Sloyd Knife Video

 Here we go!  If you don't see the video window, click this link: https://youtu.be/cPExoNYlvi4

Sloyd Knives

 If you look over my blog, you'll see that I carve spoons.  My primary tools are a hook knife and a sloyd knife.  Sloyd is a Swedish word for wood crafting.  Essentially, by saying "sloyd knife," I'm saying "wood working knife."  But it is fun to use a foreign word.  

I found out that a teacher and student teacher at my daughter's school are both spoon carvers, too.  Because I want to be extra supportive of teachers right now, I thought it would be good to give them each a new sloyd knife.  (I don't want to get into the whole concern about knives in schools.  There are no students in that school right now, so it isn't a big thing to leave a knife in a wrapped package.)

I made the handles of Alaska birch.  Blades are my usual repurposed spring steel.  It is a good steel and I've been very happy with how it performs in my blades so far.  

Here's a picture of the two knives just before I did the sharpening and stropping.  

As usual, my mark is the rune Wyn/Wunjo (depending on if you use the Anglo Saxon or the Norse name for it).  It looks like an angular P and it makes the sound of a W, so both my initials are there in one mark.  Sort of fun!

Video of the process is also on the way.  As with the blacksmith mini-seaxes, I chose to just make it a music video and play random tunes on my banjo.  If I ever get any feedback from my videos, I'll get some idea of what people like in my YouTube channel.  

Look for the video link tomorrow.

A New Video!

 I know I haven't posted anything in months, but here's something, at least!  

I made these two little blacksmith knives because I found a sketch in one of my old sketchbooks and realized that would be a fun little knife to bang out.  Nothing profound, just a case of "why didn't I make this before?"

They are deliberately rustic and rough. But they are still comfortable and would fit the role of the non-folding pocket knife.  I actually plan to make neck sheaths for them and have them hung like a necklace.

I also took a video of the whole process of forging them.  Here are the highlights.  I am trying something new, here.  Instead of narrating my process, I decided to just play the banjo in the background.

Enjoy!

Edit: this video isn't showing up when I look at the blog on my phone, so if you don't see the video window, just click this link: https://youtu.be/b05JYJynG84

Viking Whetstones

One of my favorite items from Viking graves is a whetstone necklace.  At least some of them were made of slate.  Many don't appear to have the stone type identified, at least in resources I've found so far.  However, many are similar in shape.  The 3-4" long tapered shape seems to be a normal shape for these utilitarian items.  I never have had a really good explanation as to why anyone would go to the effort to shape them just so, but I assumed there was some practical reason I didn't know.

A really good selection of photos can be found on Pinterest at https://www.pinterest.com/cathyr19355/viking-whetstones/ if you want to see the variations in size and shape.  The next four photos are taken from there.  Note that where stone is identified, it is more often slate than anything else.  And there are some examples of beautiful banded slate here.

Still, I have wanted one for years and years. So, when I saw reproduction Viking whetstones available from Ragnar's Ragweed Forge, I was delighted.  I now own a jasper whetstone necklace and love it.  You can see it in the photo below.  It is the red one with a leather thong on it.  The surface is quite smooth, so better for final edge polishing than for working out nicks and establishing an edge on a blade.  

Some time later, my wife noticed something interesting when we were at a local river.  There were a lot of pieces of slate there, many of which made good skipping rocks.  However, there were also quite a few with a familiar shape to them!

Is it possible that many or most of the historical Viking whetstones were just found in the shape of a whetstone and used in that shape?  Yeah, I think it is possible.  

The slate stones are noticeably coarser than the jasper.  These river rocks would work fine for establishing the edge of a blade.  

I love finding answers, even if only speculative answers, to questions like "why this shape?"  Answer: maybe because that is a common shape to find the stones already in.  

A Piccolo Practice Kantele

My youngest child decided that she wanted a solid body kantele like Dad's.  Project time!

First step is selecting the wood.  Here's a fairly hard piece of poplar with a pattern drawn on it.  I don't think it is the ideal wood for this sort of instrument, but it works fine and I had it in my shop already.  The pattern is actually drawn on what will be the underside of the wood.  No particular reason, I just managed to draw it reversed from what it will be.  At this stage, it really doesn't matter to the process.

A brief session with the jigsaw and I have the body cut from the board.

I love my belt sander.  I use it for so many things.  Here, it was vital for refining the edges of the kantele.  I really like the graceful bird head shape at the top.  It is whimsical and elegant.  I think the look of the kantele was the first thing that attracted me.  The sound was next.  I know my young customer was very intent on having that shape at the top.  

A little scrap turned into a simple bridge.  Five holes for zither pins.  A spritz of spray lacquer.  

She wanted wood burned decorations.  She was kind enough to pronounce them perfect, though I can see the skill level of my pyrography just isn't up to what I would consider Third Grader artwork.

Linoleum nails make good hitch pins to anchor the strings.

I start the zither pins with a hammer, tapping them in until they stay put, then I can screw them in with the tuning wrench.

And there we have it!  A finished practice kantele for an 8 year old.  This one is tuned in G.  Super simple, fun little project.  Now I just have to get her interested in learning to play it!

Pics for Brett

A couple knives I’ve been working on today. 

Rough forged, next to the spring steel I made them from. 

Rough ground, ready for heat treat. 

My forge stand. I don’t know why the phone turns the picture sideways. 

The Simplest SCA Helm

I don't think it is news to either of the people who read this blog that I used to be into SCA fighting.  A lot of my hobbies and interests are still very in line with the historical side of the SCA.  I still fight when my knee and back allow.  And when I'm not quarantined because of a pandemic...

If you just stumbled across this blog, the SCA (Society for Creative Anachronism) is a non-profit organization that attempts to recreate some of the material culture of the middle ages.  And holds tournaments where people in armor beat each other with wooden clubs.  

Which is a lot of fun.  

But does require armor.  

This is the simplest helmet I know how to make.  I learned this from an old publication (very pre-internet) called Best of the Hammer.  The Hammer was a periodical devoted to SCA efforts to make armor and related items (there are articles about making swords, for example).  Nowadays, we have blogs and YouTube.  Back then, folks had printed material that was mailed from one person to another.  With stamps.  For real.  The Best of the Hammer books are 4 volumes of what claimed to be the best of what was printed in that periodical.  Volume 1 has the pattern for this 13th century pot helm.  

The whole thing is made of 3 pieces of 14 gauge sheet steel.  I started it yesterday afternoon and finished it today.  Spare time build all the way.  

It looks a lot like the helmet worn by the Black Knight in Monty Python and the Holy Grail.  Which should actually get it a little SCA cred.  But won't.

Just for fun, and to make it a little more blacksmithy, I forged the nasal with a critter head and curly tail.  Nothing really impressive, just a little bit of whimsy.  Authentic versions would have a cross on the face.  I'm not being authentic, I'm having fun.  Although this is made to SCA spec, I don't know if I will ever fight in it. 

Some discussion:

This project is meant to illustrate the fact that it isn't really all that hard or expensive to get started with SCA armor.  I could make 9 of these from one sheet of 14 gauge steel, actually.  I used 1/9 of a sheet to make it.  I don't know what a sheet of steel costs today, but most steel sellers will have odds and ends on a fairly regular basis, so you might be able to pick up enough steel for one helmet for only a few bucks if you get lucky.  

For illustrative purposes, I used only simple tools.  A hand drill and a jigsaw were my only power tools.  A couple of hammers.  I did use my anvil, but I made several helms in the past before I ever owned an anvil.  I had a scrap of railroad track and that worked just fine.  In fact, I used that scrap of track for setting the rivets at the top of this helm because the shape of the anvil wouldn't allow the horn all the way up to that point.  You can also set the rivets on the inside of the helm instead of the outside and then you only need a flat surface to pound on.  I did it this way because I prefer the look of the peened over rivet instead of the machine-shaped head.  

I started in the SCA as a broke college student about 23 years ago.  At that time, the norm was still that we would look in the library at books that purported to detail information about the middle ages.  We would share what bits and pieces we could find or figure out with others.  If you had a decent set of patterns for an item of armor, you treasured those patterns and shared them whenever someone wanted them.  I still have patterns I traced from other folks' tracings.  We didn't have the internet as it exists today.  

We also didn't have the businesses that now provide armor, clothing, and assorted reenactment goods.  Back then, we had lower standards of authenticity, but we made most of our own gear.  My first suit of armor took me close to a year to make because I had no clue how to do it when I started.  I had to figure out how to make armor on my own.  I did figure it out and I eventually got decent at it, though nowhere near the level of the professional armorers out there today.  By "decent" I mean I figured out how to make a suit of armor that was protective, met SCA combat standards, and didn't look too terrible.  

Why is this relevant?  Well, look around an SCA fighter practice today.  Or wait until the Covid 19 social distancing ends and look around at that time.  How many helms do you see that are built by the fighters wearing them?  Not many, if any at all.  Now, how many helms do you see that are not a bar-grilled bascinet or similar piece of very obvious sports equipment?  Again, not too many, though there are a couple of looks that have become popular among the fighters willing to pay for them.  One is the full mail drape and occulars.  Very nice look.  With maybe one historical helmet to serve as the model that they all follow, but who cares about that, right?

It is really hard for a broke college student to get into SCA fighting these days, just because the equipment he is expected to buy costs so darned much!  If my only options had been buying a helm that cost $250 (minimum) or else do something non-combative, I would have quit the SCA before I started.  Seriously.  I didn't have the money.  

If you are in the SCA, you know about the Known World Handbook.  But if you are only recently in the SCA, you may not have seen the older editions.  The first 3 editions had articles about building helms that were good, solid, historical helms.  The newest edition does not have those.  The newest edition talks about padding the helm you bought.  Oh, and using plastic barrels to make leg armor.  Can't leave those plastic barrels off the field of valor, now, can we?  Because nothing says Medieval quite like bright blue plastic on your arms and legs to go with that welded bar grill on your face, right?

Okay, you can tell where I'm going, here.  

If your idea of fun is the sports equipment and you find history a drag, that's not unusual in the SCA anymore.  If you are one of the holdouts who still wants to feel like a medieval warrior in armor, it may get discouraging to have the guys at practice keep telling you to ditch the authentic looking gear and spend a couple of thousand bucks on a suit that will make it easier for you to be more competitive.  

If you wear the helm I just finished, you will get told "that's nothing but a landing pad for some dude's mace."  You will get called Bucket Head.  You will have to deal with (more authentic) reduced visibility and air flow, compared to the guys with fully ventilated helms.  

But you will have a helm you could build yourself.  You will have a helm that looks like a sinister warrior from 750 years ago.  And when you retire, you will have the most awesome wastebasket anyone has ever seen.  

I shot video of every step of building this helm and when I get the chance, I will edit it to a viewable form and post it on the blog.

Kantele volume

The little kanteles I made recently are fairly quiet.  But not as quiet as the practice board I started with.

Just in case anyone reading this is curious about relative volume, here's a simple video.  Please remember that I am not, at this time, a kantele player.  I hope to be able to consider myself a player before long, but I am only as far as being able to tune and sort of form a couple of chords.  A good player can get a lifetime of music out of those 5 notes, but I'm not even close to there yet.

Still, if you just want to hear the volume difference, the video will illustrate.

The strings are the same between the two instruments.  Vibrating string length is very close, and I tried to use the same amount of force in strumming the two instruments.  The volume difference should purely be due to the different construction.

I actually suspect that the new kanteles would be a little louder if I used metal tuning pegs like with the practice board.  The wooden pegs may have a slight dampening effect on the strings.  I could be wrong about this, though.  I'd have to make another with the tuning pins to find out.

2 New Kanteles

The practice board from the last post is a nice quiet way to noodle around, but can hardly be heard a few feet away unless everyone is silent.  I wanted a nicer one that actually has a hollow body and more authentic look.  So I made two.

I like to make two of anything when I am working.  Part of that is because I can correct a process if I mess up on the first one, part of it is just because if I really like what I make, I can share it with someone else and still have one for myself.  Also, there's a search for efficient use of materials that appeals to me.

These were made with wood I had on hand, using the tools I have in the shop.  The video tells the whole story, really.

The body is maple, the soundboard comes from cedar siding that was scrap from refurbishing a local church.  Hollowing the body was done with a forstner bit, which drills a flat bottom hole.  By setting the drill press table at a height of 3/32" below the lowest point the bit can reach, I knew I wouldn't drill through the wood all the way.

It is much louder than the little practice board.  I like it.

Super Simple Kantele

I love music.  I love odd, quirky, obscure ethnic instruments.  Some years ago, I got interested in the Finnish instrument called the kantele.  It is a zither and comes in many different sizes.  However, the basic small kantele has 5 strings, tuned to the first 5 notes of a diatonic scale, usually.

This is a practice instrument I made back when I first got interested.  It is nothing more than a piece of Alaska birch with 5 zither pins and a simple bridge.  The proper instrument is a more elegant piece of work, but this lets me practice without being annoying, as the volume is very low.

The picture honestly shows all that you need to know to build one.  The notebook is there for size reference.  

I plan to make a more "proper" kantele soon.  It will be 10 sttrings and have a soundbox, so should have enough volume to be heard when played.  My wonderful wife bought me a book to learn from and it should be here in less than a week.  I'll report back after I learn to actually make some music with the instrument!

Throwing Target

We wanted a bigger target for the throwing implements.  So I made one.  The youngest, at age almost-8 was actually a big help with placing all these end-grain sections of 2x3 lumber.

There are about 250 pieces of wood, each glued together.  The target area measures 33" x 34.5"

What doesn't show is the two hinged legs in the back.  They are braced against the hillside behind the target.  

I'm looking forward to trying it out tomorrow!

Sunday Project

Hooray!  No school work to do today!  Time to fire up the forge!

Lots of folks are deprived of social contact right now and after a long winter, we are looking for outdoor things to do.  The daughter of a friend has expressed an interest in learning to throw knives, which always gets me smiling.  So, today's project was making some throwing spikes for her.

I don't have any process pictures, but there's not much to show, actually.  I straighten some spring steel, forge a point at one end, and grind the surface smooth.  Then heat treat.  That's it.

Here's a picture of the 20 spikes I made today, fresh from the tempering oven:

And here's a closer look at the tempering colors:

Aren't those pretty?  I love those oxide colors.  I think I'll leave these as-is and maybe add a clear coat of lacquer on top to keep those colors a little longer.  

I prefer spikes over knives for throwing for just plain fun.  I may eventually make some more flat knives for throwing, but these spikes are fast to make, tough, and easy to throw.  They are a little "rough and ready," but I've been throwing a set of these spikes for about 4 years and never had a problem with them.  You can scroll through some of my older posts to see mine.  

New Spoon

This is one of my normal medieval spoons.  I left it a little thicker than usual in the handle.  The best part is the interesting color in the wood.  There is a wonderful dark stripe down the middle of the whole spoon and one side is slightly darker than the other.  Just Alaska birch, but a really nice piece of it.  I'm going to enjoy this one.

Another Seax

Most of the knives from two posts down are in new homes, now.  I decided to offer them to folks in the local SCA in exchange for their Covid crafts.  Essentially, I'm trying to give folks a reason to make things.  I give them a knife, they have to send me something they made.

Right at the end of the trade, I got a contact from a very old friend who wanted any of them that I cared to send.  In this case, I wanted to send something special, so I made one just for him.

This is the blade as forged and still hot.  The length of the blade is about 7".

The "brut de forge" look is one I am really getting into, nowadays.  It leaves no place to hide shoddy smithwork.  I don't claim to be the best bladesmith you will ever encounter, but I do say that very few have more fun at it than I do!  I really like trying to push the extreme of how much knife I can get from a piece of the coil spring.  And forging to nearly finished dimensions is part of getting that maximum knife from minimum material.

Next, a picture of the handle glued up:

 And after shaping it, I oiled the wood.

The spacer between the antler bit and the birdseye maple is two layers of birch bark.

This knife is a cutter, but not a chopper.  I was taking some inspiration from the Aachen Seax, also known as the Hunting Knife of Charlemagne.  The handle is very comfortable on this one, too.  Once the oil cures, I'll wax it, then deliver it.

A Viking Game

I first heard of Hnefatafl over 20 years ago.  At the time, the internet was a lot less of a resource than it is today.  I had the idea that I'd like to learn to play the game, but never did anything with that idea.

So, looking for something to do, as many of us are while being socially isolated, I decided to look for information about Hnefatafl.  Just put that word into your favorite search engine and you'll get more than you might expect.  It seems to have experienced something of a resurgence in popularity in recent years.  Not too surprising, considering the interest in Vikings that's going around.

In short, Hnefatafl is a game from a thousand years ago.  It is sometimes called Viking Chess.  The sides are mis-matched, with the larger side being the attackers and the smaller side being the defenders.

I made my board by running a piece of pine lumber over a table saw several times, cutting grooves about 1/8" deep to divide the board into a grid of squares.  Playing pieces are just glass decorative "stones."  Except the king, which I made, using standard lampworking techniques.  The defenders are blue, the attackers red.  A little paint and a quick spray of semi-gloss wood finish and it was done.

I played a couple of games with my 7 year old today.  The rules are very easy to learn, but there is a need for strategy no matter which side you play.  I can see this becoming a favorite game in the house.

Bunch of Knives

Some of these are from the most recent batch, others are as much as 2 years old.  I finally got around to finishing the handles, sharpening the blades, and taking pictures.

But what am I going to do with all of these?

I should explain that I don't work to particular patterns.  I normally make two of any knife I am making because I work two irons in the fire most of the time.  One piece of steel is heating while the other is being forged.  It is efficient use of fuel and time.  Several of these knives, as you can see, are either duplicates or close cousins.  That's just because of how I work.

There are a lot of knives represented here.  Some are experiments, some are just knives I like to make.  I'll tell you about them all.  Don't worry.  You can skip the words and just look at the pictures if you like.

1. A basic drop point all-purpose knife.  Hand-filling birch handle. Blade about 4" long.

2. Clip point with birch and caribou antler handle.  This one is very comfortable.

3. Smaller brut de forge blade, about 3.25", birch and caribou again.  This one was inspired by a Norwegian knife I saw, so the bevel is rather abrupt, but there is no secondary bevel at the edge.  Good wood working edge.

4. and 5. Efforts at simple seax blades from a couple of years ago.  Maple and caribou antler.  These are very pointy and the handles are just a little small for my hand.  I like them, but not as much as I want to like them.

6. Small seax with octagonal handle.  This one feels really good.  When I stamped my touchmark, the hammer bounced and there's a slight double-stamping.  Too bad, because I really like this blade a lot. 4" blade.

7. Forged in the same day as the above.  Very similar, but without the double-stamping.  Both have chokecherry handles.

8. 3.5" blade and a lathe-turned handle.  I was inspired to do this when I saw a medieval knife in one of my favorite books (Knives and Scabbards from the British Museum) with a lathe-turned handle.  This one is my first such handle.  Possibly my last.  Being completely round, it is hard to index where the edge is just by feel.  I don't like that loss of control.

9. Smaller puukko-inspired knife, using smaller steel stock than the previous knives.  Slender birch handle.  This would make a pretty good carving knife for spoons or similar projects.

10.  Almost the same as above, but the handle is a little different.  This one offers a little more variety of gripping options, but slightly less control.  You sort of have to take a choice with carving knives as to whether you want great control in one position or good control in several positions.

11. Detail carving knife.  I've done several spoons with smaller blades than this one, but it is sort of a hassle.  This is better for carving small figures and projects.  I like this one.

 My "Alaskan Puukkos" are not truly puukkos.  I wouldn't claim to make a perfect representation of a particular knife from a different culture.  I love the "blacksmith puukko" and these are some of my recent efforts inspired by this knife form.  Blades are from 3.5 to 3.75 inches.

12. Amur cherry handle

13. Birch

14. Chokecherry

15. Birch

16. Amur cherry

17. Amur cherry

18. 3" blade, Amur cherry. I don't recall where I saw this blade shape, but I liked the look and wanted to try it out.

19. The mate of the above.

20. 5.5" blade, slim, pointy.  I don't remember why I made this one, but it was a fun one.  The slim handle feels really good and that Amur cherry is just pretty.

21. Chokecherry handle, octagonal, 3" blade.  This one feels like a nice little "getting things done" knife.  I really like it.

22. Paring knife.  Forged thin, birch handle.  Nothing fancy, but it will work hard in a kitchen.  As if I needed another paring knife, right?

23. I'm calling this a Peasant Knife.  Blade just over 4".  I don't know if I like it or dislike it.  It feels good, it is very sharp, and the chokecherry handle is really rather pretty.  But the blade is so primitive that I'm not sure whether I love it or want to hide it.  This was me trying out a particular technique that seemed to make more sense in my head than it did when I was at the anvil.  Yesterday's post showed this blade with its mate, which is not shown here.  The mate is actually just bad looking.  I slapped a cruddy handle on it and will destroy it testing for performance.  If I get to that soon, I'll update the blog with what I do to test blades periodically.

For all of these knives, I used salvaged spring steel and almost all of them have handles made of free wood.  The wood all comes from branches or saplings that have been cleared or trimmed and would not make good firewood.  I just love transforming the stuff that would otherwise be thrown away into knives that will last for years and make wonderful tools.

I have not made sheaths for any of these knives.  Don't know if I will keep any.  I might keep one of the seaxes.  I love that blade form.  If I do, I will make a sheath, of course.  I just don't enjoy leather working very much.  I make a very good sheath, I just don't smile while doing it.  But it is an important part of the knife maker's skill set.  Thing is, someone who will pay $100 for a knife without a sheath won't pay the $40 more that the sheath is worth, in terms of time and effort.  The expectation is that the sheath is a freebie along with the knife.  If I were making something that I enjoy, I wouldn't mind that so much.  But I'd rather spend that time and effort working on another knife.

Well, that's a look at some of my recent work in the shop.  Tomorrow I'll be working on homework and trying to get an assignment done that I've been putting off.  Less than a month to go until graduation.  Whee.

Knives in the Works

With the current quarantine, I thought I'd find plenty of time to get things done for fun.  Ha!  The kids are home, too!  What time I have for projects is stolen in bits and drabs where I can sneak it.

However, I am working on getting a few knives finished up.  I recently made a batch of blades.  Here they are right after heat treatment:

The top two were me trying a forging technique that I'm not really happy with.  One of these will be a test blade.  The other, I don't know if I'll do much with it, but I'll get a handle on it, at least.

In the middle, a pair of small seaxes.  I love this blade shape.  I can't really justify it, I just do.

At the bottom, a pair of puukkos.  This is perhaps the most practical all-purpose blade form I make.  It is the Finnish all-around knife and the edge is very good for woodworking, though a puukko is good at a lot of cutting.  It isn't a prybar or a chopper, but just about everything else you could ask of a tool it does well.

I'm not claiming to make actual Finnish knives.  I know the puukko has become very popular lately, with some rather odd examples of non-Finnish made knives calling themselves puukkos.  I'm just going to say that these are inspired by one of my favorite knife forms and leave it there.

I had a few other blades waiting for finish grinding and handles.  I actually added a couple more after taking this picture.  Also shown are some crooked knives, a couple of gouges, and a kiridashi (wood marking knife) that will be worked on in the future.  I just put them in this batch for finish grinding.

For handle stock, I really like to use branch and sapling wood.  All of these knives have wedge construction, which involves drilling out the handle a little oversize and pounding in carefully-fit wedges beside the tangs to fill the holes.  And plenty of epoxy, of course.  The wedges give a nice strong fit and the epoxy makes it waterproof.  What more could you ask?

All of the wood was harvested locally.  It is birch (from saplings that were cleared off some garden space), chokecherry (which was being cleared from an area where it is considered invasive), and Amur cherry (branches trimmed from ornamental trees).  Part of the enjoyment for me in these knives is using free and found materials.  There's something really fun about knowing that there are beautiful handles hiding in wood that other folks throw in the garbage.

Once the epoxy has cured, I'll shape the handles, oil them, then wax them.  Then it is time for a final sharpening and they'll be ready for new homes.

This batch, I plan to just play around and experiment with the handle shapes I can get from a round stick.  Not shown is the one I turned on my dad's lathe.  A fully-round handle isn't the most practical because you can't tell where the edge is oriented without looking at it, but it can be pretty.  I'll include a picture of it with the next installment.  At that time, I should be done with the knives and ready to find them new homes.

Entertaining the little one

And the Castle Blocks make a reappearance.

This is just a fun little video from yesterday.  The enforced social isolation probably hits children the hardest, to be honest.  Adults can retreat into books and projects.  Kids need that interaction with other people.  And they need the play time.

So, because my youngest has recently started wanting to make YouTube videos (she gets to watch a lot of them when visiting my dad - though very few here at home), I offered her a chance to make one with me.

Here it is.

Spring?

March 21.  Spring, right?

Well, here's what it looked like today.

Walking the dog.

Approaching home.

The view from the top of our driveway.

I'm about ready for things to warm up and thaw.  We are supposed to see lows below zero next week.  Imagine my disgust.

Seriously, this winter has had more actual cold in terms of freezing degree days than we've had in a long time.  As a result, we've been going through the firewood and the wood pellets at a faster rate than anticipated.  We may need to restock sooner than normal, just to make it through the rest of winter.

Nothing profound today, just me feeling a bit cooped up and grumpy.

Stay well and stay warm, everyone.

Cold Outside

Yesterday, I woke up and checked the temperature.  Here's what I saw:

On March 5th.

This is getting old.  Really old.  I'm tired of the oppressive weather.  So much of what I do for enjoyment has to have the garage door up for ventilation.  That means the inside temperature is very soon the same as outside.  And that's not much fun.  

Last year at this time, my older girl and I were out in the shop making her first knife.  Now, the temperatures are just too cold for that.  

Ah, well, at least the cold temperatures are good for the receding permafrost.  There's some silver lining, I guess.

Forging Nails

When I first learned blacksmithing, I took a class through the local Folk School.  I spent two hours with 3 other students and we each left with 3 nails and a hook.  It was worth the $150.  Not for the nails.  But for the empowerment of knowing that I can actually do this.

Historically, before there were machines that make nails out of wire, every nail that was used to put a house together had to be made by hand.  This is really something amazing to consider.  Blacksmiths with no other jobs to do would be banging out nails.  All day.

I once decided I wanted to see how many nails I could make in an hour.  31.  I can make 31 hand-forged nails in an hour.  Just under 2 minutes per nail.  That's actually pretty good.  Search YouTube for hand forged nail and see how many people there are who proudly show how they can bang one out in 3-4 minutes.  I was really moving fast, I figured.  There are rumors I've heard of smiths being able to make a nail a minute.  That seemed like the upper limit to me, though.  I know I was working fast and really in the zone when I did my 31 nails.

Then I found this video:

Just skip forward a bit if you don't want to watch the smith walk out to his shed and light the forge.  Now watch him make a nail.  One heat, no wasted motion, precise work, and he makes these things in under 30 seconds!  I think he really could be knocking out 100 or more in an hour, even taking into account the time he has to spend maintaining his fire and taking a stretch break now and then.  Economy of motion is something truly elegant.

This man sets a bar I might never even approach, let alone beat.

And a forge project

Once we were home from our little icicle-hanging outing, it was time to make some supper.  The youngest suggested kabobs.  That sounded great to all of us.  But we didn't have enough bamboo skewers!  Oh, no!  I'm not driving 20 minutes to the store and 20 back.  That sets supper back by a whole hour (including the time I'm in the store finding the skewers and probably seven other things we didn't really need, but I would pick up anyway, more like an hour and a half).

So I made some.

Remember, the weather is warmer!  I can roll up that garage door and run the small forge!  I didn't have time for any really involved projects, but I made four nice, long kabob skewers.  They have an oval cross section (the food can be turned without it simply rotating on the rod like it will with a round poker), they are long enough to hold plenty of food.

Here are the skewers, including what we couldn't eat:

Nothing profound, but a fun little forge project that made it easier to feed the family this evening.

A Lovely Friday

Temperatures were below zero for the past month.  The day we got back from Tucson, we saw one bank sign that claimed it was 43 degrees below zero.  That's 75 degrees below freezing.  That's as much below the temperature of freezing water as 107 is above it.

That's cold.

But this week, we have seen as warm as 20 above zero!  Hooray!

I turned on the torch and melted some glass yesterday and the day before.  This is what I made:

 They are simple glass icicles.  My wife made the little purple one at the top, but I made the others.

What to do with them?  Glad you asked!

There are a couple of local trails where we walk our dog that have spruce trees with ornaments on them.  Winter is long here and there are folks who will do that little tiny bit to make life more colorful and a bit whimsical.  Here's an example:

Just a tree beside the trail.  Couple of classic glass ornaments on it.  These ornaments can be there for years.  People either don't take them or else someone replaces them.  I'm not sure which, but I will see the ornaments for a long time and even in summer it makes me smile.

Today, while the dog got her much-needed walk, we did our part to add to the random, playful whimsy.