Paneltech: Paperstone
Beautiful counter composite counter tops, for every room in your home.
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Product Photo: Michael Vagnino’s Feathered Steel Masterpiece
This feathered steel work of art was crafted by ABS Master Smith, Michael Vagnino. If you look closely you’ll notice that the feathering in the hilt of the knife matches the feathering of the blade when the knife is fully extended. The blade is made out of folded 1024 and 15n20 steel which is cryogenically frozen to remove some of the stresses generated by the forging process. By relieving the stresses on the grains of the steel the blade becomes more resistant to cracking and chipping. Michael finishes the knife off with checkered cocobolo panels that give the knife’s grips gorgeous grain and excellent wear resistance.
Also found in two of the photographs is a Belgian made Fabrique Nationale Herstal Browning Hi-Power. More photos are below the fold.
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One Man’s Panzerfaust 3 Sight is Another Man’s 2x Magnifier
I was looking for an decent quality general purpose monocular to keep in my hiking bag. Originally I had considered using a set of binoculars but when I was shopping around a friend paraphrased an old maxim, “Good, Cheap, Compact. Pick two.” I found some truth in his pithiness. I just couldn’t seem to find a halfway decent pair of binoculars that would be small enough to keep at hand while being of good optical quality.
Then I stumbled across this relic of the Cold War. It’s a Hendsold-Wetzlar Z28 Panzerfaust sight. It’s only 2.5x magnification but it’s a bit smaller than a Surefire G2 flashlight. Plus it’s optically fantastic, and it’s (forgive the pun) built like a tank. The only problem I have with it, is the anti-tank reticule. It busies up the optic, but according to the internet removing the focal plane the reticule resides on is an extremely easy process. Perhaps I’ll build up the nerve and remove it one of these days.
Who would have thought that a piece 1960s of hardware intended for an anti-tank rocket would be the the perfect pocket magnifier?
Great Northwest Popcorn: Tacoma’s Underground Chocolatier
Great Northwest Popcorn: It’s not just for popcorn, anymore.
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War Department Shot Glasses
WD = British, NZ = New Zealand, DD = Australia, C = Canada
As I’m sure many (I have readers?) of you have realized that I’m a bit of a geek when it comes to old military stuff. I really enjoy reading about military practices and markings from times that have come and gone; particularly European militaries. The British Empire had one of the greatest militaries of the 19th and 20th centuries. They had adopted the broad arrow as the marking for all of the property belonging to the crown but over time the mark became used mostly to denote property of the various war departments and colonial defense ministries. As many of you anglophiles might know these property marks (broad arrows) were often specialized or accompanied with letters to signify the colony that issued, or manufactured a good so it would be known who originally owned it should some property book officer be bothered to find out. They also signified that whatever good that was stamped was ready for service at the time of it’s acceptance and that it was the property of the British commonwealth and not a private individual.
By the end of the Cold War the major assets of the British Commonwealth were granted their independence and like the British Empire the use of the Broad Arrow has waned. Unfortunately I do not know what (if anything) has come to replace it in the British military but I would hazard a guess that it, like the counterpart in the United States, the Flaming Ordnance Corps Bomb has become mostly abandoned from regular use.
This abandoning of their ordnance marking has made them a perfect candidates for etching onto my set of double shot glasses. I had Kitsch Stickers make up some custom vinyl masks so I could get perfectly symmetrical broad arrows and crisp, uniform text. Of course she held up her end of the bargain and you can see for yourself how well it came out.
For more useful information about broad arrows, check out Wikipedia, and if you see any discrepancies in my post please send me an e-mail or leave a comment.
Pacific Northwest BMWCCA E30 Meet, 2009
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Chalkboard e30
Daniel from the BMW e30 car forum, R3VLimited, had a an issue with the paint on his car’s hood. Instead of taking it to be paint matched at proper autobody paint shop he comissioned the help of another friend and a bucket of chalkboard paint. Of course the results are excellent and worthy of their very own independant post from my coming E30 Picnic post.
Primered Hondas don’t have anything on this guy. Also, there is a new gallery with photographs of a PW Arms imported Yugoslavian m57 7.62×25 pistol for the folks interested in firearms.
PPSH41
In my quest to document every firerms related bit that comes through my hands I photographed the heck out of this PPSH41 bolt. This guy is on the chopping block to be sold on to some internet gun nerd for a reasonable price because it does me no good since I can’t own a fully automatic PPSH41 and it would be far too time consuming to attempt constructing a semi-PPSH41.
Firearms Galleries
Ive been sitting on a stash of relatively detailed firearms photos that I’ve taken over the past couple of months. As I edit and upload them I’ll add them to the my new “Firearms Gallery” so everyone can at least get an idea of what the guts of some guns looks like. The Album is accessible beyond this post’s more tag and under the Firearms Gallery.
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