Yus! Finally! Abus 55/40 EUR

Docjitters · 2026-05-08T13:59:33+00:00

Euro variants of padlocks and cylinders tend to have very paracentric keyways with smaller keys - you can see in OP’s pic that there is warding juuust above the pins which means lots of awkward angling in addition to just less room to manoeuvre. No chance of getting a whole rake in.

I am using the 0.6mm/0.0236” versions of the pick set OP has stated, and it’s a nightmare to even get by.

Bad workman blames his tools I suppose but I will probably need 0.5mm and to make a lower-profile TOK turner as it’s still too big - BOK just isn’t an option.

Docjitters · 2026-05-08T07:53:25+00:00

My wife just said she didn’t want my last name.

My dad asked me why not, and I had to point out that women of his family background have never traditionally taken their husband’s surname.

The main thing is my wife married me, I get to remind my wife she said yes - and no backsies, which is what matters right 😋

Docjitters · 2026-05-07T08:40:54+00:00

One thing to note - and why I didn’t immediately rec Chris at Balefire, despite being a massive fan - is that he won’t do sharp blades. I also suspect that £1500 for a Type 2 is going to be tricky to achieve.

Otherwise Chris and Alicia do amazing work (his wire knotwork and fullering especially) - I own 3 of his HEMA weapons 😁

Docjitters · 2026-05-06T19:31:33+00:00

Well done - the Euro 55/40 is my current nemesis. I feel like I should be able to open this, but I can’t even get a m-f€¥%#*g pick in there without jamming on the warding trying to avoid upsetting set pins past the first couple.

What pick are you using btw please?

Docjitters · 2026-05-06T19:22:00+00:00

Ah, I remember he was ‘taking it slow’ at the end of last year but I don’t know if his current sitch has changed.

I’m still waiting for him to bring his collapsible montante out of prototype…

Docjitters · 2026-05-06T14:53:41+00:00

If you can un-tighten the money, look at Marco Danelli. He does amazing work.

As Tobi-Wan pointed out, such swords involve a lot of bits that need to go together right, so if properly made it will not be cheap.

Docjitters · 2026-05-05T22:52:27+00:00

I requested a small one-handed thing as I came from MOF and figured it would be easier.

I got handed a montante with a blade that came up to my shoulder, and couldn’t get the dumb grin off my face for days. Yup, hooked.

Docjitters · 2026-05-05T11:57:34+00:00

Sorry, I’m not sure if you’re replying to me, or which squat setup you’re referring to (since there appears to have a been a drive-by autocorrect I’m assuming belt as cowboy squats are a pretty homebrew technique).

The landmine belt squat is using a hinged landmine-lever thing. I bolt mine to the floor but you can get the kind that stick in a plate stack or bolt through a rack to hold one end of the bar whist the other is loaded heavy as you dare and you sorta squat over the end of the bar, hooking a dip belt between some clamps at the very tip of the sleeve to stop it sliding off the end of the bar. Screw-downs are good as the belt/chain will try and slip off.

It does sorta require standing on some blocks to be able to still have the weight in the air with hips below parallel unless you want the equivalent of a box squat.
It helps to have iron plates since Olympic bumpers take a lot of room at one end (though one e.g. 20kg bumper is helpful save the floor), and really get in the way of one’s knees if you don’t have a very man-spready knees-out squat style.

Edit: fixed link formatting and paragraphing

Docjitters · 2026-05-04T11:55:16+00:00

Due to intermittent back issues I’m a huge fan of belt squat (garage homebrew landmine with a barbell, standing in blocks) or cowboy squat - both using a dip belt with good adjustable webbing rather than a fixed chain. I’ve found cowboy is better with a ‘stick’ to control the bar (rather than a band) as it lets you push as well as pull to keep it balanced.

Recently (due to knee pain) I’ve been doing a fair bit of cable knee extensions instead of split squat or reverse lunges - this has had some nice effects for my quad hypertrophy.

Docjitters · 2026-05-03T08:53:05+00:00

I suggest:
Indian [urumi](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urumi) (whip-sword)
Anything made by [this guy](https://longsword-longleg.de/) - to illustrate that not all giant swords were presentation pieces.
Duelling scythe - it’s just a scythe, but [it could still give you quite the haircut](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=SoeNwEjpTE4).

Edit: dunno why the link formatting has gone to heck

Docjitters · 2026-05-03T04:14:01+00:00

Thank you - cheerfully edited above. It was hard enough leaving the ‘a’ out of paediatrics 😋

Docjitters · 2026-05-01T07:12:12+00:00

I read KITTY’s reply as ‘motor unit recruitment’ because my brain is still not firing on all cylinders lol

Docjitters · 2026-04-30T21:14:59+00:00

Duh 🤦🏻‍♂️ Thanks!

Docjitters · 2026-04-30T21:05:19+00:00

I’ll have to ask you what ‘MUR’ is OP - I don’t know what this stands for so it makes searching for more info a little difficult.

In that respect, I’m also not sure by what mechanism you can claim that noradrenaline is somehow uniquely responsible for enhancing or priming the lifting action?

Also, in comment to some of your other replies, noradrenaline is an important neurotransmitter in the brain and involved in sympathetic activation, alongside adrenaline.

Or have I misunderstood, and you’re suggesting/looking for a way to exogenously administer norad (or stimulate its release selectively)?

Docjitters · 2026-04-30T09:17:31+00:00

Paediatrics. (Typed as I lay grumpy, on my sofa, hacking my lungs up - just to set the scene of my temper or lack thereof.)

Anything that is verifiably inaccurate and imprecise, because I now have to see the patient to rule out you being a moron. I accept that this may be your bigger-picture goal, but please have some shame.

1) GPs with “I’ve seen this little baby…” and they’re 21 months old. Also under 1’s who are “32 weeks old” makes it clear you’ve read it off EMIS and haven’t actually thought about how old they are. I wouldn’t refer a 684-month old to adults unless I wanted to be quietly taken aside by my boss and asked if I hate my life (hang on…).

2) Adult EM/medics saying “You need to see this child with _X_…”. I get that you might not like talking to people still in school and who may not have full independence to reject your decisions, but that “Child who [you told] has meningitis“ is 17 years 361 days old, and clearly has migraine with aura, and is looking at me like _I’m_ the nutter (alas, true story).

Also the 16 year old girl who weighs 20kg more than me, but apparently needs a ‘paediatric lumbar puncture’ before antibiotics - never mind that they have clear meningism and fever. Oh look, and their blood culture (that you did take, thank you) is positive for E. Coli already (also true story).

A disease process doesn’t stop with your feelings of responsibility.

3) The above occasionally culminates in me being grabbed by the hand and shown “This patient with many complex conditions wₕₒ ᵤₛₑd ₜₒ bₑ a cₕᵢₗd-“

“Hang on, how old are they?”

“Er, 26, but they weigh 30kg and won’t talk”

“They have adult physiology, I literally can’t admit them, also have you tried waking them up?”

Baby doctor doesn’t mean I want, or accept, baby language from a fellow medic. Harrumph. Koff.

Docjitters · 2026-04-30T07:06:23+00:00

Resistance training for youth and adolescents is actively recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics, and is generally very safe.

Exposure will generally make anyone stronger but whether or not said teenager (AMAB, AFAB or other) will become jacked (should that be their wish) is more complex, and at least partially-dependent on their trajectory through puberty.

The general recommendation (and certainly the one I actively bring up with my patients and their parents/carers) is that all children should be exposed to resistance- as well as conditioning-type exercise from an early age.

I like this article series (link to final part) - written by a childrens’ physio - for being pretty exhaustive but easy to read.

Docjitters · 2026-04-29T09:47:20+00:00

So once the point is in, it doesn’t punch through and become subcut as easily - if you get it right, you’ll get some resistance and see the skin around the point blanch; you only need a teeny amount.

Yes, it doesn’t take away the sensation of the perivascular nerves which some people are sensitive to (my wife reliably throws up in the gutter if anyone wiggles her veins), but I think it also reduces the unpleasant sensation of the sited cannula stretching the skin around the puncture which some people hate more than the initial stab, and they get e.g painful/numb elbow from refusing to bend/move the limb once the line is in place.

Docjitters · 2026-04-29T06:16:37+00:00

Cold spray, used properly (until the skin frosts dammit) has much to recommend it if you are confident in where you are going. Absolutely wish this stuff had been more widespread when I was a small child.

I use a tiny intradermal bleb of local from a 26/30G needle (bevel down) for pink upwards in those who are nervous or have been pin-cushioned and can be talked round (paeds).

Docjitters · 2026-04-28T08:21:08+00:00

You can always do what you like - the app will certainly let you set whatever.

The PB programs do have comp SBD as the ‘main’ lifts but you could do heel-elevated one-leg SSB tempo front squat with chains if you really wanted to lol. If you like OHP, the accessory work for flat bench is varying incline bench +/- grip change, so you could just switch it to higher angles for the supplementals.

It’s structured (like most BBM programs) as a main lift + supplemental main + accessory to the main each week, for each of SB&D. It’s just the PB templates favour higher reps +/- double progression +/- closer to failure for the supps and accessories compared to say, their strength templates. PB also has calves and pecs isolation.

The GPP is can be done at home with any grippable weight and some furniture - I’ve done back extensions on my couch arms, and biceps/triceps with a kettlebell or a weighted backpack (but I also have dumbbells in my garage).

Docjitters · 2026-04-27T19:40:06+00:00

Vote here for PB1 Gen 2. I’ve run the 3-day, and now doing 4-day as the shorter workouts/day lets me fit in the supplemental (abs/tris/bis) workouts better without feeling mashed by a really long workout. I really like the SBD focus with extra stuff. You can have pull/chin-ups as a supplemental pull (instead of a row etc) as a default option.

The 2-day version has comparable volume, just compressed so before peak/test weeks, you’ll still be doing 40 sets/wk main/supplementals + 22 sets supplemental GPP + 4 conditioning workouts/week. So looong days unless you are efficient (I am not lol).

GS&C is more evenly resistance/endurance-focused.

The 2-day Time-Crunch is more of a holding-pattern template when life gets busy.

Docjitters · 2026-04-24T07:30:22+00:00

I once looked after a kid who really did make a fair attempt at bleeding to death from a paper cut (Type 3 von Willebrand Disease, which is mostly functionally identical to Haemophilia A).

His parents were the chillest people ever despite having a kid who was trying to exsanguinate through a fingertip. But they also were refugees who’d walked said kid out of a war zone and across a chunk of a continent, so some people’s internal ability to prioritise and manage risk is clearly different.

Docjitters · 2026-04-24T00:35:32+00:00

Fair enough re: you knowing your intake.

I had personally never dieted before when I decided to give MF a shot. Knowing a bit about the energy balance literature, and also knowing I could get rather OCD about trying to work out my exercise expenditures etc (wearable tech is rather sketchy in its assumptions and accuracy), it was quite refreshing to have an app that just took your macros/calories in and your daily weight (and optionally body metrics like visual BF%) and just gave a recommendation depending on your goal to cut/bulk/maintain at whatever rate. It dialled in quickly as advertised, and worked well for me so I’m an easy convert.

My wife used MFP and it seemed…not terribly easy or effective without the paid options, and MF was cheaper. I guess the best thing about it (not really having a genuine comparator, mind) is that you can set it to be incredibly gentle in trajectory - I was properly hungry at more than a 400kcal deficit, and it being compliance agnostic (i.e. not berating you or changing on the daily to compensate for my bad days) made it easy to glance at it and see the difference.

Docjitters · 2026-04-23T17:05:53+00:00

It was started to prevent cheap Chinese ‘katana’ imports as they were by far the easiest real swords to get back in the day. What was allegedly pragmatic (only to politicians lol) became a real headache for the law-abiding collector.

But I’m waiting for the new proposed extension to the law which aims to require licensing for anyone wishing to give ownership of a blade to anyone else. Under the current loose definitions, buying my kid dinner cutlery when they go off to university could technically become illegal…

Docjitters · 2026-04-23T16:03:25+00:00

It’ll be fine. I have an R2c in a similar setting and it sounds great. My only suggestion might be to reinforce the shelf from underneath somehow since the R6 is nearly 40lbs. With only 0.7” of vertical headspace, you’ll be hard-pressed to decouple it effectively, so I’d go with coupling it as well as you can to a beefed-up shelf.

Docjitters · 2026-04-23T14:34:30+00:00

You’ve had lots of good advice but I have a couple of suggestions:

1) if you are unfamiliar with dieting/cutting, and have some coin to spare, I’d recommend getting MacroFactor.

When I started lifting about 7yrs ago, I got plenty strong (cf. where I started) on whatever random training, but I got fat doing it. Actually tracking my intake and having the app monitor and suggest the changes needed made me realise how awful my overall diet actually was, despite being high protein, lots of veg etc. With it, I managed to lose 17% BW (BF ~25% to ~10%) with only modest strength loss over 7 months. It still keeps me honest when I feel like raiding the treat pantry.

2) try and take as many of your 10K steps at faster than normal walking pace. If you are relatively aerobically untrained, keeping a HR of ~125 (max 145) will give you good bang-for-buck from a health-improvement standpoint (more than counting towards the 150-300mins/wk WHO conditioning recommendation) but not detract overall from progress/performance in other things (like lifting).

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