A Quiet Day Here

orvet · Post by **orvet** » Sun Mar 18, 2007 7:47 am

It has been awfully quiet here today.
Does anyone have any projects going on, or is everyone in the shop working?

I am doing five 152Ot now, 4 from blanks & one is a rehandle. Also have a couple slip joints I am rebuilding. One is a 77OT Muskrat that i am changing to a single blade.

I made a nice score yesterday at an antique mall. One of the sellers there has a bargain basket. I check it out for something I can rebuild. I got these three and a Richards of Sheffield that I posted in another forum here at AAPK.

The top knife is a Camco camp knife. The middle is a Camillus rope knife & the bottom is an Imperial. I am especially anxious to get started on the rope knife. I may make a Wharncliffe out of it. I haven't decided yet, but I can't wait to get started. But at the rate work is rolling in, I may not get to it for a month or so.

Show us what you are working on.

Dale

PS- I may not be online much next week. My wife is having surgery on Tuesday & will be in the hospital for 2-3 days. So if I am not around, don't worry, I will be back.

jonet143 · Post by **jonet143** » Sun Mar 18, 2007 8:05 am

take care dale and good thoughts for your wife.

sunburst · Post by **sunburst** » Sun Mar 18, 2007 12:40 pm

Hey nice bargain basket pickup

It would be interesting to see that rope knife made into a wharny, I look forward to seeing the transition.

Have a great week and I pray your wife has a speedy recovery.

Sunburst

justold52 · Post by **justold52** » Sun Mar 18, 2007 1:04 pm

orvet a surgery pray for your wife on Tuesday its done.

PS I will added some words for you too.

Hukk · Post by **Hukk** » Sun Mar 18, 2007 4:18 pm

Hi Dale,
My prayers go out to both you and your wife. Surgery is a trying time for both of you.
Best wishes,
Darrell

El Lobo · Post by **El Lobo** » Sun Mar 18, 2007 4:24 pm

Best wishes Dale,

We'll be praying for you folks.

Bill

muskrat man · Post by **muskrat man** » Sun Mar 18, 2007 5:19 pm

best wishes from the ratnest Dale, Pray for a speedy recovery.

As far as current work, what am I NOT doing? Ha Ha.

I am working on close to 1/2 dozen slingshots right now that will be heading up to canada and over to the UK by friday. I've got a few knives rolling in from clients, off the top of my head will be a Queen HJ for thin sambar stag (yep you guessed it,coming from the big man in Canada

), and a few other slipjoints. It's a pretty slow time right now, which doesn't really bother me becuase it will give me the chance to get a few fixed blades and slipjoints made for sale, plus have some time to relax. I'm in the middle of rebuilding two vintage air rifles that will soon go up for sale. I think my biggest priority right now is to get some slipjoints made from scratch, have alot of interest, just need to find the time to get some made up, they don't happen overnight. I also have some plans for various knife and slingshot ideas that have been boiling in my head for the past couple weeks. Hopefully I'll be able to get them finished before I get hit by another big wave of knives. If not, well there is always tommorow

I am also studying web design, doing my best to understand how everything works and studying to build a website from scratch, just the way I want it, but that doesn't happen overnight either

Diligence · Post by **Diligence** » Sun Mar 18, 2007 5:35 pm

Dale - best thoughts for your wife and your family.

My latest project, 10 minutes at a time is this. Hope to finish it today and I just bought some hawkbills off ebay last night so they will likely be next.

Stolen spring from another busted 3 blade Camillus with my first file work. Quick photo. The wood is African Blackheart (?)

best thoughts, Jaye

orvet · Post by **orvet** » Mon Mar 19, 2007 12:09 am

Thanks everyone for the prayers & well wishes. We appreciate them.

Jaye,
That is a nice looking knife. I like the wood on there. It adds quite a bit to the old girl!

I picked up some nice wood last week at Gilmer wood. I got a nice piece of snake wood that I think I will put on a Texas Toothpick I am making. I also got a good looking (at least in the block form) piece of striped ebony. I think it will look good.

Here is a shot of a couple I am doing now. I put a coat of finish on them only to find out that King Wood is too oily for the finish to dry properly. I will have to buff them with Carnauba after a base coat of Howard's Feed-N-Wax. It was a bummer to have to strip off the finish.
Sorry for the lousy pic, it was in direct sunlight.

Thanks again,
Dale

Diligence · Post by **Diligence** » Mon Mar 19, 2007 12:15 am

Dale,

what kind of finish did you try with that king wood?

Looked pretty sweet...too bad you have to strip it.

Hukk · Post by **Hukk** » Mon Mar 19, 2007 1:33 am

orvet wrote:Here is a shot of a couple I am doing now. I put a coat of finish on them only to find out that King Wood is too oily for the finish to dry properly. I will have to buff them with Carnauba after a base coat of Howard's Feed-N-Wax. It was a bummer to have to strip off the finish.
Sorry for the lousy pic, it was in direct sunlight.
Dale

Yeah, kingwood looks great but needs to be treated like cocobolo. Some Thuya burl will take a finish, other pieces can be stabilized just fine, and the others will weep after stabilization, also they won't take of finish and need to be treated like cocobolo, even from the same chunk of lumber

. A lot of South American rosewoods have the same problem. And some Asian woods are too oily also. Snakewood is dense enough to get a good shine just by buffing it, though I try to put a coat of something light that penetrates (as best it can) first. OVERALL, I do like the way those look, nice!

All you can do is try and call it practice. I have some Manzanita Burl which may be a bit oily I will be using in 2 weeks or so.
I think it will take a finish, I also think I may be wrong.

A lot of California and Oregon wildfires are spread VERY quickly by this Manzanita AND it burns very hot.

orvet · Post by **orvet** » Mon Mar 19, 2007 5:37 am

Hukk,
Thanks for the tip on the Snake Wood.
I am using some of it on my next project. That is good to know.
How about Desert Iron Wood? Does anyone have any experience with finishes on it?

I attached a pic of how they turned out with some Howard's & several coats of Carnauba & Ren wax. Not as shiny as I wanted, but I sanded them to 2000 grit then used 4000, 6000 & 8000 grit micron paper. They couldn't get much smoother.

Sorry for the glare, I don't have a light box.
These were made from some old blanks out of the Schrade factory. There were some blemishes on them, some that I couldn't get out. Fortunately most are on the pile side.

Thanks for the tips,
Dale

muskrat man · Post by **muskrat man** » Mon Mar 19, 2007 3:40 pm

lookin' good dale, as far as ironwood goes, a little linseed oil, then a good buff on a loose wheel will mak'er shine

Hukk · Post by **Hukk** » Mon Mar 19, 2007 4:25 pm

muskrat man wrote:lookin' good dale, as far as ironwood goes, a little linseed oil, then a good buff on a loose wheel will mak'er shine

I've done the same as MM, he should know, we've seen a lot of his fine work here. I've also done the same as I would with cocobolo.

A little trivia on Desert Ironwood.
I googled Desert Ironwood about a month ago, I think it was, and the results were surprising. Yep, it is related to the ..............Pea.

Botanically speaking, The desert ironwood (olneya tesota) is the only member of the Olneya genus, but is part of the Fabaceae, or Pea family. Here is my link, sorry if I posted this before, my memory is not as sharp as it once was because I rely on compter software to do my remembering.

What an excuse

http://www.blueplanetbiomes.org/desert_ironwood.htm

orvet · Post by **orvet** » Mon Mar 19, 2007 5:19 pm

Thanks for the complements guys!

Hukk,
That is a great link on Desert Ironwood.

So I will be putting pea handles on a knife?

Diligence,
Sorry I missed your question earlier.
The finish I used first on the King Wood (that I had to take off) was a Swedish made Hardwood floor finish. I got some from my son, who installs & finishes hardwood floors.
I also get some great scrap wood from him.

Lots of Oak, Beech, Brazilian Cherry, Walnut, even a few pieces of Kemper. The Kemper was a bit fibrous to work with, but when it had a coat of the floor finish on it.........Oh Baby!!!

I attached a scan of the Kemper wood in the raw state.

Dale

Diligence · Post by **Diligence** » Mon Mar 19, 2007 8:50 pm

No worries Dale.

I'm still learning about finishes.

Love the grain in that Kemper wood. Wood is just so great to look at. I used to work in a small lumber yard and I still love the smell of fresh cut pine.

muskrat man · Post by **muskrat man** » Mon Apr 02, 2007 2:02 am

Thought I'd liven this thread back up since it's a new month which means new projects. Right now I'm working on a PAL half whittler, still needs quite a bit of work, but got the action tuned tonight. I'm trying to decide on a handle material, I thought some stag would look nice, but I'd like to keep it pretty origional looking.

Here is a little boker USA, well used-but it's going to be a test knife for some reproduction goldstone cell (but not unstable like cell) I am experimenting with.

My most current and a project I'm really focused on right now. A Cammilus TL-29 EDC for Bryan, our fearless leader. Just need to cut the jeancarta handles and assemble.

someday I'm going to get a three spring whittler made from this pile of crap-er I mean potential knives :p

Then monday or tuesday I'll be working on this one for a guy, one of those new chineese marbles toenails, some vine filework, bookmatched ironwood with no pins, we'll see.

While I had the camera warmed up I figured I'd shoot some updated shots of my shop. I'm in the process of building another workbench where there used to be a bunch of shelves loaded with junk.

I mentioned jeancarta earlier, here's two batches I made up today, used resin this time.

I took some shots of my parts bins too:

all kinds of goodies in those drawers, sometiems I just root and find stuff I forgot I had :p

jonet143 · Post by **jonet143** » Mon Apr 02, 2007 2:29 am

cool, kaleb.