Jump to content
SASS Wire Forum

Forty Rod SASS 3935

Members
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    25,238

  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    9

 Content Type 

Posts posted by Forty Rod SASS 3935

    California Rail #1238

    in SASS Wire Saloon

    Posted

    I remember the day they took the Big Boy out of Pomona.  They had disconnected all of her running gear and towed her away behind diesels.  It was a humiliating day for her and her friends.  

     

    After the rebuild I got to ride behind that big beautiful mechanical monster for a short and very expensive trip, that my wife would have never allowed had she still been alive.

     

    I have loved steam locos since my first ride when I was about three years old.

    • Like 3
    • Thanks 2

    The Problem with Imported Flint Locks

    in SASS Wire Saloon

    Posted · Edited by Forty Rod SASS 3935

    I worked for 12 years for Ray and Jackie Taylor at The Flintlock At Hobby City in Anaheim, CA.

     

    This video caught almost all of the things that are keeping a flintlock from being a great rifle.  I watched Ray swap locks, harden parts, make parts, and generally put some really fine guns together from mediocre  imports.  All of this was covered in the video, but a couple of things that Ray taught me that were not mentioned.

     

    1. Use quality powder.  Ray preferred Gearhart and Owens (GOEX) or a Swiss powder (can't recall the brand).  He had a few that he wouldn't even sell in his shop.

     

    2. Re-harden and polish all of the parts.  Learn how and do it yourself.

     

    3,. I saw him weld a lot of flash pans shut, grind them to fit, and re-cut the pan into a much shallower depth and often much narrower as well.  He explained that too much powder in the pan would tend to burn off rather that flashing, which slowed the action.

     

    4. He would often make the top of the pan and bottom of the frizzen to be a perfect fit with NO gaps.

     

    5. He almost always replaced the springs with polished and tuned ones.

     

    He made the lock and shaped a swamped barrel for a custom gun made for me by Joe Sours, an amateur maker of amazing skill.

     

    It was a beautifully decorated .45 caliber piece with a 36 inch barrel in a maple stock.  It never failed to fire and was as accurate as any rifle I ever owned out to about 300 yards.  Beyond that I couldn't say because I wasn't capable of using the little rifle to its capability.

     

    I sold it for 1 1/2 month's payment on our mortgage because I was out of work.

     

    I still miss that pretty little gun.

     

     

    • Like 1
    • Thanks 2

    New guidelines for alcohol

    in SASS Wire Saloon

    Posted

    17 hours ago, Jeff, #21334 said:

    Willie Nelson had the best advice he said.There's more old drunks than there are old doctors

    George Burns, at  about 100 years old, was asked where he found doctors to keep him going.  He said he found the oldest doctor in town and went to his doctor.

    New guidelines for alcohol

    in SASS Wire Saloon

    Posted

    3 hours ago, Matthew Duncan said:


    Now why did you have to drag politicians into the conversation?  😃

    Because they're like mosquitoes, fleas, noseeums, and ants...everydamnwhere, and they just keep multiplying.  Just can't get rid of them and  can't really ignore them.

    • Haha 1

    New guidelines for alcohol

    in SASS Wire Saloon

    Posted

    My bonafides on this subject are 35 years as a very heavy non-AA drinker and a heavy smoker during the same period.  I quit both when we stopped living in 1999 and moved into 2000.  I quite simply quit.

     

    In January 2018 I weighed 293 pounds.  Christmas morning 2025 I was down to 189 ponds.  Again, I simply quit.  I'm eating the same things with very few changes, but I don't graze my way through life any more.

     

    No government or civic welfare groups, no fancy-ass SPAM "doctors" or self help groups, no religious or "we will help you" organizations were involved in any of these episodes.  My wife, while still alive, helped as did a very few friends, and a VA Nurse or several, did more by encouraging me than by any other tactic.

     

    I'm not bragging, but you have to know that if I can do it, you can do these things yourself, not through will power, but through won't power.

    • Like 1

    New guidelines for alcohol

    in SASS Wire Saloon

    Posted · Edited by Forty Rod SASS 3935

    People have been using alcohol since the time of Adam and Eve and any number of people in power, being them governments, religions, home grown experts, or just every day do-gooders, have had their say and have attempted to take control of the beverages and the users. 

     

    These people created more problems than they solved...and every single one of the "solutions" has been some degree or another, a failure.  

     

    Now we are playing the same BS game with drugs and getting the same results.

     

    Same goes for other "sins": robbery, abuse, prostitution, lying, murder, jaywalking, you name it.

     

    No one wins except the criminals, users, and corporate sized organizations who will keep on doing what they want because we have too many versions of what we want, can do, will do, and will enforce to punish the law breakers and have courts willing to  enforce the many laws.

     

    It's a losing effort and has been since the dawn of man.

    • Thanks 1

    bald eagles converge

    in SASS Wire Saloon

    Posted · Edited by Forty Rod SASS 3935

    I'd been in this house about a month when one showed up in my yard.  By the time I got a camera he was gone.  Next week it was a female atop my mailbox.

     

    We still have a lot, but not like before.  Also have about a dozen kinds of hawks around (my favorites are peregrines), a few kinds of owls, road runners, grackles crows, ravens, and others.

     

    Used to have pronghorns until some AH developer got the government to  move them  about 20 miles north.  Now we have tickey-tackey bungalows stacked one on another over a few dozen acres and more being built every day.

    bald eagles converge

    in SASS Wire Saloon

    Posted

    Used to have hundreds of mated pairs converge at Goldwater Lake five miles for our home.  Every year there would be scores of hatchlings survive and eagles were in my yard almost every day for a few weeks.

     

    Many less now because of "peoplization": roads, housing and other buildings, power lines,  and a so many other reasons I can't count them any more.

     

    I miss them a lot.

    • Thanks 2
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

By using this site, you agree to our Terms of Use.

  I accept