March 6

–Well now that the balance in congress has been tipped and
everyone’s been safely bought off, sure enough Blue Cross has raised my
rates: 22% this time; total’s now $23,000/yr. I need a job. I’ll work for
nothing if I can get health coverage. All my weirdness at a bargain price.
Any takers?
–Meanwhile back at the ranch I’ve been messing with injection molding machines and a fairly complex die for TurboNut. I spent a week getting my long-malingering Simplomatic injection molding machine restored to usefulness. Then with help from my pal Rich Gibson we figured out a few kinks in the restoration and successfully purged old plastic (Nylatron, with some powdery rust!) and replaced it with what is probably Nylon. Max temp I can reach with the machine seems to be about 575 deg F which is adequate for Nylon and more than adequate for ABS, polypropylene and so on. I ordered a 95 lb bag of Nylon 6 (which was the smallest quantity I could find) from an outfit I found in a looooong google search. The Honajector mfr is long gone and Simplomatic is in a different line of work (injection molding but no more machine sales) so my previous sources of small batches of plastic have gone as well.
Anywayyyy I’m now in a position to make TurboNut parts but I’m going to sidetrack and try making parts with different materials in the die, but without the injection molder. Will report back whether successful or nay.