of how America’s information warfare mechanism turned inward, against “threats” in our own population, might someday be remembered as the story of our time, with collective panic over “disinfo” defining this generation in much the same way the Red Scare defined the culture of the fifties.
It happened just in time. Trump was the single greatest threat the nation has ever faced.
He was, to a certain class, but not so much to the nation as a whole.
That is very cool, Zwak. You gave it new life!
I have a Singer sewing machine from about 1914 (model 128k with “Vencedora” style decorations). It has its original Singer electric motor and lamp (ooh-la-la) but the wiring and motor needed help when I got it in 1995 for $55.
Here’s one without the electric motor option:
https://www.etsy.com/listing/999552764/
I fixed up the wiring, cleaned and oiled the machine, and to this day it provides an excellent straight stitch.
However, the rubber that engages the belt between the motor and the wheel has about had it. It’s shrunken and has become hard, no longer grippy. Not sure what to do about that.
Have you tried a rubber conditioner?
Always left me with a rash when I tried it.
*squints suspiciously*
He didn’t talk about how he stiffened up.
My wife has a treadle machine that is in working condition, but never gets used.
Too bad. Use that and you might be able to skip a gym membership.
She has three Singer Featherweights (1934, 195x, and 1964) that she uses regularly, plus another four or five modern sewing machines.
The treadle machine is part of the plan for the “after times” that are not too far in the future.
https://oldsingershop.com/collections/singer-28-128-sewing-machine-parts/products/singer-28-28k-sewing-machine-lower-bobbin-winder-friction-rubber-tire-ring?variant=39996132589604
$4.
That’s beautiful. It’s a shame product design is pretty much brutalist these days.
However, the rubber that engages the belt between the motor and the wheel has about had it. It’s shrunken and has become hard, no longer grippy. Not sure what to do about that.
I wonder if McMaster Carr or somebody might have an off the shelf generic replacement, if you give them the dimensions.
God damnit, Discover…
Never would have occurred to me to use a credit card to purchase a firearm. But I have used a credit card to buy bulk ammunition.
This is an evil trend.
This is the part that scares me about the Biden admin. Sure he’s bumbling and incompetent, but behind the scenes they’re pushing this, and disinformation departments, and lord knows how many other things we won’t find out about until it’s too late.
Discover has been great to us over the years. I’ve had them fight for me for a few disputed charges and they always come through. So this assholery does not please me.
What will please you, Russell Brand is on Joe Rogan today.
This is the slow boil, but if financial institutions and others aren’t already tracking firearms related purchases, I’d be very surprised.
Speaking of threats, domestic…
As is increasingly apparent in many of his public appearances, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is rather like Donald Trump, only without the charm. And that charmless demeanor seeps through his latest book, “The Courage to Be Free: Florida’s Blueprint for America’s Revival,” a grievance-laden tome written in advance of a presumed bid for the Republican nomination in the 2024 presidential election.
The question is, will it help his chances?
——-
As one might expect, the book runs through DeSantis’ life and times, talking about his love of baseball and hard work; about his parents and their working-class roots in Pennsylvania and Ohio. They were Italian-Americans — a family of immigrants, although DeSantis has shown little interest in helping recently-arrived migrants on their American journey: he famously flew two planeloads, primarily comprised of Venezuelan migrants, from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard in 2022, a cruel, calculated political stunt designed to embarrass the Biden administration and liberal elites with their “sanctuary cities.” That he would play politics with the lives of these poor souls doesn’t, I fear, speak well for him – nor that he performed throughout the ensuing media cycle with such glee.
But this hard-heartedness is a core part and parcel of the narrative, which offers a litany of resentfulness. “Before my time at Yale,” DeSantis writes of his undergraduate years studying history at the Ivy League school, “I had never seen a limousine, much less a limousine liberal. Those students who were the most strident in their leftism… came from the most privileged background.” He experienced “unbridled leftism” on campus, and this pushed him far to the right, where he has remained.
Everywhere in the book, one senses his rage against political correctness. He rails, on nearly every page, about “the woke agenda” that he sees permeating almost every level of life in America.
In DeSantis’ mind, a dire phalanx of “woke” fanatics is led “by the likes of Dr. Anthony Fauci,” who is seen as public enemy #1. He devotes a whole chapter of this book to railing against Dr. Fauci and people who used the powers of the federal government to implement “heavy-handed public health ‘interventions’” during the Covid-19 pandemic. These measures did little, in the governor’s opinion, to slow the course of the disease — rather, they “destroyed livelihoods, hurt children, and harmed overall public health.”
(The jury is probably still out on how DeSantis governed with regard to the pandemic. It’s possible he had some good instincts at work.)
Hard hearted racist and all around meanie puts profits over people.
The jury is still out? Until when, the revisionists can erase him 40 years from now? He did the best job of any governor in balancing that risk vs. the livelihoods of his constituents. he is a blueprint for success for all the Republicans who otherwise were rudderless, go-along war monger nincompoops. What is interesting about that criticism is it is exactly like other criticism leveled by every other progressive paper. Not a single independent thought among them.
Hits everything on the checklist in just the first paragraph.
That he would play politics with the lives of these poor souls
The projection, it knocked me right out of my chair!
It’s like an AI was fed the worst leftist talking points and puked this out.
a family of immigrants, although DeSantis has shown little interest in helping recently-arrived migrants on their American journey: he famously flew two planeloads, primarily comprised of Venezuelan migrants, from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard in 2022,
That was helping them. At least, if you believe TEAM BLUE’s stated preferences instead of their revealed preferences.
The title of this book must surely be ironic: “The Courage to Be Free.” DeSantis is all about the restriction of freedoms wherever possible. He wants to cancel librarians who allow kids to read certain Black or LGBTQ writers and to fire tenured professors in the state university system who teach “woke” ideas. He wants to restrict the rights of women seeking abortions and those of LGBTQ people seeking to live their lives. He hopes to punish corporations, such as the Walt Disney Company, for criticizing his policies.
Again and again, DeSantis shows little interest in the First Amendment — except when his own free speech is concerned. He seems not to have heard the great words of Thomas Jefferson, who wrote: “Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost.” Jefferson understood that we each have a right, even a patriotic duty, to speak without permission from the authorities.
Right. Now do the plague disinfo pogrom.
So, if “The Courage to Be Free” is a sign of things to come, DeSantis will likely hang his presidential campaign on efforts to find what he calls the “pressure points” in the system, finding ways to “leverage” his authority to advance his agenda. He’s a lawyer, as he reminds us, educated at the famous Harvard Law School. If the book is any guide, he’s going to use his lawyerly skills to dismantle our heritage and, in his Orwellian manner, he’s going to proclaim that he’s freeing us by doing so.
Oh, bravo.
Touche!
*I’d link to the Thurber cartoon, but I’m too lazy
They can’t type this with a straight face, can they?
And we all know, these are the only rights that matter to the authoritarians.
Also, it is a very honest framing of his disagreement with them.
As Her Shrillness informed us a few years back, 1984 was a book about the dangers of questioning authority and a warning about stepping out from the under the safety umbrella of approved ideas.
Just as Trump’s picture replaced Hitler’s in Wikipedia’s article on Nazism, DeSantis’ is about to replace Trump’s.
Trump can be sued by police over Jan. 6, Justice Department says
Police with “qualified” immunity (who can terrorize the populace without consequence) sue the former president (who apparently has some limited immunity, but not much immunity) for deeds performed as sitting president.
FYTW!
And forgot the actual link.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/doj-says-trump-can-sued-police-jan-6-rcna73127
Sounds legit.
🙄
Next up, a constitutional amendment that acknowledges all adverse outcomes on earth are the fault of Donald Trump.
They wouldn’t dare do that if they weren’t guaranteed to get a DC court.
Trump should petition hard to get the venue moved.
All he has to do is introduce the GAO’s recent report citing the failures of everyone over the Capitol Police rank and file as evidence.
This is the part that scares me about the Biden admin. Sure he’s bumbling and incompetent, but behind the scenes they’re pushing this, and disinformation departments, and lord knows how many other things we won’t find out about until it’s too late.
Biden’s agency appointees have made no effort to conceal their hatred of capitalism and freedom. Give me Trump’s bumblers, any day.
They are building a totalitarian police state out in the open.
Indeed they are. And missing no opportunity to rub our noses in it. Like the memorial for the ATF goons killed in Waco, just to pick a recent example.
CBDC is their checkmate. If that abomination happens, we’re done.
Thanks Zwak, now I wished I’d kept my Diana 35. I gave it to my middle grand daughter, she can practice in her basement, I hope. Had a lot of fun with it but I’d quit shooting it so it’s time to pass it along. 50 years is long enough.