From Then Till Now

I think I say this every time but it sure has been a long time since the last time I posted here.  We did a couple shows that were very unsuccessful.  People liked everything but the wallets weren’t coming out.  Guess times are pretty tough. 

We did finally put a display in “Wild Duck Soup” shop in Centerville, TN.  Antonia, who runs the shop is a friend of our friends and she has been wanting some of my goods in there for a while now.  Gotta have some guy stuff in there.  Let’s hope it works out for both of us.

Kittens For Sale!!!

My cat Kato had a litter of kittens on April 24^th.  She dropped them behind my hops vines.  All the kittens were females and three of the five had bobtails.  The father was a black bobtail tom that hasn’t been seen since.  We didn’t have any problem finding homes for them as they were pretty darn cute.   After weaning, momma cat was taken in to be spayed so there’ll be no more little ones running around!

Rawhide!

One of my goals for the year was to start making frontier rawhide sheaths.  As seen in a previous post I did make my first deer rawhide.  I purchased a DVD from John Cohea on Rawhide Sheath Construction and watched it a few times.  Next thing to do was make a list from it for proper construction sequence.  There were over 120 steps involved to create one of these sheaths.  It took me close to 10 hours time to put it all together, but I think it really is worth it.  Once you start the process with the rawhide parts, you have to keep working until it’s all stitched up and ready to dry.  After the rawhide is dry it is some tough stuff, almost bulletproof. 

The knife is a full tang bowie, antiqued blade with filework.  Handle is curly maple with acid stain. 

A Matched Set

After that was done I finished the initial grinding on a set of kitchen knives.  These were the first stainless steel blades that I’ve worked on.  They had to be sent out to be heat treated and came back at a 59 Rockwell hardness.  After heat treat all the blades needed to be thinned down on the grinder.  This 154CM seemed to eat up my sanding belts.  They say to use’m like somebody else is paying for’m.  I really had to go through the grits on these blades.  I don’t usually grind as much as on these blades, but it sure was some tough stuff.  If they weren’t for my sons wedding gift I might have given up on them.  The amount of hand sanding was incredible, more than any knives I have ever worked on.  Piles and piles of used sandpaper filled up my wastebasket.  There was literally Blood, Sweat and Tears put into this labor of love.

The set included a 3 ½” paring knife, an 8” slicer, an 8” chef knife, a meat fork, a knife steel and a magnetic strip that all matched.  The handles were made from Manzanita burl, which looks like a redwood type with deep reds and brown coloring.  Handles were attached with Acraglas and stainless corby bolts to give both chemical and mechanical bonds.  Luckily the knife set was finished just in time.  Going to get some better pictures soon.

We drove up to Wisconsin for Sam & Mara’s wedding by way of Janesville, WI to drop off the last of the kittens to my mother in law.  We were getting pretty attached to Lily but was glad to have her gone.

The Hitchin’

Sam and Mara’s wedding was so beautiful.  The wedding ceremony and reception was held at Triglav Park in Norway, WI.   

They make such a wonderful couple!   

The weather was warm…with a jacket on anyway, but such a gorgeous day for them.  A light sprinkle came down after the ceremony which cast a rainbow of the lake.  I do believe they got a few pics with the rainbow.  The pavilion was decorated by Sam’s mom, Andrea, and everything looked great.  She also made soaps for all the guests to take.  Thanks to her for her work.  The dinner was catered by Firemen BBQ.  They brought an old fire truck which is their trademark.  It got stuck in about a foot of mud, but got her pulled out during the dinner.  Their dinner included RIBS, Bacon Wrapped Pork Loin, did I say Ribs? and some fresh hot sausages.  Oh yeah they had some sides too, but I was diggin’ those ribs.  First time ever having ribs at a wedding…SCORE!

The band they had really rocked the party.  They played so many good tunes and played them well.  It was so nice to be a part of something so special.  Sam is a really great man and Mara is such a beautiful caring woman.  I can imagine that they will enjoy a wonderful life together. 

Peace Man

After the ceremony and before the dinner Leslie and I talked with Rev. Paul and his lovely wife Barb.  Paul and I were talking music and he informed me that he purchased the negatives/rights to the pictures of The Beatles performance in Milwaukee, September 4, 1964 at the Milwaukee Arena.  He is a collector of Beatles memorabilia and this helps pay for more stuff.  He told me, after seeing my brochure, that he’d like a peace sign necklace made up for an upcoming Beatles collector show.  He gave me some ideas and from there I created a one-of-a-kind piece that I think he will really like.

The Peace sign is carved from mammoth tusk, or ancient ivory.  At the base I scrimshawed BEATLES into it.  The ivory was inlet into a piece of ebony that came from the Gibson factory intended as a fret board.  I kinda thought the relation between those pieces would bring more meaning to the work.   

Paul’s favorite Beatles song is “Can’t Buy Me Love” so I made a stamped copper keyring for him.  His wife Barb gets a pair of earrings that were made from the wood of the knife at the top of my blog page.

We had a nice brunch Sunday morning at the Boerner Botanical Gardens with Sam & Mara, her dad Mick & Michalena, Bob & Jess with Bobby and Henry.

Hittin' The Road

We headed home at 3:30am Monday June 30^th.  By the time we hit Gurney heavy rains started and did not relent until we got into Indiana.  I was wore out by 7:00am and still had almost 8 hours to go.  We did take our time and just enjoyed the rest of the ride.  After getting home I let Kato out of the chicken tractor where she had been recuperating since being spayed the week before.  That was one happy cat. 

Pickin' Anda Grinnin'

I spent the week working on Paul’s Peace sign necklace and had to work on July 4^th so we didn’t go anywhere to see Fireworks.

On Saturday July 5^th we had a show in Savannah, TN at the 36^th Annual Bluegrass Festival.  This was our first time there and didn’t sell much, but we were impressed by the caliber of musicians that played at the show.  Next year we’ll try to get some friends to go along for the music.

That’s about it for now.  There are two commission knives on the bench that need to be worked on next and a bunch more to put together.   When they are done I will post pics of them.