Borrowing from another discipline

[Winton Applegate]

First photo : That ought to do the job ! ! !

90º VEE thread

Threads larger in proportion to dia than metal
Be ware of modern thread sets / not correct / not same as old time

Thanks for the education I think I am starting to get it now.

I sure hope there are groups of young people some where learning this stuff.
Not here.
The young guy who works with me (goes off to college this fall); he was trying to get some body to sharpen a knife for him or talking about it. I said that I would BUT that I saw it as one of the rights of passage young men need to struggle with and over come. He knows I will help him. That was months ago. He won’t even try. (He said he was in The Boy Scouts and claims he sharpened a knife while hanging with them.)
Apparently it is a group effort; no one person can do it outside of THE TEAM.

Five of us were unloading a truck the other day and the boxes on the pallets were wrapped with that clear cling wrap like stuff. The oldest guy, my age, asked if any body had a knife. He was showing me some of his switch blades a few weeks earlier. I said you do. He said he didn’t carry those around.
Nobody but me even had a pocket knife. Let alone a sharp one.
I didn’t answer (I was temporarily too depressed by the lack of pocket knives to respond) . . . so he went back to the building to get a box knife.
In the mean time I asked Mr. Young Guy how his sharpening was coming and surely HE now had a sharp pocket knife.
Nope.
As the gofer was just about back with the box knife I pulled out my pocket knife and cut the wrap.
I can be a dick when I am around such_______ I don’t even have a word for it.

Anyway thanks for educating THIS old dude. I will try to remember it and pass it on.

[george wilson]

It's even worse in England. You can get arrested for carrying a pocket knife. They arrested a newspaper delivery guy who had a pocket knife necessary for cutting the cord on bundles of newspapers.

It's just stupidly depressing,how much freedom they have lost over there.

I carried my Leatherman,but kept it out of sight. It's a good thing I did,because in 3 different hotels,it was surprising how much stuff did not work in the rooms. And,no one seemed to be able to get the staff to fix anything. Well,it was just water and electricity,what the heck. I couldn't wait to get out of there and back here.

[Tom Vanzant]

Same thing in Scotland. The guys in the shop in Aberdeen sharpened a hacksaw blade to slice into the neoprene jacket of a hose bundle. When I offered them my Swiss Army knife, it was as though I had handed them a viper, but they did accept and use it. Only woodsmen and gameskeepers are deemed needing of knives there.

[Daniel Rode]

I'm not *that* old but even when I was a kid in the 70s leaving the house without a pocket knife was irresponsible. I carried one to school all the way through. I believe the rule was that we were not allowed a pocket knife with a blade longer than our palm.

We live in a world I no longer understand.

[David Weaver]

I was a kid 10 years later than that, and as I recall back then, you could carry a pocket knife and you wouldn't get in trouble. There were kids who would bring "survival knives" with compasses to school (that was a fad back then) from time to time and as long as they didn't get them out and flash them around, I don't remember getting any grief for them, though I never too mine to school. If you kept them in the sheath or just took them out to look at them or empty the contents from the handle, that was OK. The only things that weren't allowed were switch blades, nunchucks and butterfly knives, and back then, half the kids had butterfly knives and nunchucks. When the knives were banned, then people started bringing butterfly combs instead, which made the teachers not-so-happy because they looked like a butterfly knife until they were opened.

[george wilson]

Up in Alaska we carried sheath knives if we wanted. No one got stabbed. I made a very bad looking Bowie knife in school shop,out of a piece of 1/16" thick sawmill bandsaw blade. It was the only tool steel I could lay hands on. It was so bad looking,made that thin,that I immediately lost interest in it. I think I left it laying around in the shop.

In the 7th. Grade,in Alaska,we had an old non commissioned Army officer,Mr. Byers,as a teacher. He instituted the belt line. Every Friday,those who had gotten into trouble during the week had to run the belt line. He just said "No motorcycle belts". It was an excellent deterrent. More humiliation than actual pain as you ran it getting swatted across the rear end!! Most swats missed. Everyone respected that belt line.

He took 2 of us,me and another student,who won a spelling contest,seal hunting in his small boat. He made me stand up while firing his high powered rifle in the choppy ocean. I missed the target,a rock on the shore,not knowing how hard the rifle was going to kick me overboard at the time. I had not fired a high powered rifle at that time. No earplugs,of course!!

[Jim Koepke]

...
In the 7th. Grade,in Alaska,we had an old non commissioned Army officer,Mr. Byers,as a teacher. He instituted the belt line.
...
He took 2 of us,me and another student,who won a spelling contest,seal hunting in his small boat. He made me stand up while firing his high powered rifle in the choppy ocean.
...

In todays world, Mr. Byers would likely be either in court or prison.

Some of the things teachers did a few decades ago to advance the maturity of their students are frowned upon today.

I recall visits by students to one of our high school teacher's home on Saturdays. Another thing that is likely "out of bounds" in todays paranoid society.

jtk

[george wilson]

Well,at the time,Mr. Byers was a well liked and effective teacher. We are nurturing a nation of incredibly soft kids these days.

I am in favor of some of the things being done today,like stopping bullies. But,when a kid gets kicked out of school for eating his pop tart into the shape of a gun,it has just gone insanely too far. Lord help us if there is another World War.

I actually had a chemistry teacher in college who asked me to make a missing rear sight for his revolver. I carried it in my notebook over to the art department,where my sculpture teacher,quite a liberal (but not by today's standards),presided. He saw me making the sight and fitting it to the pistol. Nothing was said. I never took it out or showed it to anyone else while carrying it to classes. I returned the gun to the teacher,who said it shot quite straight. End of event. Try that today!! This was about 1962.

[Jim Koepke]

Try that today!! This was about 1962.

A century earlier, kids likely carried small caliber rifles to school so they could hunt rabbits on the way home to have some meat on the table.

jtk

[george wilson]

I heard about ROTC students who kept their rifles in their cars so they could go to shooting practice after school.

When I started teaching shop in 1963,there was an incident that sent the entire school running and screaming through the halls. I mean total panic: Some kid took a piece of pipe from his locker,and broke another kid's head with it. Took the assistant principal over an hour to find the pipe. The little thug had cooly put it back into his locker. Blood everywhere.

That was the first time I ever saw anything like that in a school. A rude awakening for me,after I had been in college 4 years. Before that,there might have been fist fights,but nothing thugish like that in high school.

There were some other incidents I can't describe here,but they did not involve violence. All of them were new to me. Trashy behavior between boys and girls.

[Tom Vanzant]

In the early-mid 1950s, several of us had dove-hunting gear in our cars at school...went straight to the fields after classes. No problem with it at all. Of course, that was the time when any punishment you got for misbehaving at school was nothing compared to what was meted out when you got home. Then Dr. Spock told us that was bad for little developing children....see where that got us now?

[george wilson]

Back then,you did not dare to tell your parents that you got disciplined at school. At least,no one I knew did!!

[Winton Applegate]

That can have a palpable kick back as well.

I remember I fell under the evil influence of "Bruce". He had a smirk that wouldn't quit and quite a funny guy actually. Grade school. We bent good size nails into a U shape and shot them with stout rubber bands. You know how little fads pop up. Anyway I guess they decided to draw the line when he and I shot a few in library class up at the pin up board near the ceiling. Ripped that construction paper a few feet before they stopped I can tell you.

That same day I had the enlightening experience of finding out what a cricket bat with holes in it feels like when applied at high velocity to my gluteus maximus.

I think Bruce got it worse than I did. They realized he was the instigator. I wasn't crying but he sure was when he came out of the principle's office. I liked the principle. He was a good person even if he had that bat.

BUT THAT'S NOT WHAT I CAME BACK HERE TO ASK
Queenmasteroftheuniverseandbabybunnytrainer wants to know if anyone has traveled in Germany or Switzerland and the state of the hotel facilities there. We are betting they don't put up with inoperable amenities in Switzerland but she says Germany may have slipped. I am voting both are responsible.
What say you all ?

[george wilson]

I think I'd be bankrupted very quickly in Switzerland. In the late 80's.an American harpsichord maker working in Switzerland visited me. He said an 8" pizza and a pony size bottle of beer there was $30.00. Even ditch diggers made $50.00 equivalent an hour. So,how could I possibly afford a room,even if the water and electricity,and possibly even the HEAT worked!!

I wish I had had the money to go to Europe back in the 60's. An old German guitar maker told me you used to could get the best spruce guitar top in Germany for $2.50. I felt like the poor relatives when I was in Italy and England several years ago. I'll take Italy any time,by the way,even though I don't speak much Italian. Many of them speak enough English,fortunately.

They wanted 80 pounds to go into St. Peter's in London(160 a couple!),and the same to go aboard the Cutty Sark,which has now burned,unfortunately. We didn't go aboard because I thought it would just mostly be full of tea crates. Aboard the HMS Victory in Portsmouth,they were quite poor in budget. They had only one working flintlock for their signal cannon. I'd make one for them if I had the dimensions of the mount on the cannon (and the energy). I did see them for sale for $400.00,somewhere. Talk about esoteric things for sale!

I don't know how people afford to live over there.