Sears drill presses

According to yourname :

Does it also happen to include the clamp to lock the quill in an extended position? That's another thing which I have been missing from the import drill presses. That can even reduce the play in the extended quill.

Enjoy, DoN.

That brought back memories of my Grandfather's old Delta drill press. It had that clamp. I used to play with it when I was visiting my grandparents 35-40 years ago. My uncle has it now. It and the lathe were in one end of the kitchen. Talk about a tolerant woman. My Grandfather and Dad put a log end on the kitchen sink at one house and practiced for a pistol competition with BB caps. My Mom was just as tolerant. She let my Dad rebuild Gravely tractors in the living room of their first house. I used to shoot wax slugs at cockroaches with my 1851 Colt navy replica. 5 or 10 grains of black powder pushing them. Then there was the string of silver splashes across the living room ceiling from sling casting pewter jewelry in the living room. Thanks Karl

According to Karl Vorwerk :

Now, you're bringing back memories for me. :-)

In my apartment (left it in 1975) I used to use wax bullets made cookie-cutter fashion in primer only 22 Jet cartridges. It was the only way to get the roaches in some places, such as in the corner where two walls and the ceiling joined. They used to retreat to there and thumb their antennae at me.

I also used to squirt 1,1,1 Trichlor at them from a hypodermic when they retired between the bottles of photo chemicals. No way was I going to risk shooting even a wax bullet there. :-)

Now that I'm living in a private home, I don't see the roaches. In the apartment, I would get flooded by them when the neighboring apartments sprayed for bugs. (They never did the whole building in a single day.)

Enjoy, DoN.

On the Texas gulf coast, they are a fact of life. The best I found for keeping the home free of them was Fumigator by Raid. These were little tin cans of some dry chemical with insecticide, activated by dropping in a polypropylene container with about 1/2" of water in them. I'd set out about 6 of the things on plates, then go back and drop the tins in the water on a run out the door.

They smoked like the dickens and always charred the label on the tin, but didn't harm the polypropylene. That's cutting your chemistry pretty close. However, since they were not powered by some flammable propellant, I never did hear of somebody blowing up their house or apartment with them. That happened every now and then with standard bug bombs.

Pete Keillor

I grew up in the Lowcountry of South Carolina. I've used those. They work pretty well. Combat Roach Gel worked well also. Karl

Karl I have a semi-junk C&B pistol like this, never shot it, nor would I try to with regular loads. But the wax bullets sound interesting. Can you give me some detail?

Simple really. Mine was 44. cal so I punched wax slugs out of one of those paraffin slabs you get by the pound, for canning, at the grocery store. I used a 45. cal cartridge as the punch. Drill out the primer cup so you can push the slug out with a nail or dowel. To load put a small measure of powder in the chamber and push the wax slug in on top after it.set the slug with the ram. Then primers on the nipples and have fun. I adjusted the powder charge to have enough impact. So start light and work your way up. If you haven't shot a cap and ball before. Before loading the gun for the first time I always used to fire caps on empty chambers to make sure the nipples were clear of oil. I got the idea from and article on using wax slugs in revolvers for indoor shooting. They drilled out the primer pocket so it would hold a shotgun primer. The primer was the only propellant in that case. Karl

According to Rex B :

Well ... my use was with a S&W 22 Jet cartridge -- 357 magnum necked down to .22 cal. I melted the wax in a flat-bottomed tray, and let it harden. I then used empty cases (small pistol magnum primers, no powder) as cookie cutters. The wax slugs would remain in the cartridge cases, and the primer was enough to usually punch through a single layer of corrugated cardboard, but not through two.

Obviously, with a Cap and Ball relolver, you would need to do things a bit differently -- but another followup has already described that.

Enjoy, DoN.