Rowan handled knife

Not much to say, OAL is about 2.5" the customer just wanted a simple knife for cutting yarn and other generally small things. I'm happy to oblige.

Anvil blocks

I made these a couple of years ago with the intention of selling them, then started school and forgot they were on the bench :) The blocks are cut from 2x2 1045 and each is at least 2" tall (the one pictured is closer to 2-1/8" ). I gave them all a coating of my Goddard's Goop and they all look like this one (no, it has not been touched up on a sander or anything like that). The one that I use looks almost as good. On mine I gave it four different radii so I have a nearly sharp edge through about 3/8" radius (I didn't measure, but if I had to guess it looks like a section of 3/8" bar). My anvil doesn't have a single square edge, so that's why I made these. I figured they would also be good for smiths who have radii ground into their anvils already, but maybe need a much larger radius than normal for a particular project. They fit a 1" hardy hole and each stem is at least 4" long.

These are $30 each plus $5 for USPS flat rate to the US- no international, and I'm talking to you, Canada :|  (UPS is $10 to ship plus $5 for packaging, also to US addresses only).

Ugh- paint...

The other night I started in on a new project- a fireplace poker like the one I made at Jerry Culberson's in 2007. The trick to this project is hot chiseling a tail onto the end of a bar and then forging it into a hook. Anyway, I noticed a smell that I thought was paint, but couldn't figure out where it was coming from. I haven't used the big forge since I relined it and thought the sairset mortar might have had some zinc in it so I chalked it up to the first firing burning off the zinc.

Imagine my surprise tonight when the smell came back. Well, I assume the sairset does not use zinc (because that would be stupid, seeing as how it's designed to be used in kilns). It took me a little while, but I finally figured out that it was the new shelf I added to the front of the forge so I can rearrange the bricks. Here's the lesson: if you're going to use something that has been painted, either make sure the paint is going to be burned off (as opposed to just offgassing repeatedly when it gets really warm) or grind that crap off.

Better photos are coming...

I just felt like updating the blog, and I think the most exciting news right now is that a friend and I built a diffuser box for taking photos. I'll post pictures of it, but basically it's 1/2" PVC pipe with some elbows and "t" connectors to make two squares that are connected at the top to form an open bottomed box (yes, pictures would -really- help). We tried it on a few simple items, comparing regular flash photogrpahy in ambient light, to forcing the camera to use the light diffused into the box and then allowing the camera to fill-flash the box. Both pictures with the box were vastly superior to the "regular" photos.

I also purchased a hot-shoe flash for my camera to help control the flash even more. I took some pictures at the Washington State Convention Center over labor day weekend and the onboard flash was just strong enough to give people red eye, but not really improve the photo. This flash should be strong enough to take pictures at 40 feet using ISO 100 eqivalent. I've seen some test examples that people have done and they look great. the unit reads the info from the camera and adjusts the power of the flash AND the distance of the flash bulb from the opening of the housing to give the perfect lighting for the situation (in theory).

So, hopefully no more flashy pictures that don't really show the detail I'm looking at. Which is more aesthetically pleasing for readers and more informative for potential customers.

EDIT to add picture: