Old Stool in the Shop

There is an old stool in the shop known for leaning and making noises. It has a collapsed seat that is uncomfortable to sit upon because edges are higher that the seat. While Riley, the shop dog, keeps on eye on the doors, the knifemaker's aunt rummages in her car trunk and comes up with a piece of wood for a repair.

To begin, the seat had to come off. Lo and behold, Yikes!  The base board was cracked and missing pieces of its edges. The bottom of the actual seat had collapsed and was starting to crumble. Certainly this stool needed some repair!

After spraying some gun oil on the spinning mechanism (yes, the seat spun around at one time!), the new board was screwed into position. With idle time on her hands, the knifemaker's aunt wrote on the seat (The Cutting Edge of Custom Can Be a Bloody Place) and added silhouettes of an anvil and a horseshoe knife. Now it's a sturdy seat that spins around from one station to another!

Checking the front view...

   

...and the back door.

Waiting for the Knifemaker's Dad

It is a long day for Riley when the knifemaker's dad is away. She stands at the ready, waiting for the van to return...first on the porch, then at the back door.

THEN, a familiar sound happens at the back door and all excitement breaks out!  Riley's whole body wags with happiness!

Tutorials on the Porch

While the knifemaker and crew are at the show, the knifemaker's aunt is at the shop with the shop dog, Riley. The Closed sign is up but from time to time people stop by the porch and ask questions as the knifemaker's aunt works. Today was a delightful opportunity to talk with a grandfather from Pennsylvania who was meeting his daughter and son-in-law halfway to pick up the three grandsons for a summer visit. The knifemaker's aunt talked about knives and the process as she's learned in the past several weeks. All the knives are at the craftsman's fair, but the aunt was able to come up with pieces in various stages of the metalworking process to illustrate what she explained.

Later, once the grandfather got his grandsons, he returned. The grandsons are Eagle Scouts!  There were good questions and pictures taken and best wishes offered for future success (the scouts, not the aunt - she feels pretty successful already!). She explained how a horseshoe is made into a knife - there were no finished ones on hand, but a profiled knife made the point.

A similar demonstration was done with railroad spikes. Since the knifemaker's aunt has done her share of profiling railroad spikes, she could speak with hands-on experience! The initial railroad spike is rusty. The forged spike shows the lengthened and broadened shape that begins the knife's transformation. The finished knife just gleams!

For a future display, a series of each project (horseshoe knife and a railroad spike knife) could be prepared to show each stage of the process. It could be a terrific addition to the showroom. As people visit, the display would inspire questions as well as inform.  **kaching!*  Great idea!

Back to the Warsh House

The knifemaker's aunt makes a trip the Warsh House every four days and today was one of those days. That leaves a set of work clothes ready to wear in case something happens and the visit cannot happen. 

It so happens a loyal reader sent a poem about clotheslines that made for good reading. Clotheslines, as some may know, are clothes dryers that are **gasp!* outside!  The reader made the point that the knifemaker's aunt and her generation will probably be the last to know what a clothesline IS.  In some places (with Homeowners' Association rules), clotheslines are illegal. **Double gasp!**

Remembering Mom's Clothesline 

A clothesline was a news forecast, To neighbors passing by,

There were no secrets you could keep, When clothes were hung to dry.

It also was a friendly link, For neighbors always knew

If company had stopped on by, To spend a night or two.

For then you'd see the "fancy sheets", And towels upon the line;

You'd see the "company table cloths", With intricate designs.

The line announced a baby's birth, From folks who lived inside,

As brand new infant clothes were hung, So carefully with pride!

The ages of the children could, So readily be known

By watching how the sizes changed, You'd know how much they'd grown!

It also told when illness struck, As extra sheets were hung;

Then nightclothes, and a bathrobe too, Haphazardly were strung.

It also said, "On vacation now", When lines hung limp and bare.

It told, "We're back!" when full lines sagged, With not an inch to spare!

New folks in town were scorned upon, If wash was dingy and gray,

As neighbors carefully raised their brows, And looked the other way.

But clotheslines now are of the past, For dryers make work much less.

Now what goes on inside a home, Is anybody's guess!

I really miss that way of life, It was a friendly sign

When neighbors knew each other best... By what hung on the line.

Compulsive Cleaning

While the knifemaker, knifemaker's dad, and the knifemaker's lady friend are at the Gatlinburg Craftsman's Fair, the knifemaker's aunt busied herself with sweeping, wiping, and gathering all the stray pieces of metal and antlers. Yes, yes, yes, she knows the first couple knives that are made after the show will produce more dust and debris. However, dust in the can is not dust in the lungs...trite but true. It's kind of like folding clothes -- sweeping up is a repetitive activity following other actions. Why fight it? Once done, it makes anything that follows a little easier.

It was particularly satisfying to pick the globs of epoxy off the worktable -- better than popping bubblewrap!  When done, the table was still stained but smooth. Most satisfying indeed!

Completely flat and smooth!

The knifemaker's aunt put a box of parchment papers on the table so the knifemaker can just pop out a sheet, cover the surface and catch blobs easily. Then, the paper can be crumpled up and thrown out, leaving the tabletop flat and smooth!

Straight Razors

Metalworking is an interesting life. Once the guys got back from setting up for the show, someone came to the back door to ask if the knifemaker's dad would sharpen his straight razors. These are much more challenging to sharpen because the metal is harder and is ground thinner since they are not meant for chopping but for shaving.

Top Left: W. Fletcher, Commercial Road, Landport;  Left: KAMA, 75 Koch and Schafer, Wald-Solingen;  Center: C-Mon Blackie, initials PJM, Peter J. Michels, Inc., Brooklyn, New York, Made in Germany;  Right: Booster, Geo. W. Korn Razor Mfg. Co., Little Valley, N.Y. USA

The KAMA razor has file work along the spline (shown in the photo) which excited the knifemaker's aunts since she had just learned about file work yesterday. It did indeed make a lovely decorative statement the other razors did not have. However, the C-Mon Blackie seems to have initials made in metalwork at the bottom of the handle (PJM) which certainly makes the razor a personal possession. The history of straight razors traces the changes in design and manufacturing techniques over the generations, mirroring masculine preferences over time.

Can these compare to today's disposables? Should they? They certainly last longer than disposables as is evidenced by this collection being sharpened for further use!

Sweeping Up in the Shop

Source: mckeesport-pa.gov

Since the knifemaker and his dad were away setting up for the Gatlinburg Craftman's Fair, the knifemaker's aunt went to town sweeping in the shop!  A crazed whirling dervish of action, auntie used a broom, a whisk broom, and a bottlebrush to tease out debris from corner's untouched for quite a while.

Very satisfying!

File Work

File work is the additional flourish cut made into the spline of a knife. The knifemaker's aunt stopped her compulsive sweeping to look over the shoulder of the knifemaker's dad as he walked from station to station putting file work on a custom order.

First he used a Dremel cutting disk to make the initial slices into the spline. Once the base lines were made, the next step involved rounding both sides of each cut mark with a belt sander. See how the lines are expanded a bit, displaying the design.

Once the edges were rounded and blunted so as not to be sharp to the touch, the project went to the buffing machine. That is the machine the knifemaker's aunt has been warned to avoid. Remember the evil-eye post sometime earlier? The machine looks so innocent with a soft cotton disk and the soft crayon-type green stick of polishing compound that is rubbed on the edge when the machine is started. Who would believe this to be a dangerous machine?

The results are amazing! Compare the buffed file work to the polished one above. It's a small detail, but wow!

Pig Candy

It's the knifemaker's birthday and since the inventory has been packed up to go to the show tomorrow, the knifemaker and the knifemaker's dad are happily working on custom work and innovating some new ideas in the workshop while enjoying the knifemaker's birthday present - pig candy.

Only done on rare occasions as a treat, for obvious reasons, this batch of pig candy was a special challenge since the knifemaker's aunt did not have the conveniences of her kitchen or her regular stash of FFA bacon. She produced a batch of pig candy in her hotel room with a microwave, a fork, paper towels, and a saucer...a testament to her culinary skills? Perhaps. A testament to her German stubbornness to pursue a task until arriving as success (a personal skill for which friends and family alike celebrate for, and grumble about), most likely.

Pig candy is brown sugar/cayenne pepper bacon cooked until the sugar caramelizes to hard candy. Initially it is sweet but then has a back flavor of hot spice. The knifemaker's aunt got this from a novel by Lise Funderburg called Pig Candy - a story about taking her father back to his childhood home before he dies. Enjoying the candied skin of an outdoor roasted Cuban pig, then an oven ham, then finally candied strips of bacon is all part of this amazing story of doing what can be done to show someone compassion and love. 

The knifemaker has been talking about pig candy since his aunt's arrival and how the uncle had eaten it all at Christmas before he got a second piece. Just to be sure he gets plenty in the future (not as a daily treat, mind you!), the knifemaker and his lady friend have been given the recipe. Here it is for your enjoyment too:

As thick and as lean bacon as you can find (the knifemaker's aunt buys the fundraiser FFA bacon from her students in the fall, then freezes it for future use)
Brown Sugar
Ground cayenne pepper
A dash or two of cinnamon

Cut the bacon into half strips (so it's easier to manage)
Cut off large end pieces of fat (the knifemaker's aunt uses scissors - makes it much easier)
Mix up the sugar/cayenne/cinnamon mixture in a large bowl (more or less cayenne to taste)
Cook bacon until it is almost crisp
Take the bacon from the pan into the mixture and toss so the hot fat soaks up the sugar-ness
Place the pieces on a piece of parchment on a cookie sheet and sprinkle with a little more mixture
Bake at about 375 or 400 until the sugar is bubbly
Take out and place on cooling rack until the liquid sugar hardens

Eat. Then go for a 30 minute walk to work down the blood sugar spike that is sure to happen.

Yum!

Other Metalworking in the Shop

Since the knifemaker's aunt's project so far has involved nail knives, there hasn't been much discussion about other metalworking products.

Blacksmithing involves much more than knives as many intuitively know. Metalworking is massaging metal into all kinds of shapes with the use of heat and force. For example, railroad spikes used to make the railroad spike knives can also be elongated, twisted, and made into steak turners.  The long handle makes flipping a steak on a grill quite easy. The twisted area is done much the same way as the knife handle but when twisted in two directions at the middle adds a decorative flair. Notice how the end of the spike is retained in both instances.

 Another example of using materials to a different end involves the cut nails the knifemaker's aunt used to make her nail knives. Imagine two cut nails at right angles to each other so one is hammered into a wall. When the other is forged to a curve, there is a hanging hook. Pretty handy...much as forging, twisting, and curving any metal strip would be as shown by the S hook. It only takes a small bit of imagination to figure out ways to use hooks around the house, barn, or garage!

 

Boxing Up for the Show

The Gatlinburg Craftsmen Fair is this weekend; set up is Wednesday. All inventory is being inspected and boxed. Finishing touches are being done to several dozen horseshoe knives and 3 custom orders. The knifemaker's aunt's thumb was rubbed raw yesterday so forging blades is out which is probably good because boxes needed to be constructed.

One box, 17 seconds...sometimes less. 250 boxes. Who knew such hidden talent such as 'box whispering' existed among her teacherly skills? That Master's degree in middle school gifted education certainly pays off when met with origami-like tasks! Boxes and boxes stacked the showroom, were labeled, and crated for the trip from Pigeon Forge to Gatlinburg.

The Finished Product

With the polishing and buffing done, the nails look shiny and are sharp. Because they are handmade, each one has personal appeal.

Once they were all done, the knifemaker's lady friend wiped them down for smudges and checked for imperfections before slipping each one into a sheath the knifemaker's aunt made.

Tomorrow the process continues and hopefully gets faster and more productive.

Rockin' and Rolling!

With each day, the toggle gets darker and darker,
a sign of work being done and education continuing.

Indeed, there was rockin' and rolling in the shop today. All hands are on deck preparing for the upcoming show. The knifemaker built forges, the knifemaker's dad polished and buffed commission orders, and the knifemaker's lady friend punched holes into sheaths. Because the knifemaker's aunt knows enough now to get on the nail knives with only minimal guidance, she forged 14 nails on her own before arm muscles began to spasm -- a vast improvement from the 9 eek-ed out the first day that had to be re-done not only once but in some cases twice. Today's forging episode only took about an hour whereas the first day was many, many hours -- 3rd time lucky! Her hammering abilities have certainly passed the tap-tap-tap stage witnessed earlier.

Once forged, she moved on to profiling and then the preliminary grinding. At each stage, the knifemaker's aunt asked the knifemaker's dad for critique. With small tweaks, her technique improved. Eventually the tray of nails was delivered to dad for the polishing/buffing stage. As you will remember, the knifemaker's dad shoots the evil eye toward anyone who suggests that stage should be part of the learning process. The knifemaker's aunt may watch but is not allowed on the machines. She is grateful to be relieved of the final stage since the machines run at such a high speed and one mis-handle or hesitant action can send a sharpened blade flying.

Reflection: It is clear the efficiency of each stage makes less work for the steps that follow. Sloppy forging means more work profiling. Inconsistent profiling means more time and energy spent shaping at the grinding stage. A poor grind means more time spent polishing (a tighter grinding process) and buffing (sharpening). The knifemaker's dad spent more time than usual with the first batch of nails...something he expected because it was a new skill for a beginner. With each batch, however, he should spent less and less time.

Dirty work. Gratifying, but dirty. A blister formed within an earlier blister - a scientific oddity maybe but something this blog will be saved from having to see. A good sweep up finished the knifemaker's aunt's job for today. Tomorrow?  More nails in the forge, and more technique improvement!

Forging More Nails

With no classes today, the knifemaker's aunt is ready to forge more nails. Remember, third time lucky! This will be her 3rd time at the forge for an extended work period. She's going to rock and roll!

Source: jonoh.tumbler.com

110 Sheaths Ready

Yesterday, the knifemaker's aunt finished sewing all 110 nail knife sheaths. Originally, this experiment was to see if customers preferred color over natural leather sheaths. However, a combination of events produce too many variables for a true collection of data. The independent variables (the size and shape of the sheath) stayed consistent. However, the dependent variable, which should have only been the color, became plural -- too many variables to make conclusions: the texture of the leather, the type of stitching, the stitch design, the color of the stitching. With all the dependent variables at once, there is no way to conclusively determine why a customer would buy one over another!

**sigh*

However, now with better understand of what needs to be done, a better experiment can be set up. The next go round the knifemaker's aunt will use the same thickness and texture (smooth) of the leather already being used. The sheath sewing vendor already used can be brought into the plan so those skills are consistent. In the end, it will be the same sheath as the natural-colored ones but in one color - teal/turquoise which seems to be a universally preferred color. The old girl has a roll of exactly the right leather in one of her studios back at home!  **ugh!!*