Friday

Mark Williams

Mark Williams

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Joined
Nov 28, 2000
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4,760
I guess this is friday :D

Losing track of what day it is already. I'll just be a slug for another week. Cant wait to get back in the groove.

What ya'll doin this w/e?

Mark
 
This weekend I am finishing off a batch of 8 blades and getting them ready for HT. My oven is coming wednesday and i want to be ready for a full ht session shortly after.

This weekend i am house hunting with the GF, taking the dog for a hike today, and other than that, nothing.
 
Getting ready to go to the Wannamakers's Gun Show in Tulsa. Supposedly 4000 tables have a deal where I will hand out fliers for our November Custom Knife Show in Oklahoma City. Set up Sunday on a friends table who has to leave Saturday night . Will BE APPROXIMATELY 40 Guild members set up in one spot besides 20 to 30 other makers scattered. Lot of good knife supplies from Texas Knifemakers and Ron Wilson. IF you can walk through the show in six hours you have accomplished something. Lots of eye candy all over the place. Mike Miller
 
Tomorrow at about 8am the excavator finally breaks ground on my new workshop! It'll probably be a week or more before construction begins, but I'm happy as can be to have work getting underway.

Other than that, I have to unload my grinder from the truck after loaning it for a class last weekend and do some stuff around the house. May also be running around visiting some shelters looking for a new shop dog to go with the new shop :)

-d
 
Taking the kids to a sugar bush south of us. Other than that, slum, drink a few beer, and enjoy the sunshine. If the good weather here holds, I might work up the gumption to haul my grinder out into the back yard and see if I can kill some grass.
 
Work and more work. Got some heat-treated blades that need to be finish ground and handrubbed. Going to clean the house too so it looks decent for when my parents come to visit on Sunday. :D
 
Just finished cleaning all the windows... now I gotta clean off all the screens and install them.

All of this is being done prematurely, but it's 70 degrees here today, and it's screaming to open up the house... problem is, we'll get one more dose of snow some time in April, and I'll end up questioning why I did this so early. Just so nice to get some fresh air in the house after being cooped up all winter with over 230 pounds of stinky dogs!
 
Work in the AM then Off to Ken Steigerwalt's to learn to do folders his way. Should be fun

Larry
 
Well if my knee will hold out (had surgery Monday), got to pull an engine for my brother-in-law and then profile and grind 11 blades of variuos sizes and shapes. Looking forward to it because I have some crucbile 154CM to grind and heat treat and more G11 handle material, should be a nice batch.
Whatever you do this weekend, be safe!
Jim
 
Weather is PERFECT here right now...70, sunny, no clouds....

I have supplies coming from all over next week...im stocking up enough to just be able to focus on making for the next few months. I have woods, g10, micarta, O-1, 1084, D2, satinite, mosaic pins, tough quench, a paragon oven, and belts arriving between wednesday and friday! Its going to be like christmas....gotta love tax return season!

Should keep me occupied for a while...I like having 4-5 knives going at once...i tend to be a product of mood, and sometimes feel more in the mood to grind bevels than shape handles, or drill vs sand, etc....fun stuff!

StagnSteel, you have amazing throughput! What size batches do you do things in?
 
TikTock, 7-14 depending on mood, time and commisioned orders. I have a record rack in my oven that will hold 15. This year has been amazing, I usually make and sell about 50 knives a year and have made 57 so far this year. I will taper off soon to camp and fish, besides it will be too hot here in KS to work in the garage before long. After this batch, I think I will only do commision orders for a while....maybe...you know when it's in your blood, what do you do?
Jim
 
:) Good to hear!

Ive been tinkering making what I like for some time now, doing an order here and there, but am now fully set up to start increasing my output some. I think the oven will be a big step in that, allowing me to HT a few at once and concentrate on aspects of the HT other than temperature control. I need about a year off work to get some experimenting out of my blood. I have been wanting to do a batch of 10 clay treated blades with varying clay treatments, ht cycles, and quench mediums....but that is on my summer list of things to do...my main goal is to make enough knives by May so that my table doesnt look sparse and empty for a show I am doing, haha!
 
If I'm really, really lucky, the FedEx truck will show up with a box from Rob Frink and I'll spend the weekend playing electrician and restoring my KMGs to service with their new VFDs :) If they don't make it in today, I might just lay on the couch and watch movies as it's ugly and rainy here and the day job has been a bear this week and I could use some plain old rest.
 
Getting my 13yo daughter back from her week long tree-camp, shearing sheep, building a rain-shed lean-to, dragging a quarter mile of 15 degree sloped gravel road, grading a plant nursery area, building nursery tables, planting a few thousand feet of vegges, completing and submitting our biodynamic and organic certification paperwork, looking for that killer deal on eBay with free shipping to Hawaii for a 110V MIG welder so I can get started on a furnace, reading blacksmithing and knife making books and hanging out reading threads on this forum as an anemic substitute for having a shop and making my own knives...thanks everyone for the cyber experience!
 
Farmer Phyl said:
Getting my 13yo daughter back from her week long tree-camp, shearing sheep, building a rain-shed lean-to, dragging a quarter mile of 15 degree sloped gravel road, grading a plant nursery area, building nursery tables, planting a few thousand feet of vegges, completing and submitting our biodynamic and organic certification paperwork, looking for that killer deal on eBay with free shipping to Hawaii for a 110V MIG welder so I can get started on a furnace, reading blacksmithing and knife making books and hanging out reading threads on this forum as an anemic substitute for having a shop and making my own knives...thanks everyone for the cyber experience!
Click to expand...

Wow that makes me tired just reading it! I guess you could have worse places to do all that outdoor work, though! Do you have any exotic wood that is available locally within your reach? I remember from my vacation th HI the vast amounts of exotic foliage and thinking to myself "theres has GOT to be some crazy wood growing here someplace"....
 
Goin' to the fam's property tomorrow to start dragging out all the alder trees that came down this past winter and bucking them up for firewood. :D

It's kinda nice sometimes to be destructive and constructive at the same time!
 
Speaking of bucking up fallen trees and exotic tropical woods... We just had a storm that took down half a Jacaranda tree, which is supposed to be a nice wood (some kind of rosewood-like stuff). I'm saving the trunk wood. Gunna rip some up and check it out. Koa is the real good stuff around here. Curly koa is near famous. I've got a little stash of it (drop offs). Ohia is another wood folks like, somewhat like oak, usually used structually as freeform posts and columns. Then there's mokeypod, mango and guava. Sandalwood's a wood of a bygone era that was world famous. Keawi is a trippy wood that's akin to mesquite, tough as nails and twisty as all getout, used as fence post, but pretty if you can work it.
 
get my message Mark??? just checking on ya old fart!

I'll be working on 5 more knives.........you think

i'd get tired of it by now :D
 
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