Guardians of The Lambsfoot!

[dc50]

You know they were tough...no Starbucks or McDs!!

I know eh, and no internet!

 

[Prester John]

I know eh, and no internet!

Beauty, eh?

 

[mitch4ging]

I know eh, and no internet!

No gps..., I get lost and short winded just crossing the Walmart parking lot!

 

[dc50]

No gps..., I get lost and short winded just crossing the Walmart parking lot!

 

[Prester John]

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And Cheeseburgers! And fries! And shakes!

 

[dc50]

Beauty, eh?

Beauty

 

[Jack Black]

What a waste, that's not cool.

Not at all When I was a kid, they were still knocking down all the factories, houses, etc that were bombed during WW2, and often the contents were still inside. The same with the 'slum clearance' problem, many folks moved to their new homes, and wanted a fresh start, just taking clothes and a few family mementos with them. Then when the cutlery firms started closing, people simply walked away from them, leaving everything behind. It's a great shame to think of everything that has been lost

I just took this one of RALF in the nice, cozy evening light. The rascal has started to sport a "beauty spot" on his spine . . .
I don't think affectation suits him, but it's his call!

P.S. -- Jack, that is a beauty of a bench!

Nice pic Jeff, you are going to have to keep a close eye on RALF, he will be sporting a rakish moustache next!

Lovely bench Jack, I loved the back story of how you became its caretaker. Man I'd love a go at sanding that thing down and refinishing it! On second thought...that might take away a lot of its character. Pretty cool how old things can find a proper home sometimes.

Thanks Duane The teak is lovely and smooth and has a great feel to it, I love its weathered look

A most interesting account Jack. Bizarre no doubt. Sounds like someone dropped the ball that day. Nothing like being in the right place at the right time. Thanks for sharing the story.

Bench might have just fallen off a lorry. In any case Jack Black , great find and good for you that it has gone on unclaimed. We are all just part time caretakers anyway, aren't we?

Cool backstory on the bench, Jack!

Thanks a lot guys, I really have no idea how it got there. Around the same time, I arrived home late one night, and there was a sack-barrow (I don't know if you use this term in the US, it's quite old here) standing against the wall next to my front door.

I had had a new neighbour move in a few days before, so I thought it might be something to do with him, and being as it was late, I just left it there. The next day, it was still there, so I went and asked him about it, but he said it wasn't his. I asked if he had had anything delivered, but he said not. I put it in the hall for a few days, and then gave it to the scrap-man, he was pleased as punch with it, and I still see him using it. It was strange as I have a long garden, and my house is not close to the road, so I've no idea how it came to be outside my door

My 2019 and an AC for this evening.

Russell

View attachment 1076731

View attachment 1076735

Superb pics Russell

Propellers are usually bronze. But lignum vitae was used for submarine propeller shaft bearings during WWII, and possibly for shaft bearings on other ships, too. It is a very tough wood with a lot of natural oil that makes them self-lubricating. It is a very dense wood, but in the specimens I have the density is not greater than most of my African Blackwood or Desert Ironwood (by actual measurement, not just going by the standard published numbers).

Thank you for the correction, and further education my friend

Kind of matches her hair, huh?

So it does Cool pic Vince

Thanks a lot, Dave! My family has been working in that mine since the mid-1800's. My Great Great Grandfather came over from Cornwall, where they mined as well.
There in NM, they mined copper, but also pulled up silver ore, turquoise, malachite and iron.
Here is what some of the copper looks like coming out:

Thank you very much, Jack! Taking one appointment at a time!

Both very beautiful!

Interesting family history Dennis, and a wonderfully appropriate Lambsfoot pic There were a few coal-miners in my own family, though not more recent than my grandfather's generation, so far as I know. When he was a teenager, my granddad's younger brother worked down the mines, and was used to collapse worked out seams. He would pull out the timbers, and run as the roof collapsed behind him!

Yep, it was named after her. Good song. You might enjoy a song called "Desert Rose" by Chris Hillman. When I first got that knife, that song just popped into my mind. Since I thought that it might be kinda weird to name a knife after a male singer , and since Emmylou had cut a couple of records with him, I went that route. Might change her name to Desert Rose, though.

Nice

Great history Dennis. we can only imagine what our forefathers went through to ensure a fine life for us.

Thanks, Dave.
I do think they were a much tougher generation then! Just the sheer thought of navigating from a port of entry on one side of the contry, and navigating across hundreds or thousands of miles on horseback or walking, providing for yourself, medical issues and hostile groups is just amazing!

For sure, incredible people, and many of them were very young when they made the long journey

I had a whole mess of multi-quotes ready to go, with real witty replies too and somehow I lost 'em.
I'll give it another go tomorrow. Until then I'll just share a pic' of HE WHO CAN NOT BE NAMED ( more dramatic echo )

Hate it when that happens! Thanks for leaving us with that lovely pic Kevin

mitch4ging In short for now, I'm thinking of my Grandparents. Came from Scotland 1890 or so too Eastern Canada. Then around 1912 the Government opened up North West Canada and offered homesteads for $1.00. My Grandparents along with many other new Canadians came by train with all there Oxen wagons etc to the NorthWest.
The records show it was pure H@@& once they took to the trail through the bush black flies, mosquitos muskeg and temperatures as cold as -60F.
I won't go on, but it was a tough people that opened the Northwest, it would take 6 Months for the men to stake there claim then return to a town called Edson to pick up the Women and Children.

Again, really incredible Dave, what people

I know eh, and no internet!

Morning folks, thought I'd carry some ebony today Hope everyone is having a good week

 

[Will Power]

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Ha Ha! Marie-Antoinette might have liked that

Good excuse, I'm not so fond of cake, does it apply to WINE too? Or Cakes & Ale

 

[WDJ]

I take back what I said yesterday about lignum vitae being quite a boring grained wood. Have just seen a Barbara Hepworth sculpture made from it and the grain and deep colour was beautiful. A bit of vitae like it with make a magnificent handle material.

 

[Jack Black]

I take back what I said yesterday about lignum vitae being quite a boring grained wood. Have just seen a Barbara Hepworth sculpture made from it and the grain and deep colour was beautiful. A bit of vitae like it with make a magnificent handle material.

Beautiful wood. The main problem in terms of having it used for hafting knives is that most cutlers don't like working with it because it is so hard. Still, I do have hopes

 

[dc50]

Morning folks, thought I'd carry some ebony today Hope everyone is having a good week

Ebony, it is then.

 

[Jack Black]

Ebony, it is then.
View attachment 1076988

Very nicely presented Dave

 

[dc50]

Cakes & Ale

It's wide open, you could have all that and a bag of chips /crisps

 

[dc50]

Very nicely presented Dave

Thank you Jack today I go to the Doctor for test results. I'm pretty sure there will be a lot of "this tested to high and you need to do this and that"...

 

[JohnDF]

It was strange as I have a long garden, and my house is not close to the road, so I've no idea how it came to be outside my door

Somebody came back to retrieve their bench, and the Garden Gnomes got 'em

thought I'd carry some ebony today

You big tease

 

[Prester John]

Thanks a lot guys, I really have no idea how it got there. Around the same time, I arrived home late one night, and there was a sack-barrow (I don't know if you use this term in the US, it's quite old here) standing against the wall next to my front door.

We call that a "dolly".

 

[WhittlinAway]

We call that a "dolly".

Or a "hand truck."

 

[screened porch]

I spy with my watery eye an anvil?

Yup. On indefinite loan from my brother. I think knives, but he thinks I should give decorative ironwork a try. Good idea, too. It's outrageous what you can pay for a sheet-iron leaf. And hooks on a spike! I still have to build a stand for it. Preferably with wheels.

Then when the cutlery firms started closing, people simply walked away from them, leaving everything behind. It's a great shame to think of everything that has been lost

And us not there with a fleet of trucks/lorries and a warehouse!

 

[Prester John]

Morning folks, thought I'd carry some ebony today Hope everyone is having a good week

Gorgeous ebony, Jack.

 

[Cambertree]

I think it took me an hour and a half to catch up this morning!

Thanks my friend, those are great pics, as usual Sweet dreams

As usual, great photos, Chin. An oldie but a goodie...

Thank you Jack and Preston.

Nice knife, I wrap the blade or wear a glove to work the blade up and down many, many times. My Rosie took days to break in...Iron Mike is taking a bit longer.

Preston and @Hkjay , you can speed up the process by dabbing a little bit of lapping paste with a toothpick into the back of the tang, where it bears against the backspring when opening and closing. I use 1 micron diamond paste sparingly, then work the action like you mentioned, then flush it with oil. You can mix some stropping compound shavings with mineral oil and warm it up in a shot glass, if you don’t have diamond or CBN paste.

Propellers are usually bronze. But lignum vitae was used for submarine propeller shaft bearings during WWII, and possibly for shaft bearings on other ships, too. It is a very tough wood with a lot of natural oil that makes them self-lubricating. It is a very dense wood, but in the specimens I have the density is not greater than most of my African Blackwood or Desert Ironwood (by actual measurement, not just going by the standard published numbers).

That’s very interesting - yes I understand the actual numbers can vary quite a lot with individual samples of timber. Enough that a ‘top ten of the hardest or densest woods’ could easily be completely different with different samples of the same wood types.

Lignum vitae has been used for self lubricating bearings in early nuclear subs too, as well as hydroelectric dams. It’s an amazing wood. The cable insulators on San Francisco’s trolley car system were made from lignum vitae. Installed from 1904, many of the insulators survived the fires following the Great San Fransisco Earthquake in 1906, which softened iron struts and melted copper wire. In fact many of them were still in service into the 1970s, and the last of them were only replaced in 2009.

Master clockmaker, John Harrison used the timber for the gears in his Longitude clocks, and I understand that, of four of his clocks which are held in the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, three of them are still run full time, so little concern is there for wear on the lignum vitae clock mechanisms. (Apparently, the fourth is not operated, as it is not made of lignum vitae.)

If this could be sourced from some recycled old bowls balls, it would certainly be my number one vote for some very interesting, superlatively durable cover material.

As Lambertiana mentioned, published figures don’t capture the diverse spread of values in actual timber samples, but it can be instructive to compare values on the Janka scale. Not to disparage anyones preferences, but many of the timbers previously mentioned, like English Oak and Yew are relatively soft compared to African Blackwood, Lignum Vitae and Osage Orange.

I would also throw Australian Gidgee into the ring for consideration.

In the past GEC used ‘Barn Chestnut’ for some stainless knives, which was a good story, but an appalling choice from a practical service standpoint IMHO, being softer than pine, and easily taking a deep imprint from a fingernail.

As Kevin noted with Betty’s fall onto concrete from 6’ high, these are extremely durable timbers. My ebony user has been through similar drops and scrapes, and is no worse for wear, either.

My family has been working in that mine since the mid-1800's. My Great Great Grandfather came over from Cornwall, where they mined as well.
There in NM, they mined copper, but also pulled up silver ore, turquoise, malachite and iron.
Here is what some of the copper looks like coming out:

Thanks, Dave.
I do think they were a much tougher generation then! Just the sheer thought of navigating from a port of entry on one side of the contry, and navigating across hundreds or thousands of miles on horseback or walking, providing for yourself, medical issues and hostile groups is just amazing!

Great stuff, Dennis, I loved the pic, and hearing about your family history.

I had a whole mess of multi-quotes ready to go, with real witty replies too and somehow I lost 'em.
I'll give it another go tomorrow. Until then I'll just share a pic' of HE WHO CAN NOT BE NAMED ( more dramatic echo )

Wow, Kevin, these horn knives are looking even better with time. I thought it was one of the 2017 run, but obviously not, with that bolster?

Yeah, it’s frustrating when you lose a whole string of multiquotes like that.

mitch4ging In short for now, I'm thinking of my Grandparents. Came from Scotland 1890 or so too Eastern Canada. Then around 1912 the Government opened up North West Canada and offered homesteads for $1.00. My Grandparents along with many other new Canadians came by train with all there Oxen wagons etc to the NorthWest.
The records show it was pure H@@& once they took to the trail through the bush black flies, mosquitos muskeg and temperatures as cold as -60F.
I won't go on, but it was a tough people that opened the Northwest, it would take 6 Months for the men to stake there claim then return to a town called Edson to pick up the Women and Children.

Thanks Dave, really interesting stuff, mate.

Not at all When I was a kid, they were still knocking down all the factories, houses, etc that were bombed during WW2, and often the contents were still inside. The same with the 'slum clearance' problem, many folks moved to their new homes, and wanted a fresh start, just taking clothes and a few family mementos with them. Then when the cutlery firms started closing, people simply walked away from them, leaving everything behind. It's a great shame to think of everything that has been lost

Yeah, I remember we discussed the ‘Urban Explorer’ scene in Sheffield. There’s some great stuff on Youtube.

Jack had pointed out some pics taken in one of the old cutlery factories which showed some leftover stag cover slabs on a bench, when I visited Sheffield. I was in half a mind to go and have a stickybeak, but when I tracked the photos down, they were clearly Red Stag, not Sambar, which is probably why they had been left!

I take back what I said yesterday about lignum vitae being quite a boring grained wood. Have just seen a Barbara Hepworth sculpture made from it and the grain and deep colour was beautiful. A bit of vitae like it with make a magnificent handle material.

Absolutely! And Barrett can have his almighty, glass breaking Lambsfoot handle then too!

Beautiful wood. The main problem in terms of having it used for hafting knives is that most cutlers don't like working with it because it is so hard. Still, I do have hopes

I found one of the photos from the time we visited Stan Shaw, and he showed us some Lignum Vitae covers he was lapping flat, which he had slabbed out of an old bowls ball: