What's on my Bench Today?

Thanks Robert! It's been a chore, and took a good bit longer than I hoped. I mean...I made $180 in March...here's to at least doubling that in April .

 

You make a knife for $180???? I'll take four, please!! :usa

 

Lol, three stones .

 

Heres hoping that income increases . And to more photos of you work

 

I'm sure things will be good Alex...just a matter of getting settled and covering orders. For example, I got the two ordered stones done today, but can't find any of my manilla folders to make the saya patterns with (they were clearly packed by my daughter or I'd be able to find them lol). Soooooo...I have to run to Wal-Mart to pick some up. It's not far, but I swear it's the only grocery store for 50 miles by the number of people who are there 24/7. Little delays like that build up fast in a day, lol.

 

Hey Cris,
Congrats on getting close to finishing up the move, and setting up your new shop. Clearly, that was a ton of work. Hope the new home is a place where you feel comfortable, and the new workspace pays off in the long run and allows you to be productive, and gives you deep satisfaction about the knives you produce.
Not that I'm not impressed by the workbenches, but I'm far more interested in seeing your sharp metal and gorgeous wood creations in the future!

 

Thanks Todd! It really was a lot of work lol...but over the last two days I've been finally getting to work in it, and it's nice so far. I've only made a saya and did some stones...but the flow was nice and having a dedicated spot for clean work is like freaking heaven tapped me on the shoulder.

As for the rest...the next new knife is probably starting tomorrow...so we'll see how it goes!

 

Oh, and as for what's on my bench today?


I got the two stones for Cesar done (that makes like 9 stones the guy has bought for people who work with him, lol. I'm going to have to give him a free parer or something ).


I also got Kevin's suji (with the Mikey Riggen handle) disassembled, cleaned up a bit, and partly remounted with epoxy. Most of you don't know what was going on with that, but Mikey's handle had a tang slot that was like 3x the thickness of my tang lol. We mounted it with shims and my normal beeswax method in order to make it removable like my other handles...but it didn't work, so Kevin sent it back to be permanently mounted. I've got it mounted except for the top 1/16", which I'll put a final layer of epoxy on tomorrow.


I also got Anthony's saya done today. I'm super happy with the finish on that one. Suits the koa of the handle really well.

So there we go...lots done in my work day today. As I said I'm hoping to get started on Mike Tran's knife again tomorrow, as well as finishing out the two stock knives I have ready to go. From there the next while is probably going to be tied up with Apathetic's set (FINALLY!!)...but I still have work to do on some other stuff that has yet to be mentioned as well...so we'll see how it all goes .

 

Ahhh...progress!!

As some of you know, Cheeks ran into some issues with his business that required major funds to be freed very quickly. I was truly honored and a bit humbled when he messaged me and apologized for the fact that he was most likely going to have to sell the knife he ordered from me. I told him it was no issue whatsoever and that I completely understood, and offered to put him in touch with one of the people on my list who had asked me to let him know if anything unexpected came available. He agreed, they touched base, and the deal was made. I told Cheeks to send the knife to me first so I could clean it up for its new owner . A couple hours work today, and here it is:


As received.


With a light repolish. Should be ready to go out in the next day or two.

I spent the rest of the day finishing (mostly) out a very cool little knife. 120mm in length, 42mm in height, XH blank. That means it's 4.5-5mm thick on the spine, with my full performance geometry. The thing's going to be a little scalpel with an appreciable amount of stiffness. The price isn't quite set yet, but I'm thinking it'll be in the $500 range with a dual taper handle. Here's a short video showing it and some other interesting work I've got coming up for the next 30 days .



Oh, and for those of you curious, Oreo is having an obviously tough time adapting to being a house cat (as you can see)...but I'm pretty sure she'll survive, lol:



This last picture was right next to my desk. If I'm in the house, she's literally my shadow. Kind of hard to believe this cat was 100% feral just a few short months ago, lol.

 

Good to see things getting set up again. I was actually curious if Oreo was going along or if you were selling her to a Vietnamese chef or something.

Good luck on @apathetic's knives and those railroad spike knives (oops, I may have given away the big secret).

 

Your sense of humor is really hitting the spot for me this morning =) hahah

 

I'd give even odds...or maybe slightly in favor of the cat in that scenario, lol.

And yes! 1030-1045 carbon steel takes an AMAZING edge, if you harden it in liquid nitrogen and dawn dish soap...and don't temper it. Or even breathe hard on it, lol.

 

Shop looking great, Cris! And you'll have photographs to prove that your shop was immaculate.

 

Thank you miss! You're right when you say 'WAS immaculate' lol. I've finished exactly one knife in it, and it's certainly not there anymore .

Speaking of, here's a little teaser picture of that one finished knife .



I'll be making another post with the details and a full announcement here shortly .

 

Sooo, finally getting some work done, and can toss an update in here .



Today I'll get these shipped out, and get working on the remainder of the stainless knives I'll be sending to the ECG. More progress as it comes!

 

Yowza!

 

Definitely a great contrast to mine. Is that the rosewood?

 

Thanks you two . Yes Robert, it's the Honduran rosewood from Myron. You can't see it in the pictures...but most of those stripes are actually purple, like the Kingwood. Thing smells like roses too, lol.