Alex Middleton

Thanks Marty. I've been carrying it in one set of my gear for the last few months, and have had a few opportunities to put it to use. It's a little cumbersome to maneuver around when donning and doffing my gear but outside of that I don't even realize it's on my hip. The blade needed to be tempered just a little bit hotter, I took a pretty good chunk out of the chisel tip when I hit a block chimney that was in a wall that I was opening up. Overall though I'm pretty happy with it. One of these days I'll get around to remaking the sheaths and spend a little more time on making them look pretty.

All things considered, I like it. The pattern is cool and the wood is gorgeous. Like Alan said, the handle design isn't typical, but different isn't always bad.

Having the hole in the back isn't critical to start with, but someday you are going to want to do a blade bigger than your forge and then you'll need it. It's probably easier to design it in right now then trying to figure out how to cut it in later.

I'm not sure what you have available, but you can use a standard bathroom fart fan. A lot of them have enough CFM to get the job done. I went the other way and used a cheap leaf blower. It's way too much air, but I throttle it back with a gate valve between the blower and the gas inlet.

Gorgeous! I've been to Gothenburg before. I'm not sure which I like better, your knives, or the "scenery" in the shopping district of your city in the springtime. Both are pretty amazing!

I don't know, In the grand scheme of things,I almost think that they would encourage terrorists to attack a tank with nothing but a knife.

Light fixture for the new house?

Lol. I actually scratched off the last thing yesterday. And then she started writing more......

Phase 2 is coming along well. I'm definitely not on the level of Jacques Sauniere, but I'm pretty happy with how it's turning out. No pictures though. I think it'll be more fun (at least to me, lol) if it's a surprise to the recipient of this dagger.

Lets call it the end of July, + or -, ish.

Jeremy, you have to try the turkey! I go home with at least 1 bag of it every time I go. Jason, you stole my recipe! I usually don't go so heavy on the whiskey. Of course, there's usually more than that missing from the bottle somehow when I'm done . Dang, this thread brings back so many memories of deer camp down the road from the store in Hoxeyville when I was a kid........

I've been going there since I was a kid. It used to be a hardware/grocery store that had a small jerky section. Now it's more of a jerky store that has some groceries and hardware. I'm not complaining though, their jerky is just as good now as it was 30 years ago. They also have opened a few outlet stores in the Grand Rapids area, now I don't have to drive so far to get it!

It looks like you cut in a round hole. In order to get it parallel to the ground, it actually needs to be an ellipse. Its hard to tell from the pictures, but you might be a touch on the high side. I would leave the top of the hole where its at and start working the bottom of it downwards, and the sides outward a little, until the tube slides through at the angle you want.

Took this off the shelf today and gave it another look. I'm still pretty happy with it overall. I've been toying with the idea of a phase 2 to this build and since I don't have any projects going at the moment, I decided to start on it (I just can't let the wife find out, the honey-do list is only half done ). If everything goes as planned, it should add a little bit of mystery to the magic. I'm gonna keep the details under wraps for now, but I got far enough along today that I thought I'd throw a teaser out. More to come!

Preheating it like Alan said should help. Also, if you're not already, grind a chamfer on the end of both your billet and your rebar to help give a bit more surface area and better penetration for your weld. On my first few I had a tendency to essentially just tack them together and the joint failed every time. Chamfering the ends and then really burning in the welds seems to do the trickmost of the time.