Harder than woodpecker lips, it is!

[Yvsa]

On to the woodpecker lips, do any of you other folks have Queen's with the D-2 blades?

I used my EZELap to sharpen my Trapper. Sharpened up very easily and then finished it on Jeweler's Rouge strop.
Will shave the hair offen a gnat's ass.
I'm gonna order that nice little JBS Skinner real soon. I'm betting their fixed blades are damned nice!!!!

 

[Mr.BadExample]

Right now I'm reading some transcripts of Alan Watts's talks on Zen Buddhism, entitled Talking Zen. I have picked up some of Bernard Cornwell's "Archer" books, haven't read them yet. I have a shelf full of books to read (I was a bookaholic, then computers stole too much of my time, now I'm whittling away at the stacks) and I force myself to read fiction/nonfiction alternately...

 

[Khukuri Monster]

I have a Queen Mountain Man with a D2 blade and cocobolo handles. It's a nice knife, and overall I like it, but it seems like there is just a little bit of play in the blade when it is opened.

It is difficult to sharpen it with anything but a diamond stone. I have one of those large 4"x10" DMT two-sided diamond stones, with 600 grit on one side and 1200 on the other. It just takes a couple of passes and a little bit of stropping to get the Mt. Man extremely sharp.

Regarding books, a couple of really good books that I've read lately (on the non-fiction side of things):

"The Turk", a story about a famous chess-playing automata (mechanical man). If you like chess, you will certainly like this book. Even if you don't know much about chess, it won't be hard to understand.

"Mind Wide Open", about how the mind functions. I'm also looking to pick up "On Intelligence" but can't seem to find it at the library.

I also read "Hyperion" on the suggestion of some forumites, and really enjoyed it. The library didn't have the sequel, so it was quite annoying being stuck with such a cliffhanger sort of ending.

 

[DannyinJapan]

DannyinJapan's books o' the week:

Understanding the universe: An Introduction to physics and astrophysics by James Seaborn

and as always:

Unconventional Flying Objects by Paul Hill

 

[stevomiller]

I used my EZELap to sharpen my Trapper. Sharpened up very easily and then finished it on Jeweler's Rouge strop.
Will shave the hair offen a gnat's ass.
I'm gonna order that nice little JBS Skinner real soon. I'm betting their fixed blades are damned nice!!!!

Uncle, once I switched to the diamonds sharpening was no problem at all.

I like the skinner I got from them quite well. I wish that the handle was maybe a bit longer, and I wish that it had a choil big enough to put my finger so I could "choke" up. I don't really want to grind one in because it will diminish the amount of straight edge that it has.

I will someday buy a Marbles just for fun; they DO have a big enough choil.

 

[Bri in Chi]

Another cool Amazon thing is their used book section. I managed to find an out-of-print copy of Christopher Isherwood's Berlin Stories for cheap. BTW the book is much better than Cabaret, and Sally Bowels was no cutie-pie ingenue.
Here's more pre-WWII stuff:
Otto Friedrich, Before the Deluge. Very readable history of Berlin in the '20's.
Philip Kerr, Berlin Noir. A pre-WWII German private detective in the Sam Spade tradition.
As I said before, All the Alan Furst novels are great. All very "noir."