Mohr Gratitude

The knifemaker's aunt owes her month of education to Mohr Custom Knives' knifemaker, knifemaker's dad, knifemaker's office manager, and shop dog extraordinaire, Riley. They made the learning easy, understandable, and productive!

Summing Up the Month

When the month began....

...when the month ended.

The month is coming to a close and the knifemaker's aunt is returning home. The learning, the living, and the loving of metalworking have been a dynamic educational experience. As demonstrated by her apron and name toggle, she learned the day-to-day work of how metal can be fired, hammered, ground, polished, and buffed into a gleaming knife blade or household product. With the process came the opportunity to re-visit how to set up an experiment when trying to investigate a new idea from an existing product: change only one variable at a time! Re-doing the experiment will have to wait for the next show coming up in the fall.

From the ashes of a rusted
railroad spike come the
gleaming finished knife.

 With fire and manual labor, and the dirt that accumulates, the knifemaker's aunt made final products to demonstrate the steps necessary to work metal into nail knives, hooks, and broaches. Life lessons learned were 1-  metalworking is a process that shapes the rhythm of working days, 2- metalworking brings with it the excitement of seeing a Phoenix rise from the ashes of filth, and 3- there is a constant activity to eliminate dirt. Just as folding clothes recurs every time clean clothes are produced, sweeping up metal dust recurs every time metal is forged, ground, or polished. One follows another. One is inevitable after the other. Once the rhythm is recognized, the days fall into a pattern and work doesn't seem like work anymore.

As for the day-to-day rhythm of seasonal visitors in a tourist area: the approach to scheduling work days should be approached as an annual pattern...work is every day until after the holidays when there is a 3-month break to catch a breath, take a break, and regroup for the next start of tourist season. In the teaching profession, this pattern is 3 months later with the break being during the summer months, not the winter.  During the school year, teachers are on an alert day in and day out until the end of the academic year.

Valuable lessons all.

Scarf Broach

The knifemaker's aunt gave the scarf broach a good brushing with a brass brush. She was going to add gemstones for added color, but decided against it. The forged look of metal next to the cloth didn't need additional beauty!

Shop Hook Board

The regular nails, with the hook shape but no special design at the head, can be made into a coat or jacket boards for the shop. The knifemaker's aunt returned to the scrap pile of wood pieces left over from the ramp project. She changed the quote used for the shop stool and put it on a piece of wood: "The cutting edge of custom is a dynamic place. Leave your hang ups here." No gemstones, or special meanings other than the idea that no one brings a bunch of stuff into the shop where it can get in they way (physically, or maybe emotionally?).

There's nothing like lining up a bunch of forged nails to see the imperfections!

Kale Nails

The flattened, leaf-shaped forged nails are going to be kale leaves for a hanging board for the knifemaker's other aunt, the bold family member who has embraced the concept of a whole foods, plant-based diet. Her birthday is coming up soon, and what better than some kale nails!

Remember forging the kale end of the nail? It may have looked like a blob at first, the shape led the design in the end...a case of making lemonade from lemons. The knifemaker's aunt scrounged up a piece of scrap from the ramp project. She shaped it into a loose curve and added a quote to the board that addresses the WFPB lifestyle: "The cutting edge of Vegan is a place of green. Leave your hang ups here."  Adding to the metaphysical meaning are four gemstones that come together to symbolize life balance - citrine, amethyst, flourite, and snowflake obsidian.

What do the stones mean? Citrine is associated with the solar plexus - a person's core of life and health. Amethyst evokes balance, peace, and heightened intelligence (pretty handy when balancing life events). Flourite offers a reminder there are forces bigger than ourselves and that a person can always begin again. The serenity of a deep snowfall is seen in snowflake obsidian which is a reminder to block the distractions of life.

Happy birthday Knifemaker's Other Aunt -- the whole foods, plant-based aunt who will lead others to  healthy lives!

The Big Hook

The knifemaker's aunt cannot leave the shop for home without making the knifemaker's uncle something for his garden at home. She forged a large hook with a willow leaf top. You saw this earlier as she worked. This is the hook the knifemaker and his dad raised their eyebrows at when they saw it...the old gal did pretty well! Willow leaf top, twisted middle, and a curled hook -- about 10 inches. He'll love it!

Planning the Final Projects

So, here are the knifemaker's aunt's metalworking projects from today. She's going to divide up the metal into 4 projects: the Kale Nail board, a shop hanging board, the scarf broach, and the big hook that will go home for the shed. The large hook and scarf broach was brushed with a brass brush which gave them a subdued glow of a golden color.

Everything was forged in one long day of hammering. Of course, there are things auntie would do differently when she does this again (oops! did she say she'd do this again?!) but for now she's going to work with what she has. Hindsight is always clearer than foresight!

Starting the Metalworking Projects

The morning started sunny and hot for the knifemaker's aunt. The forge porch is in direct sunlight until 11:30 so she innovated an umbrella holder on the handrail that provided a nice piece of shade over the forge and anvil. Yay!! The new glove worked well although it needed to be removed on occasion to allow for finger control when manipulating pliers.

Nails with the heads loosely shaped
into broad kale leaf shapes.

Plain nails with hooks.

The nails were put into the forge to start the day. Because they are small, the knifemaker's aunt could bank up several at once. It turns out the nails were more difficult to smith into hooks than to knife shapes. Even with the new mechanic's glove, manipulating the forging tongs or smaller pliers were challenging. Nails are far smaller than railroad spikes! Using the hammer, red hot nails were shaped around the horn of the anvil for a hook shape. There are plain nails with just hooks, and then there are what she's calling Kale Nails where the nail heads were shaped out into kale leaf shapes [more about that in another post].

While the hooks were being forged, a piece of 1/4" square mild steel went into the forge. The knifemaker's aunt took a chance and worked on a hook with a twist and a willow leaf. The knifemaker and the knifemaker's dad were busy with a custom damascus knife, so there it was all systems go -- take what's been learned and put it into action. When the guys came onto the forge porch to see how things were going, there was some amazement!  The old girl may not be able to forge a knife completely on her own, but she can totally forge hooks!  Even the knifemaker's dad raised his eyebrows in surprise. Yay!!  A month of work is finally paying off!

Once the forging was done, and wire-brushed to release any remaining scales from the surface of the metal, holes were drilled into the heads of the nails so they can be attached to something for use. The scarf broach did not need a hole of course, the the seasoning process put a nice black finish on it to add to the forged appearance. Seasoning metal is when he pieces of metal were placed back into the forge to raise critical temperature (red hot) and quenched into a pail of peanut oil to cool it down. The metal is put straight down into the oil, lifted and quickly put back in and moved top/bottom and side/side. That is to make sure it cools as fast as possible. If the red hot metal is put in, and left there, the oil around it would heat up and not draw off heat. Once done, the excess oil was wiped off immediately. 

The black was rubbed clean. The large willow leaf hook was brushed with a brass brush. In doing this, the knifemaker's aunt discovered the metal takes on a slight golden sheen. Lovely!

The Glove

The knifemaker's aunt has been the sad victim of blisters most of the month. The 100 degree heat, the sweat on her hand and hammer, and the friction have led to multiple blisters on top of older blisters. Bandages just sweat off. Triple antibiotic ointment under a taped paper towel keeps the dirt of metalworking off the affected areas, so that's been a blessing.

Hardy padded mechanic's gloves

However, relief happened when she made a visit to Harbor Freight and picked up a pair of mechanic's gloves with interior terry cloth that offers padding and also wicks away moisture.  She only uses the left hand glove for the hammering hand (and she offers the right hand one to students to come for a class and suffers similarly!). Amazing results happens when the knifemaker's aunt can fearlessly forge her projects without too much concern about friction blisters!

Revisiting the Experiment

Before putting on the new mechanic's glove the knifemaker's aunt bought to protect her hand against blisters, she made a small detour to get the leather originally intended for the nail knife experiment. Remember that plan? Present nail knives in their original sheaths next to nail knives in a color sheaths. The experiment got out of control early on and spiraled into too many variables, and too many choices for customers: too many colors, too many textures, too many differences to know which variable produced results.

Original nail knife sheath and the proposed
leather in teal (also called turquoise) - a color chosen
after reading research about color preferences.

The knifemaker has a regular sheath producer. In hindsight, the knifemaker's aunt should have presented a plan to use similar leather (to what she usually uses) in a different color and asked to have sheaths made. Here is the leather obtained and the sheaths usually made. If the same sheath maker could have used the same pattern, the same stitching technique, but used a different leather color, the show sale may have produced clearer results about whether or not color impacted customer choice.

After reading the University of Delaware paper, Color Sells: How the Psychology of Color Influences Consumers, the knifemaker's aunt chose teal. Hopefully, the next selling opportunity at a large show in the fall can present clear data collection of how color makes, or does not make, a difference when purchasing a nail knife.

The Project - Part 3

With the scarf broach nearing completion, this is the first day the knifemaker's aunt actually considered owning equipment to do her own metalworking projects once this educational project is over. Anvils are hard to come by, the tongs, the forge, blah, blah, blah...quite an undertaking.

Of course, a railroad tie 'anvil' can be obtained and assorted screwdrivers and hammers might substitute for the official tools, so maybe work-arounds can happen? Metalworking with 1/4" square mild steel can be purchased at the local big box DIY stores. Metalworking is much less complicated than the multi-step process of making a knife. The knifemaker and his dad make traditional, durable knives for utility and the process is the very close to the nail knife process auntie worked through as she made her 40 knives but yikes! what a process. Metalworking seems immediately accessible.

Tomorrow, the knifemaker's aunt will work on the other designs she's come up with and see Mohr possibilities. [Sorry for the pun, but it was impossible to resist!]  The heart, the tree, leaf hook, and a couple more scarf broach designs to include gemstones are possibilities of the choices.