Pens and bowls and pipes oh my…

Who knew that Bolt-action pens would be a hot item?  I sold all of my first set, and my second set and about half of my third J    Deer antler is pretty popular here, and I’ve added an optional dear head pocket clip too.  In a hunting community like this one, people are practically chomping at the bit.

  

   

I also carved my first pipe out of aged and dried briar.  I guess a lot of people stain them to make them dark, but I left it natural. It was a fun little project, but, as usual,  forgot to take pictures. These pictures are courtesy of www.johnzeuliphotography.com/ .

   

   

My wife and I collaborated on our first clock – I can’t say I had to do much: Some wood, her laser cutter, a little sanding, drilling a hole, and installing the mechanism.  But it looks pretty cool.

I also turned a nice little bowl out of figured maple.  I tried a spalted piece first, but it split along the spalting L  I am not very proficient at bowls yet, and need a couple of accessories to get the inside right, but I’ll get there.  Eventually.  So I worked in Manzanita next.  Manzanita has lots of gaps, which I filled with powdered Turquoise, and powdered Copper – I think it went pretty well.   I enjoyed it enough that I bought 4 more pieces to turn:  Osage orange, Lacewood, Honduras Rosewood, and Chechen. Erica really likes this shape so I haven’t branched out much.  Unfortunately I can’t make anything particularly large – 5 inches in diameter is probably about my limit.

   

  

     

Knifewise, I don’t feel like I’ve made much progress.  I quenched and tempered a tanto  (tried the clay technique to make a fancier hamon) but didn’t seen much development in the polishing process.  With the judicious application of acid, I discovered that the hamon – though present- was really close to the edge.  I tried again with the other Tanto, and managed to pull it back just about the right amount, not to fancy, but a nice wavy line.  The little hunter – which was a lot thicker, managed a little bit of a line towards the point, but not much along the edge – but I did have some issues with the clay falling off.  More practice is needed.

I also just received another rusty stockman’s pocket knife to clean up (see Autumn, Crazy Horse, Uncle Jed and Rust (2011)).  I intend to have a little fun with it once I have it moving again.  It’s not too old (scales are plastic), but it doesn’t take too much to get a knife all rusty and full of crud. 

As I mentioned a few years back in “Pictures from the lathe (2009)” some people think its offensive to clean up a knife.  Removing character is one thing, but restoring function – to my mind- is another.  It’s interesting to see how knives survive the years, but when “character” destroys the knife for all practical purposes, some of the character needs to go. We’ll see if I can fix this one without breaking it like the last stockman.  To date, it is making progress, but not there yet.

Oh yeah, I also made a couple letter openers – One in Ancient Kauri, another in Maple – it was supposed to be birdseye, but apparently I missed all the eyes.  Oh well.

 

But none of that is REALLY news…