Doug Lester

In the morning and at the setting of the sun we shall remember them. Doug

I'm interested in the atlas knifemakers anvil because I could roll it into the garage after a forging to make sure that it's didn't grow legs on me. The hardy hole would hold my bick tool (among others) even if I had to grind the stem down a little to fit. Doug

Nice looking knife. Study hard at your degree. Doug

Very impressive, sir! Doug

I just had a look around my forge again today to see what I might need to do to the forges and I found out that my air blower is gone too. I'm looking at one of those 30 Kg anvils to replace the one of the same size and I guess that I'll have to go on Ebay to see if they have another bounce house blower. I'm also going to have security cameras installed. Doug

You can also go to someplace like Ebay and look for party house blowers. You might have to use a little imagination to figure out how to connect it to the forge and put a gate valve in the line to adjust the air flow but they are relatively inexpensive. Doug

Very well done. I love the pattern of the blade. Doug

Quite true, Alan. I also like how they used the wear pattern on the pummel to estimate that the owner of the sword was left handed. Doug

I happened to run into that on YouTube the other day. It's well worth the watching. She did a presentation on her favorite Anglo Saxon sword but I'm going to have to look it back up to watch it. Too sleepy. Doug

Just remember, the better the edge holding ability the harder it is to sharpen. So, as Alan infers, you can have a hard blade that will hold an edge seemingly forever but needs a belt grinder to restore the edge or a softer blade that will dull while field dressing and skinning an elk but you can restore it's edge with a few passes on a crockery stick. Doug

If you use the drill press to punch the stitches you should also make a jig with a scrap of board with a hole drill just at the edge so that the glued up sheath will lay flat. Otherwise the sheath will lay at an angle and the holes will punch crooked. You can also use the same board with a small hole, 1/2" or less, that you can lay your sheath blank on for things like punching the holes for the belt strap. I do not recommend using a drill bit to drill holes through the leather because if you get a hole off you're stuck with it. If you use a heavy needle and you get off then you can smooth the hole over with a carving spoon and correct with a punch awl. Note that I do not drill the hole with the heavy needle rather I use the drill to push the needle through. Doug

I use the pattern for the welt to lay out the gluing line for the welt. Even though it's on what will be the inside of the sheath I use a red ball point pen just to make it a habit because any dye will cover red ink. I lay out the welt using the pattern with have a little excess leather that will extend past the edge of the sheath. I get the belt loop done and glue the welt down to the line on the one side of the sheath. When that sets I glue up the second side of the sheath using the line marked from the welt pattern. After that dries I use my box cutter to trip the leather of the welt even then sand the edges on the wheel of my grinder using an old course grit belt. Then I lay out the stitching groove on both sides of the edge, lay out the spacing of the holes with a stitching wheel, then punch my holes with a drapery needle chucked up in my drill press. After that it's upstairs to the living room, find something mindless on the TV, chuck the sheath in my stitching pony, and start stitching. Doug

Now that's a knife! Well done. Doug

A real zombie killer if I've ever seen one. Poorly ground profile and a sabre grind and serrations that serve no purpose. Doug

I agree that most Americans don't realize that the UK has pubs older than our country. Doug