Sunday, February 28, 2010

Crawling out of the shadows...

Yes, I know I've been scarce. But, I bring forth neatness;

Proof of concept: pneumatic tabletop geyser. I had the idea as a way to make a water feature to raise the humidity in the house a little, without having a funky little water pump that would die screaming when my 30% humidity air sucked it's reservoir dry. It is, quite literally, a jar, some tube, and a cut up plastic cup held together with hot glue.

I did say it was a proof-of-concept after all. Those tend to be as fugly as pictured.

And then the photo post section! Star Ultrastar 9mm.

From an unassuming box...


Star Ultrastar 9x19, in like new condition. Quite unusual Spanish (Eibar) produced pistol.


Finish is... functional.


Slightly blurry profile (I was off-handing all these, btw)


A casualty of the AWB; instead of limiting mags, they assumed the AWB would be permanent and molded ribs into the polymer frame to hold a single stack mag. This obviates ever using a larger capacity magazine, but the single-stack should be a little more reliable.


An unusual safety/decocker, flip up for safe and further for decock...


...flip down to fire. It *is* the 'ordained motion' ala JMB, but not so much at the top rear of the slide.


One pin to rule them all, held by an internal tension spring.


Pin out, to reveal a CZ style "captive" cam system.


More CZ-ness appears in the layout of the fire control group. The ejector is hinged and must be pushed down to remount the slide.


Parts appear beefy, if machined a little too quickly.


The Star Ultrastar; A perfectly strange gun for someone with a perfectly strange array of tastes.



On a parting note: see Turbulent Black Tea: The Boisterous Tea of Liberty is Never Without a Wave.

A good friend of mine is starting up a website to try and arrange conversation amongst the left, right, center, and perhaps even the (thinking quarks here) strange.