Doug Lester

That reminds me of a story a fellow corpsman told me about a day of fishing he had. He was having a pretty good day catching bass when suddenly the fish stopped hitting on his lure so he decided to pack it in. He pulled up his stringer and found that he had the nicest stringer of fish heads he ever saw. He never sensed that he had an alligator having lunch at his expense. Doug

Interesting. Thanks for the post. Doug

Outstanding, as usual. Doug

Thanks for the step by step and the historical references. Both the knife and the sheath look great. Doug

Thanks for the info, Jake. I couldn't watch the whole thing but that video on how those axes were used was instructive. Doug

Is that a chisel grind on that ax? If it is it would point to it being a hewing ax. That one would square large longs into beams. Doug

WOW!! Doug

I don't know how many patients started out on their accident report with something like "I only had one cut to make" or they'd have to have gone down into the basement to get the step ladder to change one light bulb so t hey used a chair. Doug

Take a look at the Atlas Tool and Steel 65 lb knifemakers anvil. It's 10 lbs heavier than what you are trying to use not and is tempered. There is no horn but it does have a hardy hole that will allow you to get a bick (another name for a horn) hardy tool and it's listed for $299. For tongs I'd recommend chainmakers/bolt tongs. Wolf jaw tongs are probably the worst there is for blade forging. Try looking at GS Tongs. Glen makes a variety of tools and he also has some nice videos on Youtube. Doug

It's rough even when we know that the decision is the right one. I went trough that with one of my cats a couple of months ago. She had cancer. Not that it would have made any difference, I felt guilty not getting her into the vet's earlier and decreased her suffering. I feel for you. Doug

Thanks, Bill, I'll look into that. Another think that I considered is some of the 1/4" 15N20 stock that Aldo carries after I use up my last bar of 9260 when I get my forge set back up. Doug

That's a very nice clean looking job. I wish that we had a source of EN45 equivalent here in the states but the only source of 9260 we had stopped carrying in a few years back. Doug

I agree, a nice job. You've go some talent. Doug

Make you life easier and get a stitching pony. It's a wooden clamp that attaches to a board on the bottom that you sit on under your thighs. It gives you that vital third hand that you will feel that you need if you try doing it without one (don't ask me how I know). You can also pick up three or four pamphlets on stitching, tooling, and lacing for around $20. Also check youtube on videos on sheath making. A basic tooling set is also not expensive. There are fancy stitching patterns out there but my recommendation is that you learn the saddle stitch. It's simple and the only pattern th

That would be a great looking sheath for your 10th or you 100th. I really like the texture you gave to the panels. Doug