When I first opened the packing on the Go-Bowen mini bike I was impressed by the quality look of the little green monster. That first impression has taken a bit of a hit as I ran into quality control issues with the Go-Bowen mostly relating to the back wheel. (So far, that is.)
The little mini came from the factory with the chain adjusted ridiculously tight. The mini would hardly roll. I loosened axle and took a few turns off the nicely made chain adjusters and all seemed well. I drained the factory engine oil and replaced it with a high grade of store brand stuff and dumped a few ounces of fuel into the gas tank.
Starting the mini was very easy. There is a primer bulb under the carburetor and a few semi-erotic squeezes later I could see the fuel flow into the clear gas lines. A bit of choke, a few easy pulls and the mini was running like it was made to run. For only 1.4 horsepower the mini has a get-go feeling. The idle was set high so I took a few turns off the idle screw. I took a hot lap of Tinfiny’s upper reaches when the chain flew off.
This was odd because I didn’t loosen the thing all that much. I pushed it back to the shop and had a look see. Turns out the axle adjusting slots are not indexed the same and to center the rear wheel in the frame you end up with the axle cocked in the adjusters.
Once I had the chain running true I noticed the rear brake caliper wiggling alarmingly. A severely wobbling disc rotor caused that problem. The thing is like 3/16” out of true. It looks as if the flange is machined wrong or the disc itself is bent. I haven’t gone any further into the disc problem yet.
The mini rides fine once you get the chain to stay on and if the thing had any more power you’d probably flip over backwards. There is a heck of a lot of noise coming from the primary chain housing so I’ll have to look inside to see what gives.
The exhaust pipe on the Go-Bowen exits directly on the rear brake cable. I will need to rig some sort of turn out to redirect the hot gasses but for now I slipped a short piece of silicone heat shielding over the cable for protection.
It was a disappointing first run with the Go-Bowen. I will work on the disc and the noisy primary situation when I get time. Even with the issues the mini still seems like it’s worth the $299 with shipping included but you’ll need to budget a few hours going over the set up fixing shoddy assembly from the factory before any long distance travel is attempted. It’s like they built a nice mini bike then had their stupidest employees assemble the thing. More will be forthcoming after repairs when I get a chance to road test the mini in true ExhaustNotes.us fashion.
We don’t do many listicals here at ExhaustNotes.us. Editorial policy frowns on the cheap, easy list as a lazy man’s way to get attention. However, that doesn’t mean we are completely immune to the meth-like attraction of lists. The thing is, click-bait lists are nearly impossible to get right. Whatever harebrained idea you’ve thought of to generate more clicks, and hopefully shares, will be blown out of the water in the comments section by people much, much smarter than you. And that’s ok, that’s why listicals are so popular. It’s a way to piss people off and generate interest.
Number 1: ABS Brakes
I don’t know which lawyer came up with the idea, but it had to be a lawyer. Full-time Antilock Brake Systems are the single most dangerous feature on modern motorcycles. Just a month ago my buddy forgot to disarm his BMW’s antilock system after a trailside nap. (The BMW system defaults to “on” whenever you shut off the bike.) After we started riding again the trail turned steeply downhill. The steepness of the descent meant that rain washed away any fine sands and left behind large rocks and boulders. His BMW rolled and rolled. All attempts at braking were futile and so naturally he crashed. The bike was basically freewheeling down a rocky hill. At least his BMW had the option to opt out of ABS.
There’s no sicker feeling than panic stomping on the brakes and nothing happens. Any motorcycle that even slightly hints at off road capability should come with a means of disabling the ABS. For that matter practically every street bike has been known to travel a dirt road or two so really all motorcycles should come with the ability to disarm the ABS. These aren’t cars we’re talking about here. Many occasions call for a motorcycle rider to lock up the rear wheel and sometimes (like on that rocky downhill) lock up the front wheel.
Number 2: Keyless Ignitions
Those electronic key fobs are a stupid solution to a problem nobody had. What is wrong with a plain old key? You know, the kind you can have a duplicate made almost anywhere? The stupid electronic-proximity widgets are huge, like the size of a Krispy Kreme doughnut. They are bulky in your pocket and you’ve got to keep a good battery in them just to start your bike! God help you if you ever lose the thing. It will require a dealer’s services and several hundred dollars to program your new Kreme.
Most times I’ve ridden a bike that came with a clunky electronic key fob I ended up leaving the thing in the saddlebag or hidden on the bike somewhere. This defeats the purpose of having any sort of lock on your motorcycle at all but I’d rather have the bike stolen than carry that stupid key fob. I suspect the real reason for the electronic key fob is to allow constant surveillance at the factory level. Didn’t make that latest payment? No problem we’ll disable your ride until you cough up the cash, Highway Rebel!
Number 3: Helmet Communicators
These silly devices allow passenger to operator conversation or communication between groups of riders. Precisely the thing you’re trying to get away from when you ride a motorcycle. Look, if I want to know what you’re thinking, which I don’t, I’ll wave you to a stop and we will discuss it hand to hand. The advertisements for these Zen-terrupters tout range and clarity as if those are aspirational goals. I might buy a set if the manufacturer promised me the damn things would never work.
Some of you find pleasure in the constant road-chatter. Not me, I want you to keep your thoughts to yourself and I’ll do the same. Some of you think that communication devices are a good way to warn back markers about road conditions. That assumes anyone will actually believe you after that last bone-headed move you pulled leaving the Waffle House. Then I’m told they are good for keeping the group together so that stragglers won’t get lost. Has it ever occurred to these pro-communication, Chatty Cathy’s that the stragglers want to get lost? That maybe they are sick of your yapping about fence posts, tar snakes and how you want everyone to stop because you have to pee. Aren’t you old enough to go to the bathroom alone?
Some of my most memorable group-ride dinnertime discussions have been a result of the group breaking up, missing turns, getting lost and arriving at the restaurant with wild stories to tell. That won’t happen if everyone has had the exact same experience. “Did you see the size of that buck?” is met with a flat-toned chorus, “Yes, we all heard over the radio and saw the buck.” rather than “No, but the hitch hikers we picked up when we made that wrong turn robbed us at gunpoint and then Phil ran off with the redhead.” Remember, the best part of riding in a group is being alone.
Number 4: Entertainment Systems
This includes stupid Bluetooth, interconnecting phone features, stupid music systems and stupid, play-pretty graphics that distract a motorcyclist from the main job at hand: staying alive. Riding a motorcycle is dangerous enough without the rider fiddling around with the dash display on his motorcycle. Engine RPM and velocity, along with distance traveled is all the data you need to correctly operate a motorcycle. Page after page of bright, TFT-BS will only make you worry about the minor fluctuations any mechanical device goes through in the normal prosecution of its job.
No one ever cared about their tire pressures until those TPS systems polluted the instrument panels of America. Now it’s like everyone is running Moto GP and 1 psi really matters. Stop it! And if your idea of a fun motorcycle ride is playing with the stereo and poking your thumb at 45 different handlebar buttons maybe you should quit changing the display settings and just stay at home with your younger brother’s Nintendo. The one your parents made him put down in the basement so the noise won’t bother your mom’s overly sensitive ears. Doesn’t it seem like the older she gets the more sound annoys her?
Number 5: One-Piece Riding Suits on the Street
I know some riders swear by one-piece suits but don’t take their opinion on the subject, take mine. I had a one-piece leather suit 43 years ago and the trauma from that experience still haunts me. Many a night I wake up in a cold sweat having to use the restroom but mentally stuck inside a one-piece suit. I can see road racers wearing one piece suits for the extra protection they afford during high-speed get-offs. If you’re riding your street bike anything like a Moto GP star you should probably not be riding on the street. Sure, they look great in website road test photos but those guys are only riding the bike for 15 minutes at a time. As soon as the camera stops clicking they peel that crap off toot-sweet.
For normal, everyday riding a one-piece suit is incredibly inconvenient. There are only a few things more disgusting than using a filthy, urine-soaked gas station toilet and one of them is using a filthy, urine-soaked gas station toilet while wearing a one-piece riding suit. Once you wiggle out of the top and drop your drawers you’ll soon realize that there is not enough space between the lip of the toilet and the urine-soaked floor for all that material. It’s like trying to corral your parachute in France after you’ve landed behind enemy lines on June 6th, 1944. Ok, I have no idea what that’s really like but you kind of sit there holding the bag: Practice hovering if you simply must mimic Marc Marquez on your Honda Blah.
I have more stupid motorcycle things, many more, but 5 is a good number to stop at. I mean, I may have to test some of these stupid motorcycle ideas and I don’t want to use up all my outrage in one story.
The Star story just keeps getting better. I not only picked up the reloader for free…I also got a free Hulme case feed mechanism. I didn’t realize what I had until I started learning more about these marvelous old machines.
You may remember that we posted a blog a month or so ago about the Los Angeles Sheriffs Department Pistol Team. It was a cool old video (it was from the 1930s), but I didn’t realize just how cool it was until I spoke with my buddy Paul about the Star reloader I’m resurrecting. Paul mentioned that the LASD video had a segment about reloading .38 Special ammo, and as soon as he said it, I remembered the scene. You’re certainly welcome to watch the entire video again, but my advice would be to jump to the 13:57 mark to see the Star reloader in action:
Man, those guys are busy, I thought as I watched them reloading .38 Special ammo in the video above. It’s almost as if you need three hands (or two people) to operate the Star. For every cycle, you need to:
Insert a case in the shell plate.
Insert a bullet in the case that’s just been charged with powder.
Pull the main lever down.
Pull the main lever up.
Index the shell plate one position counterclockwise.
Then I realized: The guys in that video above were placing the empty .38 Special cases directly into the shell plate. My Star doesn’t work that way. It has a case feed mechanism. Instead of inserting the empty case directly into the shell plate, you insert the case into the case feed mechanism. Why do that, I wondered, when you can insert the case directly into the shell plate?
Then it hit me: My Star had the optional Hulme case feeder. It was missing a couple of parts (the empty case magazine and the support for that magazine), but those parts would be easy to replace or make myself. That way, I wouldn’t have to insert an empty case into the Star every time I pulled the lever. I could just load up 25 or 30 cases at a time, and the Hulme case feed mechanism would take care of the rest. That would simplify the number of actions I’d have to do each cycle. Woo hoo!
Here’s another YouTube I found that explains how the Hulme case feed mechanism works.
It’s all very clever. I started this part of the Star resurrection by cleaning up the Hulme case feed mechanism on my press.
Here’s what it looked like before I disassembled it for a more thorough cleaning. Notice the rusty cam angle at the top of the photo below.
Here’s another photo of the rusty cam. It’s the piece that drives the Hulme case feeder to the rear when the tool head is lowered (which occurs when the main lever is pulled down).
The Hulme case feed mechanism attaches to the Star base with a single Allen bolt. Stars originally did not have that hole in the base, but the Hulme case feed mechanism was such a popular option that Star included a drilled and tapped hole (for the Hulme device) on all their presses sometime around 1959. I learned this from good buddy Bruce at Star Machine Works in New Jersey.
I removed it and then cleaned the case feed mechanism with Kroil, WD 40, and Scotchbrite.
Then I went to work on the cam and its mounting bracket with Kroil and Scotchbrite. After that, I remounted the Hulme case feed mechanism. Here’s what the case feed mechanism looks like in operation:
So, I had the case feed mechanism cleaned and it was operational. But I still needed to feed in a single case every cycle. I didn’t want that; I wanted the cases to feed automatically. It was time to channel my inner Bubba. All I needed was a tube in which to stack empty .38 Special cases above the case feeder, and a means to secure that tube. Hulme originally offered the componentry to do that, and my good buddy Bruce at Star Machine Works (the company that restores these magnificent old reloaders) offers the parts, but I hadn’t spent anything on my Star, and I wanted to keep it that way just for the sake of living up to my cheap SOB reputation. I wondered: WWJGD (what would Joe Gresh do)? I noodled a few ideas around, and then went to the closet for a coat hanger. I already had a clear plastic tube from one of my Lee reloading presses.
Like we say in French: Voilà!
The Star and its Hulme case feed mechanism works, and it works well. Take a look!
We’re getting pretty close to being done with the Star resurrection project, but there are still a few more things I want to show you. Stay tuned; you’ll see them right here on the ExNotes blog!
The next steps in bringing the Star progressive reloader back to life focused on the primer feed mechanism. That subsystem consists of the primer follower rod (the upper red arrow in the photo below), the primer magazine (the middle arrow in the photo below), the primer pickup and feed mechanism (the lower red arrow in the photo below), and the primer seating device (which is under the base of the reloader, as you’ll see further along in this blog).
In looking at the primer feed mechanism, the primer magazine , and the primer follower rod, I could see they were mighty funky and thoroughly oxidized. I wondered if they were all made of brass. The tip of the primer follower rod obviously was (see the photo below), and probably the feed mechanism base was, but the magazine tube and other parts were so corroded I couldn’t tell.
Then I realized I had another question. See the spring in the photo below? That one through me for a loop. I couldn’t see that it served any function, and all the online references I found for Star reloaders did not show it. So I sent an email to my good buddy Bruce over at Star Machine Works (the outfit that restores and sells parts for Star equipment).
Bruce responded quickly. Here’s what he told me:
Hi Joe,
The spring is a hitch hiker on your machine. Nothing to do with a Star.
Bruce
A hitch hiker. That got a laugh.
The primer pickup and feed mechanism (shown below) is what takes primers from the primer magazine and pushes them below the empty case. That L-shaped lever on the right? It’s the primer slide angle lever (shown by the lower arrow). It’s actuated when the primer feed cam (shown by the middle arrow) descends as the tool head is lowered on each stroke. The lever in turn actuates the primer slide in the feed mechanism (shown by the lower arrow), and that’s what picks up a primer from the magazine and positions it underneath the empty case.
With the primer now in position beneath a .38 Special case, it needs a way to be inserted into the case. The Star has a clever way of doing this that takes advantage of the fact that there’s a shaft in the tool head that descends with the tool head when the main lever is pulled. When the main lever is actuated and the tool head descends, the shaft fits through a hole in the shell plate and extends into the base of the reloader. The tip of the shaft pushes one end of a pivoted lever down, and that then pushes the other end of the lever up. That end actuates a plunger that seats the primer into the empty case. Here’s what the lever looks like underneath the reloader.
Like I said, it’s all quite clever. The guy that designed the Star was a mechanical genius.
Here’s a photo of the primer follower rod. It sits on top of a stack of primers in the primer magazine. Its weight pushes the primers down each time one is transferred from the primer magazine by the primer slide.
The knurled knob below allows you to grasp the primer magazine to remove the tube from the primer feed mechanism. It doesn’t unscrew; it’s just a tight slip fit into the feed mechanism.
When I removed the primer magazine, I could see that the tube was made of brass. There were still a couple of primers in it. I doubt they would fire; they were probably soaked in oil.
When I removed the primer slide angle lever screw, the primer slide was pushed out by its spring. As I was disassembling the primer feed mechanism, I found that the primer slide still held a primer. These parts were pretty funky. In a working reloader, you don’t want any oil in this area. It will contaminate the primers and make them inert (we only want “ert” primers when reloading ammo).
Check out the funk on the primer slide angle lever. This machine had been rode hard and put away wet, I think. My spraying it down with WD 40 to clean didn’t help in that regard. But it sure helped to clean up the Star.
I then unscrewed the two screws holding the primer magazine socket to the primer feed mechanism housing. Here are the parts in all their glorious funkiness.
The primer feed mechanism base is attached to the steel floor base with two large Allen bolts.
I removed the Allen bolts and then took the primer feed mechanism base off the machine. It had two pins to locate it on the Star reloader’s base.
Here’s another exploded view photo of the primer feed mechanism and its components.
The photo below shows the reloader’s steel base and where the primer feed mechanism attaches. The upper two arrows point to the Allen bolt attach points. The lower two arrows point to the locating holes (this is where the two pins mentioned above fit). The arrow in the middle points to the hole for the primer slide spring. The rectangular slot is where the primer slide enters the reloader base to position a new primer beneath a .38 Special case.
The steel base is a blued steel part. It’s just like the bluing on a gun. This is a pretty cool feature. There’s a fair amount of corrosion and discoloration on my Star, but it’s part of the machine’s charm. I hit it with some OOOO steel wool and Kroil, but I’m not going to reblue it. I like its patina.
I next turned my attention to the primer magazine (the long tube I pointed out earlier). When I withdrew the primer magazine from its slot, I could see the lower end of the tube was brass, but I still wasn’t sure about the entire tube. I went to work on the tube with Scotchbrite and that did the trick. Hello, Beautiful!
I worked on all of the primer feed mechanism’s brass pieces with Scotchbrite. The brass finish came up nicely. This project is coming together fabulously well.
After cleaning and polishing everything, I reassembled it all. I could have polished everything to a mirror finish, but you know the drill: This is a resurrection, not a restoration. Like I said above, I like the patina look. This machine might be older than me, and I sure don’t look like new. We match, the Star and I do. Old. Funky. The ultimate in personalized patina. That’s us.
In the photo below, you can see the primer cam to the right of the brass magazine tube. It’s the part that actuates the primer angle lever. You’ll get to see it all in a short video in just a minute. People like videos, Gresh tells me. We aim to please.
It’s beautiful, isn’t it?
So how does it all work? Gloriously well, thank you. Take a look:
Next up? It’s going to be the case feed mechanism, and that will be the topic for our next Star blog.
I’ll share with you that the blogging part of this Star resurrection business is lagging behind the actual resurrection. Yep, I actually have the Star running already, and it’s running well. You’ll see how I got there in future blogs, and those blogs will be right here in the not too distant future. But I don’t mind jumping ahead a tiny bit to tell you that I picked up my Model 60 Smith and Wesson yesterday morning and I fired the first few rounds I made on the Star through it. They worked just like they were supposed to, as did the Model 60. That’s a story for a future blog.
You probably remember good buddy Arthur Benjamins’ guest post on the Smith and Wesson Model 29. Arthur is an artist who recently created a beautiful painting highlighting the iconic 1911 .45 auto (a frequent topic here on ExNotes). He volunteered to do a guest column for the blog and we were quick to say yes. Enjoy, my friends.
Looks That Could Kill
The lady’s expression was thoughtful and disapproving. She stood arms crossed with a stance that parents would adopt with their young child who hadn’t properly screwed back the top on the peanut butter jar. If my junior school teacher had given me that same glare, I would have been guilty of shouting out the correct answer before raising my hand.
The subject of the lady’s gaze was my latest painting on show at the Arizona Fine Art Expo – my image graphically depicted of one of the USA’s legendary man made objects. 2.5 lbs of steel which could fit inside a coat pocket – The famous Colt .45 Automatic Pistol.
When Colt started production in 1911, no one would have guessed the impact it would have on the USA and the industrial world. It would be further immortalized in films, songs, books – and like the AR15, it would find its way into history and folklore. This was no ephemeral object. From an engineering point of view, the venerable Colt .45 pistol is a true work of art, and of the 2.7 million produced from 1911 onwards, all wartime specimens now command premium prices.
A Legend Comes to Life Again
One of the other artists offered to bring in his own for reference details, and the following morning he thrust a mint condition 1911 in a small cardboard box into my thirsty hands.
Thanking the good Lord for the USA’s freedom and Second Amendment, the mere possession of this object would have automatically produced a 5-year custodial sentence in the UK – a once-proud country in which I had lived for four decades and where I had sadly experienced firsthand the contrived and rapid deterioration of the firearms law and the victimization of the British shooting sports members.
However, I wanted to depict this highly developed, three-dimensional jigsaw puzzle and convey its iconic status. The voice of action imagery contributes highly towards a visual impact, but that was not what I was looking for. I chose a harmonious and nestling triumvirate in red, white and blue along with similarly hued starred and swirling banners on a field of noble silver.
The great Andy Warhol would have smiled enigmatically at my painting, and have said something cryptic to me. He would have used three individual images himself and have colored them similarly but my own selective abstraction had steered me away from his own repetitious trademark productions.
However, I gladly accepted his spiritual input which he would have welcomed as it was not widely known that as his own portfolio grew, he was forever running out of ideas, turning to others for renewed inspiration.
Beautiful Memories
At the Expo, it was amazing just how many viewers lamented having gotten rid of their beloved Colt .45 many years ago or wished they had owned one in a time when were considered as surplus and you could barely give them away. I encountered several moist eyes and stories of proud ownership. I was one of those myself years ago, but the UK handgun legislation in 1997 ended all that.
One of the Vietnam vets at the Expo’s American Healing Arts Foundation openly carried a customized 1911 on his hip. It remains one of the ‘carry’ favorites for a great many Americans who refuse to accept anything else.
Feeling I really needed to give the lady more input, I gently approached and said that the last ten years had seen a great upswing of women who had taken up the shooting sport to become proud and responsible gun owners.
“Mm-mm,” she mused, giving me a difficult look. Her brow had furrowed when she returned to the painting. She looked back at me, “We have friends,” she spat, “And THEY have a gun!” With that, she turned on her heels and disappeared from view.
“Only ONE?” I smiled, and with that I straightened Nineteen Eleven on my easel, adjusted the label and awaited further memories from discerning visitors.
You just can’t win ‘m all.
Title: “NINETEEN ELEVEN”
Size: 29” x 32” x 2”
Medium: Acrylic paint on wood.
Value: $5950
I’m going at the Star resurrection slowly, methodically, and piecemeal. I suppose I could completely disassemble the thing, clean, degrease, and polish all the bits and pieces, and then reassemble it all. But I’m a little bit scared I might not remember how it all goes back together, and I don’t want to spread everything out and make my workbench unusable during this resurrection. Nope, slow and easy is the path forward for me. I’m doing it one bite at a time and I am enjoying the meal.
The Star Powder Dispenser
The first bite is the powder dispenser. It’s the deal that automatically dispenses the right amount of propellant each time the Star’s lever is pulled. It consists of a powder hopper subassembly (the upper arrow) and the dispensing mechanism (the lower arrow), as you see in the photo below.
Here’s another photo of the dispensing mechanism. It mounts to the Star’s upper plate (Star calls this upper plate the tool head).
Powder Dispenser Disassembly
Here’s the bottom of the powder hopper. It’s brass and it mounts by threading into the powder dispensing subassembly. The silo that holds the powder is plastic, and I think when it was new the plastic was probably clear. It’s occluded with age. That’s okay. So have I.
This is the powder dispensing mechanism with the powder hopper removed.
Looking inside the powder dispensing mechanism, there were still a few grains of powder left inside from the last time this reloading equipment was used. I’m guessing that was quite a while ago. My Nikon camera and Sigma macro lens do a wonderful job for this kind of photography.
Incidentally, speaking of the last time this device was used…several of our readers suggested that the number etched onto the Star reloader’s base was a social security number. Before identity theft became the problem it is today, it was common for folks to etch their social security number on things to prevent theft. One of our blog readers located the man whose social security number was located on this Star reloader. That owner was born in 1926 and died in 2009. To my surprise, there’s a social security death index where you can find this information. Who knew?
Back to the job at hand: The powder dispensing mechanism is secured to the tool head with two slotted screws. I had applied a bit of Kroil to these screws a day earlier and they unscrewed easily. Kroil is good stuff.
With the two screws removed, the photo below shows what the powder dispenser mechanism looked like. There’s a lower housing, an upper cover, a spring, the two attach screws, and the powder slide. It was all pretty funky when I disassembled it, but I took care of that.
The powder slide is what actually meters (determines the amount) of powder dropped into each cartridge. When the tool head is up (before you actuate the lever), powder drops into a cavity in the slide. When the tool head is lowered (when you actuate the lever), the powder slide is pushed to the left, the cavity containing the powder moves over the powder spout, and the powder drops through the spout into the cartridge case.
Cleaning Things Up
The tube sticking up through the tool head in the photo below is the powder spout. It’s what the left arrow points to. The right arrow points to the bullet seating and crimping die. There was a lot of crud on the die.
The spout was funky, so I ran a patch through it with a cleaning rod.
The bullet seating and crimping die is the last of the three reloading dies. It was super funky. It’s the die that seat the bullet and crimps the cartridge case.
Here’s the “after” photo. I went to work on the die with WD 40 and a toothbrush.
This is the powder dispenser lower housing. It’s funky, too, but just wait.
The photo below shows the powder slide, and it says exactly what I hoped it would say. Note the “BE” on the upper tine, and the “2.7 GR” on the lower tine. That means this powder slide is designed to throw 2.7 grains of Bullseye powder, and that’s a good thing. That powder and that charge, along with a 148-grain lead wadcutter bullet, is the accuracy load in .38 Special. I got lucky; this is exactly what I wanted to see. Note the two rollers between the tines. I’ll explain what they do a little further along in this blog. And yeah, I know, this is another funky piece. But wait; you’ll see.
More funkiness…the powder dispensing mechanism cover.
Here’s another shot of the powder slide and its spring. This is the “before” picture. And that hole in the center? It’s the feature that determines how much powder goes into each cartridge. If you want a different charge on a Star reloader, you need to buy a different power slide. Like I said, I got lucky. This one was set up for 2.7 grains of Bullseye. It’s just what I wanted.
I wiped the powder slide off and, being that it was brass, I wanted to get rid of all the oxidation and then polish it. I was thinking it would be cool if I had some Brasso, but since I’m no longer in the Army I don’t have any. Then I remembered: I have Dillon Rapid Polish brass polish that I use with my Franklin Arsenal brass tumbler, and it does the same thing. I put a little on a rag and used it to polish the powder slide.
Here’s another shot (the “after” photo) of the powder slide.
Note the rollers on the left end of the powder slide. This thing is like a Ducati: It has desmodromic valve actuation. I’ll explain that a little bit further down.
Next up would be the powder dispenser mounting screws. I went to work on them with a Scotchbrite pad and they cleaned up nicely.
Here’s the powder dispenser base and the powder on the tool head.
And here’s the powder dispenser cover, the spring, and the mounting screws reassembled. I used a Scotchbrite pad to clean up the powder dispenser housing and powder dispenser cover, too. They look good.
And finally, here’s the powder hopper reinstalled on the powder dispenser.
Desmo Dispenser Actuation
You might be wondering how the powder dispenser works. It’s really quite clever. When the Star reloader lever is actuated, the tool head moves up and down on the main shaft, bringing the powder dispenser with it. As that occurs, the powder slide translates back and forth as it moves along the curved cam you see in the photo below.
Remember those two rollers in the powder slide?
They follow the vertical cam path shown two photos up. The inner roller rolls along the cam as the tool head moves down, and the outer roller rolls along the cam as the tool head is returned to the up position. This is desmodromic actuation, just like Ducati uses on the their motorcycle intake and exhaust valves. They’re driven open by a cam, and they’re driven closed by a cam. Star could have just used pins instead of rollers, but they went with rollers (a more expensive and more reliable approach, I think). When the tool head moves down, the powder slide takes 2.7 grains of Bullseye powder, shifts it over the powder spout, and gravity does the rest. Take a look.
This is all very cool stuff, and if you get the feeling I’m having a good time bringing the Star back to life, you’re a very perceptive person. If you’re just tuning in to this adventure and you want to see our earlier blogs on the Star reloader resurrection, you can find them here.
Next up? That’s going to be the primer feed mechanism. Stay tuned!
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As a first step in bringing the Star progressive reloader back to life, I washed it down with WD 40 and squirted some Kroil penetrating oil on it, but before I did that, I shot a few photos with my Nikon and its macro Sigma lens. These are better photos than the ones in the previous blog shot with my cell phone. With apologies in advance for this bit of redundancy, I’ll start with the “before” photos.
The Star Reloading Machine
Here’s the Star label. They were originally manufactured in San Diego. I didn’t know that.
Star Reloader Parts and Subassemblies
This is a side view of the Star showing the powder container and the powder dispensing mechanism. There’s a lot of dust and dirt on the Star. No rat poop like Gresh’s MGB GT, thankfully.
This is the base plate. It still has several cartridge cases in the baseplate shell holder.
Here’s another “before” photo of the base plate. The doodad on the left is the case feed mechanism. The mechanism on the right is the primer feed.
This is the decapping and resizing die. It’s a bit rusty. I’m thinking it’s probably a carbide die, which means the cases don’t have to be lubed for the resizing operation.
The photo above is a macro “before” shot of the powder dispensing mechanism.
The photo below is a “before” shot of the head of the reloader. It’s the piece that reciprocates up and down with each manual lever stroke.
A shot from the top of the reloader, showing the top of one of the reloading dies.
Cleaning the Star Reloader
Moving on to the cleaning operation, these are the things I’m using initially: WD 40, Kroil (a penetrating oil), a toothbrush, and an oily rag. This is the initial cleaning just to see what’s going on. A deeper scrub of each subassembly will follow in subsequent blogs.
I gave the entire press a spritz with WD 40.
Here’s a better photo of the original Star decal. I’m not going to do a full-blown concours style restoration of the Star and I don’t want to bring the reloader back to as new condition. I like the patina and my intent is to get it working again, displaying the aging that has naturally occurred on an old piece of equipment like this. It’s a resurrection, not a restoration.
The bottom of the press is starting to look better already.
The powder container unscrews from the powder dispensing mechanism.
Here’s a photo of the powder container’s aluminum lid.
Here’s one of the lid’s underside. Note the breather hole. There won’t be any vapor lock on this puppy.
This is the powder dispensing mechanism after the powder container has been removed.
I have a new good buddy named Bruce Williams who restores and sells parts for these vintage Star reloading machines, and I asked him if he could tell me the date this Star reloader was manufactured based on the serial number I found etched into the machine’s base (see the photo below).
Bruce explained that Star never put a serial number on their reloaders, but many police departments, schools, commercial reloaders, clubs, and other organizations who owned Star reloaders applied a property tag number. I wonder who this machine belonged to. It has a history and I’d sure love to know it.
The .38 Special
As I was cleaning the Star, I found I could rotate the shell plate into position so that I could remove one of the several cartridge cases it held. The shell plate rotation is sticky, but I’ll clear that up when I do a detailed cleaning of the shell plate area (a topic for another blog, to be sure). The case was a .38 Special, which told me that’s what this machine had been set up to reload. That’s good. I shoot .38 Special ammo in a couple of guns.
Before 9mm handguns became the rage in the 1980s, the .38 Special revolver was used by most police agencies and pistol competitors. As you can imagine, a lot of departments, schools, and clubs went through a bunch of .38 Special ammo back in the day. In those days, the .38 Special was probably second only to the .22 Long Rifle cartridge in terms of quantity sold, and the .38 Special used to be the most commonly reloaded cartridge in the world. It’s been eclipsed by the 9mm, but it’s still a great cartridge and there are still a lot of folks shooting .38 Special. I’m one of them.
The Model 60 Smith and Wesson
As I explained in our first blog on the Star, a friend of mine gave it to me when I started the Peoples Republik of Kalifornia transfer process for a snubnosed .38 Special revolver I recently scored (I got a killer deal). It’s a stainless steel Model 60 Smith and Wesson Chief’s Special, and it’s a honey. We’ll have a blog on the Model 60 sometime in the near future, and if all goes well, I’ll use reloaded .38 Special ammunition crafted on the resurrected Star.
The Powder Dispenser
The Star’s powder dispenser looked pretty funky, and I could see it still held a few grains of powder when I peeked into the cavity that throws the charge. I applied a few drops of Kroil to the screw heads so it could soak in overnight. The powder dispenser will be one of the first subassemblies I disassemble and clean. Kroil is a penetrating oil; it will creep into the threads so that the screws can be removed without burring the slots. The powder dispenser will be the topic for our next Star blog.
I didn’t recognize what this was (in the photo below) when I first saw it, and it was thoroughly coated in crud. Then I realized…it’s the bullet seating and crimping die. I’ll explain more about this in a subsequent blog, too.
Here’s a close look at the brass slider in the powder dispenser. It’s marked “2.7 GR.” I’m hoping that’s for 2.7 brains of Bullseye propellant, which is the go to accuracy load (along with a 148 grain wadcutter bullet) in the .38 Special cartridge. I’ll learn more when I disassemble the powder dispenser. I’m itching to get into it.
Here’s one last look at the powder dispenser, with the powder chamber mounted above it. In the next blog, I’ll explain how this subassembly works to dispense powder.
That’s it for now, my friends. More to follow, so stay tuned.
You can follow the entire Star progressive reloader story on our Resurrections page.
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I keep hearing a complaints about Globalism. People are talking. Some folks don’t like the idea of making the world’s population one homogenous group of consumer/aphids to be milked by evil corporations. I get that and it bothers me that a mini bike that cost $250 dollars in 1970 now costs only $44 adjusted for dollar devaluation. That’s right, this Fit Right Chinese-built mini bike costs less in real dollars than a really long, long-distance telephone call did in 1970.
In some ways that old 1970 mini bike was better. It had a couple more horses than the DB003’s 1 horsepower. It was made in the USA, which helped support local businesses. I think the fit and finish on the Fit Right DB003 is at least as good or better than an average vintage mini, maybe not as good as a Rupp but then nothing was as good as a Rupp. As far as reliability goes, those flathead, loop framed, scrub-braked minis were not a vehicle you could ever assume you’d get back home on. Time will tell if the Fit Right holds up.
I’m in the middle of a back porch remodel so I only have time to do a short review on what I’ve found unboxing the Fit Right. A more thorough road test and video will be forthcoming.
The Fit Right DB003 comes fairly well packed in bubble wrap and then molded Styrofoam all stuffed inside a heavy cardboard box. The cardboard is thick and strong, it’s too good to throw away. I’ll be using it for a working pad to cover the dirt and ants while tinkering under the MBG-GT. Even though the mini was packaged well a ragged hole was punched into the side and parts were rattling around.
Once out of the packaging the Fit Right mini comes fully assembled except for the handlebars. It only took a few minutes to install the bars after a few hours searching for a 10mm socket. The bars are held on by four bolts/nuts and one of the nuts had gone missing. It probably fell out of the hole. Luckily I had a spare 8mm locknut left over from a roof rack installation.
The fit and finish on this $299 (shipping included!) Fit Right mini bike are pretty good. The graphics on the plastic gas tank cover are molded in so you won’t have any cheap, stick-on labels peeling off. The real gas tank under the plastic is made of steel. One odd thing is that there are no steering stops: the forks bang into the gas tank at full lock. This mini bike is smaller than usual; I’ll need to rig some bar-risers to clear my knees.
The Fit Right Model 139F, 40cc, overhead valve engine is jewel-like. Its castings look smooth and there is no rough mold flashing at the edges. The frame is fairly complex design with a lot of tubes and angles that don’t seem to make any sense. I suspect the stylists threw a couple extra pipes in the mix to make the mini look cool. Welds are pretty good, much better than I can do. The Fit Right even has folding foot pegs, a rare feature on the old mini bikes.
Unusual for such an economy mini motorcycle the Fit Right came with a flimsy but usable tool kit, something lacking on a $40,000 Harley-Davidson. For $299 you can’t expect Japanese-level quality, however I’m satisfied with the DB003’s presentation and the easy assumption of owner-provided care.
There are some interesting things on this bike that I need to look into later. For instance the fuel tank has a return line and a feed line but no fuel shut off. The engine has a fuel pump because in stationary-engine uses the fuel tank mounts below the carburetor. The carb itself is odd looking. It may be a diaphragm type carb like on a chain saw. The drive train is double reduction and I’ve just got to know what is under the nifty cast aluminum primary cover. The rear brake is a mechanical disc, which is a huge improvement over the old-fashioned scrub brake that simply rubbed on the tire. I don’t like that the hot exhaust exits directly onto the brake cable. I need to turn the exhaust tip more downwards.
The Fit Right DB003 is quite a bit more sophisticated than your traditional double-loop mini of days gone by. Whether this added sophistication equates to better performance remains to be seen. As soon as I get time I’ll get the mini running and ExhaustNotes.us will have performance numbers and a riding impression.
Sometimes you just get lucky. That’s what happened to me. I’m buying a used snubnosed .38 Special (there will be a blog on it in a few weeks), and I used a different federal firearms license dealer for the transfer (I always buy through an FFL dealer to keep things legal). The seller had an FFL dealer he wanted to use, and much to my surprise it happened to be one of the rangemasters at the West End Gun Club (a guy I already knew). We all had a nice visit, and while I was there, I was looking around the shop and my eye turned to an old progressive reloader. I love old stuff, and if you’re reading this, you probably do, too.
Now when I say progressive, I don’t mean the reloader leans left or votes democrat. Nope, progressive in the reloading world means each pull of the lever results in a finished round coming off the machine. With each stroke, a cartridge case is resized and deprimed, another is flared, another is charged with powder, another has a bullet seated in the brass case and crimped, and a new one is spit out. Then, on the lever upstroke, the base plate rotates (it progresses, hence the name), and the sequence continues. The output on a progressive is impressive. You can reload north of 500 rounds an hour on these things.
This particular progressive is one of the first ones and it was made by a company called the Star Machine Works. They first came out in the 1930s. I don’t know exactly when mine was made, but it had my attention this morning and I guess that was obvious. My rangemaster buddy told I could take it home with me if I wanted.
“How much?” I asked. I think he could see that the hook was already set. I wanted it. And I guess it showed.
“You could take it home with you.”
“I think I will,” I said, “but tell me how much.”
“No,” he said, “you can take it home. It’s yours.”
You can’t beat a deal like that. The pictures you see here are of my new-to-me (but probably older than me) Star progressive reloader on my reloading bench. It’s going to go through a Joe Gresh-style resurrection, and we’ll tell the story here on ExNotes. There won’t be any cosmetics (I love the patina on this thing), and I want to keep the look as you see it here. The Star will only undergo the stuff that’s needed to make it functional. And you’ll be able to follow the Star’s resurrection here on the blog.
This Star is set up for .38 Special and .357 Magnum (both cartridges take the same dies), and there are still a few cases in the machine from who knows when. You can see how they index into the plate, and it’s that plate that advances with each stroke of the lever.
The photo above shows the case feeding mechanism. I haven’t attempted to clean it up or actuate the press yet. What you see is exactly how it came home with me.
The big tube behind the lever and head is the powder container, and the narrow tube to the right is (I think) the primer dispenser.
I’ll start cleaning the Star this week, and once I’ve got it cleaned and lubed I’ll do my best to understand how it operates. I’m not nearly as mechanically talented as Joe Gresh, so this resurrection will probably take a while. But I’m going to enjoy the ride, and I think you will, too. Like we always say: Stay tuned.
Boy oh boy, we’ve got cool stuff to link to, like our Resurrections page and our Tales of the Gun page. And hey, if you don’t want to miss any of it, be sure to subscribe to the ExNotes blog. We’re running a special this month, and if you sign up now, it’s free!
About 10 years ago, maybe more, I had a gig in Houston to teach an FMEA course to a consulting company. This particular consulting outfit had a contract to teach Failure Modes and Effects Analysis to their customer, and they had taken the assignment without knowing anything about the topic. It happens more often than you might imagine. It was no big deal for me as I’d been teaching FMEA for years, I had a class ready to go, and I was in and out in a couple of days. There was a nice paycheck at the end, and it was all easy peasy.
While I was in Houston, I found a local gunstore. I stopped in to check out what they had. I do that pretty much every place I go and I’ve been doing it for nearly 50 years. You never know what you’re going to find. The Houston gunstore was a disappointment (like most have been in the last 20 years) because all they offered (rifles, handguns, and shotguns) were these black plastic abominations. Like the cannibals say, there’s no accounting for some people’s taste.
Anyway, the Houston gunshop had a junkbox/discount container holding all the gunshop detritus they were blowing out. You’ve seen that sort of bargain bin before, I’m sure…things that are one step away from the dumpster. In that box was a beat-up old Leupold 4X scope that was so severely worn there was almost no anodizing left, the lenses at both ends were scratched and chipped, and there were dents and dings along the scope’s length.
But, it was a Leupold. In the scope world, that’s as good as it gets. Leupold scopes are the best. I bought that scope for $20, figuring maybe I’d use it if Bass Pro ever ran another scope sale where they give you $40 on any trade-in scope. They used to run sales like that, and I’ve used decrepit scopes as trading fodder, but my trade-ins were always cheapie scopes that had failed and didn’t cost much more than $40 when new. That wasn’t the main reason I pulled the trigger, though. That scope was a Leupold. Even though it was trashed, it was still a Leupold.
The hoped-for future scope sale at Bass Pro never materialized (I guess they learned their lesson from guys like me on past sales). The Leupold went under a shelf on my reloading bench and I kept it for when I had to mount scopes with twist-in rings, figuring the clapped-out old Leupold 4X was good for that kind of abuse. With all the damage on the lenses you couldn’t hardly see through the thing. It became my scope mount installation assembly aid. Now it was in my junkpile instead of the one at that gunstore in Houston.
About a month ago good buddy Greg and I were on the range and a different Leupold scope (a 3×9) that I had on a .22 250 Ruger No. 1 wouldn’t adjust (it’s the scope on the No. 1 in the large photo above). That surprised me, as a Leupold scope had never failed on me before. The elevation dial was stuck. I wasn’t worried, though. Leupold scopes have a lifetime warranty, as mentioned in the video below:
When I got home I took the 3×9 scope off the No. 1 and sent a note to Leupold’s customer service. Then, just for grins, I told Leupold about the old 4X (the one I described above), and I asked if they could refurbish it. I didn’t know if Leupold offered that kind of service for old scopes. Within a day, I had an email from Leupold with a return material authorization for both scopes, and off they went. I didn’t think they’d be able to do anything with the 4X scope, and they didn’t tell me what they would charge to refurbish it. But I sent it in anyway.
The Leupold 3×9 came back a couple of weeks ago and it’s fixed, cleaned, and it looks great. Leupold somehow managed to refinish the minor marks in the anodizing (you know, what you get from the scope rings), and the scope could almost pass for new. I’m very satisfied with it.
And then, a week or two later, the 4X scope (the one I paid $20 for) arrived. Except it wasn’t the scope I had sent to Leupold. It was instead a brand new Leupold FXII 4×33 (they don’t even sell these anymore), but there it was, brand new and in a new shrink wrapped Leupold box. As a point of reference, when this scope was last offered by Leupold (I’m not sure when that was), they went for $389.
My charge? $0.
Yep, Leupold replaced that beat-up old scope with a brand new one at no charge. I wish I had taken a photo of the original scope. Trust me, it looked like a $20 bargain bin item with one leg in the trash and the other on a banana peel. In its place, I now have a brand new Leupold.
You might wonder: Why a straight 4X scope? Even though many scope companies don’t offer fixed power scopes in 4X these days, I think that a simple 4-power magnification is the best there is for hunting. The higher mags have too narrow a field of view, it takes too long to find the target, and the whole variable power thing, to me, is a solution to a problem that doesn’t exist. Nope, I’m perfectly happy with a straight 4X scope.
Leupold doesn’t offer the straight 4-power scope any more, but they have a wide variety of variable scopes. The most frequently seen variant is the 3×9 Leupold. This is the Leupold you see on that beautiful Ruger No. 1 you see at the top of this blog. I have the 3×9 Leupold on my Model 70, too…the same one I used on a successful wild pig hunt a couple of years ago.
Folks, trust me on this: When people say Leupold has fantastic customer service, they speak the truth. I can’t imagine ever buying another scope from any other company.
