WinterBear

The big problem with people getting sick from antlers is usually inhaling the residue when cutting, which introduces any bacteria present in/on the antler into your lungs along with a lot of sharp, irritating antler dust. Or even just a load of that dust and an opportunistic nasty already lurking in the lungs. Or from people using manky bones and antlers that came from a decomposed carcass, which can have a large load of bacteria in the marrow/spongy bone, joint ends, crevices and sutures, and any rough surfaces. If you wear the proper safety equipment and take reasonable precautions to avoid inhaling the dust, I don't think you'll have much to worry about--the antler looks pretty fresh (it hasn't been decomposing in a damp place where bacteria will flourish, like in a fouled seep), it isn't chalky and looks still hard (so there aren't a lot of crevices and soft areas), and it didn't come off a rotting carcass. You can wash it in soap and hot water and even wipe it down with bleach followed by a rinse with water. You just don't want to soak it in bleach, leave bleach on the surface, or boil it, as it is the long exposure to bleach or heat that begins degrading bone and antler.

Well, I've been poking around and managed to obtain a nice little Osborn head knife about 3 3/4 inches across, just right for my hand and weaker wrist. The tang isn't pinned though, it's just one that was wedged in and held more-or-less in place with the collet and the wood of the handle. The handle is is pretty good shape, no rot or cracks, the tang has just wiggled loose from it due to wear and the wood drying out over the years. The collet is intact and the tang is unrusted and undamaged. I do need to secure the head, so it can be a user, but I'd prefer to keep it's intrinsic "worth" if I might. From what I've seen, the options are to epoxy it in, or drill and pin with a brass rod. Which method would be best?

Oh, don't feel bad! I've been busy with other things anyway. Nothing quite like having the car go "boom" three times in two months to keep a body distracted, if you know what I mean. I've found a couple of sources for staves, but I am just waiting until I get moved out of my current apartment and getting through some deadlines at work before embarking on any projects right now. The sell staves that are about 36" long, about 1" thick, and the widths vary from 1" to 4 ". I'm thinking of getting at least 4 staves, so I can have a really long clam-type clamp using the entire stave, and cut the other 2 staves into unequal halves, so I can have 2 other clamps of differing heights.

On the way then. I'll send the three basic types I typically eat at home or at friend's homes: yeast, buttermilk, and baking powder. Most biscuits are sort of bready, but usually firmer and denser overall. The McDonald's things are what are sold here as "English Muffins" and aren't considered a biscuit. Entirely different taste and texture.

Ray, I'll message you a couple of biscuit recipes if you want to give them a whirl.

Try a little mentholatum ointment rubbed under your nose Tina. It tends to overwhelm the olfactory nerves to a degree and make rank stuff a little more bearable. Of course, some would say the smell of metholatum is worse....

Love it Art, I now have a new name for my computer, the muffing thing. I already have coworkers who yell "Cheese and Rice" or "Son of a biscuit" when the computer they are working on crashes, and yes, we have an office swear jar.

Muffin paper maybe? Those little crinkled/corrugated paper cups you put into the tins to keep from burning the muffins to the pan.

Hi Ray. I've worked with wax for batik and some furniture, and in a nutshell, wax can be a major hazard, but really only has to be melted, no heated past the melt-point.. In a nutshell: -Keeping the wax temperature close to the melt point rather than hotter means that if wax touches exposed skin, the wax will cause a painful burn, but not a bad burn. Never try to brush wax off of skin or peel it off--your skin can come with it-- instead, keep a bowl of water nearby (but away from the work area) to immediately cool and crack wax if you get splashed. -Be wary of anything wet near melted wax. A drop of water will flash to steam at temperatures that wax can reach, and can cause the wax to boil over or spatter (like water into hot oil!), and this is a risk with double boilers. Like with grease fires, NEVER NEVER try to put out a wax fire with water. -HOWEVER, a double boiler is recommended to melt wax because wax can very easily reach a flash-point if direct contact is made with the heat source, cause the wax to bust into flame and/or explode, spattering in all directions. I believe the melting point of beeswax at or near sea level is between 113 F to 151 F (45 to 66 C), below the boiling point of water (212 F or 100 C). Double boilers will not get hotter than the boiling point of water if the pans are not allowed to boil dry. Since the flash point of wax is above the boiling point of water, this gives you a safety margin. I know several people that use crock pots and the like to heat wax, but they keep a thermometer in the wax, stir like mad when its melting, and watch them like a hawk. Once it's melted, they usually unplug the crock pot if they only need it for less than an hour's worth of work. They also tend to never let the wax remain hot for more than an hour or two at a time when using it for longer periods and never leave it unattended, even for a moment. -Wax is generally hotter when melted than when in the process of melting. Never turn up the temperature to make it melt faster because the wax will heat unevenly, and may be near the flash point nearest the heat source but be cooler at the top. Beeswax begins to discolor at around 185 F (85C), but may not discolor noticeably until it reaches a higher temperature. If the wax is smoking or has changed color, it can be within a degree or two of the flash point. -The flash point for beeswax can range from 300 to 572 degrees F (149 to 300 C), but is usually at 400 F (204 C); differences are due to purity, types of bees, etc., and beeswax is a mix of over 200 different compounds that vary in their percent composition in any given sample. Boiling points vary widely. The flash point can occur at a lower temperature than the boiling point or vice versa. -I believe you'd want an extinguisher rated for grease and chemical fires.

I'm considering getting some wine barrel staves from Napa Valley and cutting them to the appropriate length at this point. They're oak, sturdy, come in different width and lengths, knot free...and come pre-bent.

Turquoise is a PITA to match or even find as anything but suede lace, that's for sure. For the Thread Exchange, maybe try Persian green in the polyester?--It might be close to what you want. http://www.thethreadexchange.com/miva/merchant.mvc?Screen=CTGY&Store_Code=TTE&Category_Code=polyester-thread-size-138 For your next attempt (ha!, IF you decide to be nuts enough to do a turquoise bag again), Springfield Leather has some kidskin in turquoisey-colors, depending if you want more towards the green or blue turquoise color. Kidskin: http://springfieldleather.com/product/25471/Kidskin%2CFinished%2CAutumn-Teal/ http://springfieldleather.com/product/25467/Kidskin%2CFinished%2CNephrite/ http://springfieldleather.com/product/25764/Kidskin%2CFinished%2CBlueBird/ http://springfieldleather.com/product/25772/Kidskin%2CFinished%2CEmeraldBlue/ These companies also have turquoisey-color leather, mostly suedes. Deer suede: http://www.hideandfur.com/inventory/0983.html http://www.furandhide.com/showcat.asp?id=8 Pigskin suede: http://www.aaanativearts.com/catalog2/index.php?cName=leather-turquoise-pigskin Misc leather--Closeouts http://www.aaanativearts.com/catalog2/index.php?cName=leather-dark-turquoise-suede

Nothing pretty, which is why I use a program to do the thinking for me. 6-30 kg/ cubic meter is about equivalent to 0.4 to 1.9 pounds/ cubic foot.

You might be able to get some tack with only a few good sized pieces of zebra-print scrap. If you just want to try hair-on cowhide, with or without zebra print, Tandy sells a lot of hair-on scrap and it is well worthwhile to see if you have one close by with a well-stocked scrap bin to rummage though. You might also try Springfield leather if you just want to try un-patterned hair-on cowhide. They sell hair-on strips for belts, as well as quarter and half hides in light brindle, dark brindle, and salt-and-pepper (finely speckled). Try also making a post in the wanted section of these forums to see if any leatherworkers have some hair-on hide scrap they'd be willing to sell.

I'm not sure where the pink smooth stuff is coming from, but the hair-on cowhide with zebra print can be found from several suppliers, but you usually have to buy the whole hide. http://springfieldleather.com/product/13717/Rug%2CCowhide%2CBaby-Zebra-Print/ http://www.exoticleatherco.com/leather/hair-on-hide.html http://www.sbearstradingpost.com/LeatherHides.html http://www.southernhides.com/products.php?search=zebra - brown, yellow, blue, red, orange, green, and B&W hair-on print http://www.theleathercollection.us/#/hair-on-hide/4542909858 - several different stripe patterns http://www.cowhidesrugs.com/zebra-print-cowhides.html - pink, tan, brown, camel, green, blue, red, orange, and yellow hair-on print, Argentina hides sold by someone in Texas (http://www.communidadandina.org/ingles/cowhide-rugs-have-in-common-with-texas.htm) http://www.cowhide-rug-pillow.com/printed-and-dyed-cowhide-rugs.html -Argentina hides, from Argentina. Cost to import might be bad. Sometimes Tandy has the zebra print too. Try giving the one closest to you a phone call. The one local to me usually has some in the scrap bins, so I can get some good sized pieces every now and again for a decent price. Of the list above, I have dealt with Tandy, Springfield, and Standing Bear's Trading Post, and have been pretty happy all three companies overall. I've never dealt with the others, so I can't tell you what they tend to be as far a quality / communication / product / ship fees/ ship time.

Hehe, I think I know which guy's company you're talking about--I just bought some kudu horns to kit out for Wood Badge. By the way, would you mind if I picked your brains at some point? I'm to build the Lions Club a new costume and was considering making the head partially or entire from leather. The old fake fur mascot lion head just can't take a beating and looks terrible and smells worse, so I'm thinking a leather would take being dropped a bit easier and if it gets soaped regularly it shouldn't smell too rank. But, I'm going to need help to make the base (essentially a helmet), and at this point, I have no clue where to begin.

Nice work. Looks like you put a lot of hours in. The little touches are amazing, like the stingray cross, and the lacing on the shoulders. What is the weight of the leather for the various armor bits, or do you use different weights depending on what it is? And the fur is reindeer, yes? (edit--it would really help if I watched my spelling! ouch! corrected)

Around here, I don't think most of the riders who have a fancy floral Sheridan saddle get much lip--or the "lipper" only does it once. Someone who can afford and appreciate a Sheridan saddle spends a lot of time on a horse, and tends to be tough and quick. You don't try to pick a fight with them without finding yourself lying on the ground and wondering how you got there and why your teeth are lying next to you. Ok, ok, back to the bag. I have a question for you American guys then. Would any of you carry it if it was bigger (more of a briefcase or messenger bag size), had wider straps, was dark brown or black, was more utilitarian in structure and design, and had no decorative work?

I spent some time rummaging through old emails from the time I bought my camera and found the review site I was thinking of tonight. http://www.imaging-resource.com/WB/WB.HTM. Take a good rummage through there and you can get all kinds of information, including standard performance tests/evaluations that are standard between makes and models, which I found especially handy for making comparisons. On the right hand side there are picks of what the reviewer though was the best out of categories for Type, User, and Resolution. The review for the Nikon D50 6.1 (body only) is here: http://www.imaging-resource.com/PRODS/D50/D50A.HTM. The drop-down menu at the top has their review for the various features, and where the features were good, and maybe not so good. Check out the sample images in that drop-down menu too. The link at the bottom of the main review page will take you to the discussion by consumers. Something to keep in mind with digitals--there is a difference between "optical" zoom and "digital" zoom in digital cameras, especially in cameras with built in lenses. Digital zoom is like blowing up a picture on your screen. Yeah, it looks bigger, but the resolution drops off rapidly, and gets pixelated even at low levels of digital zoom. You lose detail. I actually disable the digital zoom in every digital camera I've owned. Optical zoom is the zoom/closeup you get due to the lenses, and the higher the optical zoom, the more detail you can get in a picture taken from a distance and then blown up. A 12x optical zoom and an 8.0megapixel resolution with my camera will allow me to do some cropping of a picture and still have enough detail/"sharpness" to get decent prints in a 8x10 format if desired.

Looks sharp Edvin. Is the company planning to expand any to sell overseas? I think your bag would be a smash hit at some of the universities and with some of the professionals that don't want to lug around a briefcase.

Well, it depends...I assume you want digital? What's your budget? The really serious photo bugs are going to ask you: what exactly do you want to do, what features would be nice to have, what's the range of items you plan to photograph and how close do you want to focus on average (there are cameras with settings or lens options that will let you focus on the face of a bee and there are ones that take lousy pictures from less than 3ft, ones that take good pictures of people but won't focus on anything less than 12 ft away), what will you be photographing under (daylight, indoors, light box).... You'll want to know about picture size and speed (how fast does it store pictures before you can take the next one), what type of digital cards/storage, and what type of batteries it needs, do you want a point-and-shoot or do you want to try f-stops and aperture settings? Do you want basic video capability (you won't get high quality there unless you pay through the nose or get a video camera). Some options in there will increase the price a lot too. Me, I just muck about with a Canon Powershot S5-IS, and it does almost everything I want it to. I can even use my old lenses with the appropriate adaptors, so what I do is just move the lenses to the new camera when I get an upgrade. The Canon I have takes regularly sized batteries (4 AA), and while it makes it heavy, it also means I can have a pocket full of rechargeables and take pictures all day long. I have an 8G SD card that I can store about 1000 pictures on at my highest resolution (8 megapixel). I sometimes will be asked to take pictures of jewelry for business cards and websites, and some magazine spreads, and can do a pretty dang good job with it if I set things up correctly (opals and mirror polished metal are hard!). I can take pretty good pictures of people and landscapes with it too, and everything in between. Not so good in dim light, but one can't have everything and most digitals have the same problem. I also haven't broken it yet, and it's been a couple of years now and I will admit I have abused it.

They sell cleaning/conditioning/forming cream for brushes. It's usually in a small flan container that looks something like a Kiwi shoepolish can, and is usually only a few dollars for the brand I can find locally. A can lasts me about 3 years, easily. You work it into a lather in the crease of your palm with a damp brush, then shape the bristles and let the brush dry in an upright position. When you're ready to use the brush, you just rinse it well and away you go. Baby shampoo or a very mild dishsoap will also do the same trick, but bar soaps and other shampoos/soaps should be avoided as the additives can make the bristles brittle or leave a deposit that is hard to rinse out.

Pretty much. If it'll kill a rat, it's something that can kill a person.