Purple! Because Ice cream has no bones!

I've got just over 160 Cowbells thermal cycled and profiled. 90 Drops, 20 each of Spear, Zulu, and Wharncliffe, and a dozen Wild Cards. A couple dozen of those have the bevels ground and are heat treated, mostly drops.

I'm currently finishing shaping the handles on a Maroon Linen Spear, Blue Linen Drop, Bone & White Zulu, and an Ivroy G10 Wharncliffe. I'll be building sheaths for those this week and will be putting them up in the Newsletter.

That sale will fund a much needed shop order of abrasives etc that will let me get that entire lot ground and ready for HT. That will give me a good base of close to completed Cowbells and will open up time to work on bigger projects like stacked leather. Have no fear, Redmeadow is at a steady boil.

Way to go, busy man. Maybe when that is done you can slow down For Christmas 🎄? Wishing you and everyone a good Thanksgiving.
 
I've got just over 160 Cowbells thermal cycled and profiled. 90 Drops, 20 each of Spear, Zulu, and Wharncliffe, and a dozen Wild Cards. A couple dozen of those have the bevels ground and are heat treated, mostly drops.

I'm currently finishing shaping the handles on a Maroon Linen Spear, Blue Linen Drop, Bone & White Zulu, and an Ivroy G10 Wharncliffe. I'll be building sheaths for those this week and will be putting them up in the Newsletter.

That sale will fund a much needed shop order of abrasives etc that will let me get that entire lot ground and ready for HT. That will give me a good base of close to completed Cowbells and will open up time to work on bigger projects like stacked leather. Have no fear, Redmeadow is at a steady boil.
160?! 😮
12 wild cards 🤔
Thanks for the update and have a great Thanksgiving!
 
Here's the 90 drop points. All 160+ are thermal cycled, profiled, centerlines layed out and ready to grind or ground already.
View attachment 2398052

While I'm here I'll reveal the new design I've been working on wearing stabilized Cherry.
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I lIke the new design…still think the handle should be a tad bit longer. There’s a critic in every corner. ;) Maybe with fingers closed it may be longer than I thought. How long is the blade?
 
I lIke the new design…still think the handle should be a tad bit longer. There’s a critic in every corner. ;) Maybe with fingers closed it may be longer than I thought. How long is the blade?
Blade is 4 5/8 from tip to scale front, Overall is 8 3/4. Handle is on the short side, I do like a bitbof a swell extending past the hand at the end of a handle but don't like the way it snags and clangs on everything when wearing it on the belt. This handle shouldn't be a burden above the beltline and also gives a comfortable grip. Everything's a compromise. The sheath will have a separate crossdraw belt slot (3 slots in the back).
 
A friend of mine had a bunch of of old lawnmower blades layin around and asked if I wanted them. He thought they might be good for the kids to practice forging on.

We forged a machete the other day and yesterday he wanted to forge since the girls were busy cooking Thanksgiving dinner. We fired up the forge and he took over and started banging away, there was no point in me even being there it was awesome. I was honestly taken aback. He's never ran things by himself but you couldn't tell by watching him, just as natural and confident as can be.

Not bad for 8 years old, here's a before and after of the lawnmower blade. I think he's ready for some realt steel.

Dude was focused.
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As thin as a lawnmower blade is it's hard to forge because it wants to buckle, he had good control and read the steel really well.
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Just wanted to show him off because I couldn't be more proud. Now if he can just remember where he put his shoes and why there's always one sock in the living room he'll be in good shape 😆

Not sure if this link below works or not, let me know if it does. I never tried to link anything from Instagram before, didn't think you could.

 
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So cool! Making lifelong memories while discovering/developing skills and work ethic.
You sir, are winning in this parenting game.
Thanks Mack, I don't know about that but I'm doin what I can. Both the kids wanted to forge today and my daughter hammered out a really nice point. Her hard work comes from competing with her brother, his is from a pure desire to forge. Either way, they're doing great.
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Outstanding! Say hi to both of my lil leather/knife buddies. Yep the vid worked for me too.
 
Grabbed a piece of steel and started forging without a plan the other day, this is what came out of it. Gonna test it out and see how much that thin steel will tolerate. It's chopped through some scrap wood and kept it's edge.

Coffin handle 10 3/4" OAL with a 6.5" blade at .12" in 52100 and bocote. Very slicy.
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Grabbed a piece of steel and started forging without a plan the other day, this is what came out of it. Gonna test it out and see how much that thin steel will tolerate. It's chopped through some scrap wood and kept it's edge.

Coffin handle 10 3/4" OAL with a 6.5" blade at .12" in 52100 and bocote. Very slicy.
View attachment 2408682
That looks like one fine kitchen utility knife.
 
That looks like one fine kitchen utility knife.
I think so too. I just chopped through an old 2x2 with it and it was still shaving sharp. I'd like to forge some simple belt knives like this with around a 4" blade.
 
Grabbed a piece of steel and started forging without a plan the other day, this is what came out of it. Gonna test it out and see how much that thin steel will tolerate. It's chopped through some scrap wood and kept it's edge.

Coffin handle 10 3/4" OAL with a 6.5" blade at .12" in 52100 and bocote. Very slicy.
View attachment 2408682

Coffin handles make everything better. What a sweet blade!
 
A cowboy story. Some names have been changed to protect the guilty, innocent, or yet to be determined:

I was talking with a friend the other day. This young man is the manager of one of the largest ranches/cattle operations in California. He is good friends with our son Logan who is a working cowboy and has been since high school. This manager, we'll call him Tom and I had done some trading and he was here picking up some chaps I'd made him as my part of the trade. Logan has worked for Tom off and on some and has worked for some years for a neighboring ranch so he and Tom were in contact often and would usually have the family's together on Wednesday nights as they lived a very few miles apart. Anyhoo. Logan worked for Ralph on this neighboring ranch. This story was relayed to me by Tom. He was telling me what a commodity Logan was and didn't even know it. Highly skilled cowboys are in demand and very hard to find.

Many large ranches will ship their cattle off for part of the year. Not unusual for the larger ranches around here to ship cattle to Oregon or Nevada, even Montana, for the late spring, summer and early fall coming home in early October. They will often lease whole ranches which they then stock and provide cowboys for too, to take care of the cattle while they are on summer vacation. Or "pasture out" some cattle with the deal being that the owner of the land will provide care for the cattle. Its not unusual in this case to send a couple of cowboys when its time to gather them in and ship em back home, to help with this large job. This story happened at a ranch in Nevada, we'll call it the Rafter Bar. Ralph had made arrangements and had pastured out several thousand head. George was the owner of the Rafter Bar. This pasturing of cattle for other folks can be very lucrative for land owners. We're talking big 1/2 million $ checks depending on the amount of cattle pastured of course, sometimes less, sometimes more. The Rafter Bar is a pretty good sized ranch. Not huge by Nevada standards but good sized. I know the dimensions as Ralph actually leased the whole ranch outright the next year and Logan and his wife Katy moved up there to run it for Ralph. The Rafter Bar is 7 miles wide on average and 35 miles long. Some bits and pieces inside this perimeter that they didn't own but still good sized. About 126,000 acres, (Logan later worked for another ranch in Nevada that was 1.2 million acres, now thats a big ranch!). The Rafter Bar covers a lot of relatively flat sage brush country and lots of mountains too.

Ralph and Logan had gone up in Oct to help George gather the couple of thousand head they had on the Rafter Bar and help ship them back home. They'd been riding hard for quite a few days as it was just the three of them, bringing in the cattle but still had some up in the high country that they were having trouble finding. The weather was changing and the snow had started and its always a concern to get your cattle down, out of the mountains, in time so they don't die. It had been a long, very hard day and while they had knocked down a few head out of the high country there were still some more, bout a hundred missing. Ralph and George were back at headquarters and were un saddling, their horses were "smoked," (worn out). It was well past dark and the snow was coming in sideways on a strong wind. George was working up into a frenzy. "We've got to go saddle fresh horses and go find Logan!" "He doesn't know the country, he'll be lost in the mountains and he'll freeze to death!" etc etc. Ralph, taciturn at best, said: "No, it's okay, its Logan." George: "What?" "No we've got to go, this is terrible, we've got to find him!" and he's catching up a new horse. Ralph: "You don't understand, its Logan," he continues. Ralph is still unsaddling his horse, not worried at all and George is getting more fretted as he's slapping leather to a new horse and then a voice from the darkness. "One of you guys want to get the gate." Logan trots back to the rear of the ninety head he has in a group as Ralph swings the gate open. Ralph looks at George and says: "See, it's Logan." Logan pushes the group of cattle into the pens and Ralph shuts the gate.

Does a papa proud when ya here a story like that about your son. Even better that it was three years back and your son never mentioned it. Another day at the office. As a friend of mine said about Logan, when Logan took his first cowboying job right out of high school, (on a ranch in Oregon twice the size of the Rafter Bar), "Logan sure jumped in the deep end of the man pool."

Gratuitous knife and cowboying pic:

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