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[Dave]

Also, i believe that brass is less likely to bind in a screw-type joint that has to unscrewed and then re-attached.

Good point. Yes, steel can be prone to galling (stainless often has this problem) while some brass alloys are at least somewhat self-lubricating.

[Alkarii]

Lately, I'd been thinking about an odd dream I had, years ago. Definitely more than ten years ago. Oddly, the details (aside from one) I remembered of it when I woke, I haven't forgotten.

I'm in an old house, which I had never been in before. I'm in the kitchen, either facing away from the sink or with it to my right, though I think it was the former. Assuming the sink is behind me, to my left is a large open room, with stairs leading to the second floor, which is almost an attic. In front of me is a doorway to a small foyer, and against the wall just inside of the doorway is a glass cabinet, inside of which are several plates on display. To my right is a doorway.

In the dream, I feel a malevolent presence in the house, and there's one or two people in the house with me, and I remember wanting to get out of the house and as far from it as I can, as quickly as possible. I was walking through the kitchen, on my way out, when I stopped and turned, seeing the glass cabinet. I guess the term for it is China hutch. It may have been right after this that I woke.

Some time goes by, either two months or two weeks. I'm with my brother and our friend, Scott. We go to visit someone who's related to my aunts ex husband (this was shortly before they split). Everyone's hanging out in the living room, talking about who knows what. The general atmosphere is pleasant. But the whole time I'm there, I get this odd feeling about the house.

At one point, the baby drops his teething ring, and I take it to the kitchen to rinse it off. My brother, Scott, and the former relative-by-marriage come into the kitchen, and walk through to go up the stairs, indicating for me to follow them. My sense of something being wrong increases a little bit.

I turn away from the sink and look up... Right across the kitchen from me is a doorway, and on the other side of it is a small room, a bit like a foyer. Against the wall is a China hutch... With fancy looking plates in those stands that hold them up on display...

Getting a chill, I turn to my left to follow them up the stairs. All kinds of alarms are going off in my head now.

We're upstairs, and I don't remember how it came about, but they told me the house was haunted, having been used as a hospital in the Civil War. And at some point (though I still believe they were messing with me at this point), a demon had gotten into the house, and they managed to trap it in a closet in the upstairs room we were in at that moment. (Really? Behind a hollow core door, with cheap wood product paneling a few millimeters thick?)

After we left, I told my brother about my dream, and how that was the same house from my dream. I don't think it's déjà vu, because none of the events really matched. The location and the sense of dread were the same, but that was it.

I had never been there before having that dream. This still gives me the creeps, more than ten years later.

[Dave]

Time can be a funny thing...

[Alkarii]

I've heard it said that time was invented so you could tell someone what time it is.

[Sgt. Howard]

I've heard it said that time was invented so you could tell someone what time it is.

Time exists to prevent everything from happening at once

[GlytchMeister]

I've heard it said that time was invented so you could tell someone what time it is.

Time exists to prevent everything from happening at once

Unless you zoom out. Then you might see that everything IS happening all at once... Just not all in the same universe. There might be infinitely many universii out there, all different from our own.

This was the premise I used for the Wapsiholic's meeting.

[TazManiac]

The only Wendigo for me, will forever be the one that battled the Hulk, in its first apparition in the Marvel universe...

Hey!, quit stealing my lines! (And then there was the day I found a 'Shang-Chi, Master of Kung Fu', #1 blowing down the street...)

OK- Having actually read this particular page I'm just now reading Alkarii's post re: the dream from ten years ago.
I find your experience entirely plausible, having similar things happen to me over the course of these past five decades.

The Shakespeare paraphrase comes to mind re:

'There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
- Hamlet (1.5.167-8), Hamlet to Horatio ...

[chicgeek]

Alkaril, that would freak me out, too.
We know just enough to know how much we don't know.

Wendigo does seem a natural for the Wapsiverse. Remembering a bit by Ogden Nash-
"The Wendigo! The Wendigo!
I saw it just a friend ago!
Last night it was in Canada,
Tonight, on your veranada!"
Don't recall the rest.

Edit-here. https://arimckay.com/2014/10/27/the-wen ... gden-nash/

[scantrontb]

But, a lot would depend on the ferrule design.

So here's my design. Turn two separate pieces. Top piece has threaded screw (see photo) top and bottom. Top screw for knob and strap. Bottom screw for connecting top and bottom pieces. Bottom piece has threaded nut (ferrule, see brass bit in photo) on top and threaded screw on bottom. Threaded screw on bottom is for rubber foot.

And if you are wondering wtf is TLaR design....


"That looks about right."

it may be a bit more expensive, but would you be able to source a local set of connectors for Pool Cues? you know, the kind that screw together in the middle, just like the ones that all the Pool Sharks use?

[Alkarii]

Yeah... That still rates among the top five weirdest things ever to happen to me.

Also! I bought a new spotting scope. Apparently we're expecting fair weather this weekend, so I should be able to finally zero the scope.

In other news, I might be getting that job at the dealership. I had a drug test for it today. What sucks is that I may not be able to give a two week notice, but at least I can give them a week.

[Hansontoons]

it may be a bit more expensive, but would you be able to source a local set of connectors for Pool Cues? you know, the kind that screw together in the middle, just like the ones that all the Pool Sharks use?

The connectors you linked are similar to what I will use, threaded shaft making up to an imbedded nut. However, I want the connection to be able to withstand sideways bending. That's where the middle sleeve comes in. The wood ends will fit inside the sleeve for support. A pool cue connector does not experience much side loading unless used as support after too many adult beverages or if being applied up-side an opponents noggin.

What I would like is a connector that would attach to the wood shaft with a coarse thread and then to the mating piece with an overlapping self-supporting fit. I know I can design a connector, but the buddy that had the machine lathe and worked cheap is no longer able to do the work. So right now it's see if simple connector and bits from Home Depot will do the trick.

And if they don't, we try something else.

[Dave]

What I would like is a connector that would attach to the wood shaft with a coarse thread and then to the mating piece with an overlapping self-supporting fit. I know I can design a connector, but the buddy that had the machine lathe and worked cheap is no longer able to do the work. So right now it's see if simple connector and bits from Home Depot will do the trick.

Hmmm... I wonder.

A crude possibility might be to use a short piece of black iron pipe... a pipe nipple with the usual male pipe thread. Cut off a piece 3-4" long. Turn down the end of the walking-stick segment to match the outer diameter of the pipe nipple, and then turn down the last few inches a bit further so that it can just barely fit inside the pipe. Gouge the inside of the pipe and the outside of the mating section of wood a bit, clean, coat with good epoxy, slide together and allow to cure.

You now have half of the staff, ending in a segment of steel with a pipe thread.

For the other half you'd need to do the same basic trick, but with a pipe union with an inside female pipe thread. Unfortunately this would create a bulge in the middle of the staff.

I can't think of any usable mating-thread ferrule-like things, off the shelf, that would be any better for this job. We really are looking at a custom metal-turning or CNC job.

This might be within the capabilities of the equipment available at a good Maker Shop, and I suspect that there are "upload your CNC G-code file and we will machine it for you" services available that could make one-off versions within a few days.

[GlytchMeister]

A pool cue connector does not experience much side loading unless used as support after too many adult beverages or if being applied up-side an opponents noggin.

They tend to break at the connection when applied vigorously upside noggins. The mating between the metal and the wood isn't substantial enough, and the wood snaps. Too much force, too small an area, too much leverage.

If it doesn't break at the connection, it'll break closer to the skinny end. Kinda depends on the quality of the wood and the connector.

Unfortunately, if it breaks at the wood and the grain is at the right angle, the two pieces become very efficient stabby weapons.



Fortunately, enough layers of leather and tough cloth will stop all but the most vigorous stabs from a broken pool cue.

What's really fun is wearing rebar vambraces, taking a blow from a pool cue, and completely no-selling it.

Hmm... Leverage... What if you drilled a "almost too small" hole in the center of the wider top shaft, I dunno, about three inches deep, and drilled another hole at the correct width in the thinner lower shaft.
Then you take a six-inch bolt with threads along half its length and screwed it into the top shaft. The bottom shaft just slips on.
THEN you turn threads onto the outside surfaces of the shaft and make a metal sleeve that mates with both sets of threads, and epoxy it in place on the wider upper shaft. Make the sleeve six inches long as well. That way the rod and the sleeve are flush with one another.

The longer length will increase the area any stresses are spread over, and the two pieces of metal will distribute stress between each other.

[Yana Nimkova]

Rebar Vambraces? You scare me sometimes.

[GlytchMeister]

Rebar Vambraces? You scare me sometimes.

More compact than a shield, cheap to make, and I can find Rebar lying around all over the place. It's just three bits of rebar strapped to my outer forearms.

Very effective defensively, not so great offensively. It's kinda awkward trying to hit someone with your forearm.

[Dave]

Very effective defensively, not so great offensively. It's kinda awkward trying to hit someone with your forearm.

Except yourself. Be careful when saluting.

[Typeminer]

Very effective defensively, not so great offensively. It's kinda awkward trying to hit someone with your forearm.

Except yourself. Be careful when saluting.

Indeed. Could cause concussive rebarveration.

[Sgt. Howard]

Rebar Vambraces? You scare me sometimes.

SOMETIMES?!? You have no idea how often he TERRIFIES the rest of us....I guess I should talk... I'm the one with 200 pounds of high explosives on the property...

[GlytchMeister]

Rebar Vambraces? You scare me sometimes.

SOMETIMES?!? You have no idea how often he TERRIFIES the rest of us....I guess I should talk... I'm the one with 200 pounds of high explosives on the property...

But I'm the one who knows how to use resonance and constructive interference to cause a highly-localized earthquake with enough high explosives.

The same concept can theoretically be employed to crack the world in half, like an apple, if you replace "explosives" with "nukes"

I did the math once, but I'd have to redo it using the latest geological data to ever have a hope of getting it right.

[Sgt. Howard]

Rebar Vambraces? You scare me sometimes.

SOMETIMES?!? You have no idea how often he TERRIFIES the rest of us....I guess I should talk... I'm the one with 200 pounds of high explosives on the property...

But I'm the one who knows how to use resonance and constructive interference to cause a highly-localized earthquake with enough high explosives.

The same concept can theoretically be employed to crack the world in half, like an apple, if you replace "explosives" with "nukes"

I did the math once, but I'd have to redo it using the latest geological data to ever have a hope of getting it right.

THAT!!! YES, THAT!!! THAT is why he scares us!!!