A new world order…er OK a new order…not the music group either

Yesterday it snowed in the morning at work in Laguna. And due to that weather we got the day off. Of course, by the time I was 30 miles from work there was no snow and the road was dry. I felt kind of guilty, but free time off is free time off. So I went home.

Here’s a pic of the old shop that is across the street from my office.

With a whole afternoon in front of me, I picked up some tools from Lowes (I just burned out my old Rotozip, and needed a few other odds and ends), and went home to play in the shop.

But first a little lunch, and part of a Movie. A few years back I was an extra in the movie Gamer which came out late last year and made it to DVD pretty quickly. So I started watching that. I can’t recommend it, especially because you can’t identify me in the scene that I am in J But I felt that I needed to find out if I had actually managed face time. Nope.

I wasn't filmed as a guard like in this picture - but as a prisoner, I was a little speck in white trotting along in a line of others specks in white.

Then I found out that I have a new custom order for a good kitchen meat knife, we’ll call it a carver/slicer for now. Always exciting to have a new project! So I took a break from the movie to play in the shop.

I cut a strip of my CruV steel in half lengthwise – the customer doesn’t want the blade to be too wide – with my new rotozip, and fired up the forge. After an hour or two of hammering away I have two rough knives, that still need a lot of work, but now I have a vision at least. They were still cooling or I’d have put up a picture. Pretty ugly right now, so you aren’t missing much. They’ll get better.

Then, because I was a little tired from pretty much constant hammering, I moved to the belt sander and worked on my other kitchen knives (a chef’s and a Japanese style chopper) for a little while. Then headed back into the house to finish my movie, and do some hand sanding of those pieces as well.

Two daggers (a little one and a big one) are still languishing away unfinished. Someday…I promise.

That reminds me, I worked on another partially finished blade made of a file, got it to quenching stage, and then quenched it too fast. CRACK! Ooops. I thought I might be able to salvage part of it, but there was another crack. Oh well.

So the exciting thing is the new order! And that the kitchen chopper should go out in the mail to its new owner with its vegetable but not skin sharp blade tomorrow. Yay custom orders!

Adam