bladegrinder

Had some friends in Upper Darby, that was a tough town. It still is from what I’ve heard from my brother who still lives up there.

Glad to hear you got back into it Casull! I’m North of the Tallahassee area in the deep woods.

Welcome back casull, I’ve been here a couple years now and learned a lot. I’m originally from your neck of the wood, Ridley Park but have been living in Florida since 1979.

Nice! that tooling looks great!

Call Springfield leather Monday, they will email you a prepaid return label to stick on the box and send it back. you can get your money back or they'll send you another piece. Personally I'm finished buying leather from them. years ago I ordered 10-12 sq. ft of B grade. I was doing a knife show in about a month and had to make some sheaths, while the hair side was OK most of the flesh side was black. it looked like it got caught in the skiver machine or something but it was totally unacceptable. I called and asked how did this even make it out their door? crickets....sorry sir we can give you your money back or send a new piece. they sent a new piece that was OK but the turn around time made things a hassle for me. Forward about 3 months ago I ordered 12 sq. ft. of B grade 8-9 oz. I picked up 3 orders for holsters, previously I had been using 6-7 0z and wanted to use thicker leather moving forward. the piece I received looked like yours but had a gaping hole in it and truthfully looked like this cow had been hit in one area with birdshot from a shotgun. I called and again asked how did this make it out your doors? got a nice young lady explain how leather can have defects..yada, yada.....do I want a refund or a replacement, I'd like a replacement if it won't look like this, so the replacement come and while it was acceptable in my opinion it was below 'craftsman' grade and again set my timeline back on getting the holsters done. My way of thinking is these pieces are getting passed over by people going into their store to buy leather, so, what to do with it?......mail orders. hoping some people will just bite the bullet and accept it. I'm not slamming Springfield leather just telling my experience with buying leather from them, which I won't do anymore. I think my next order of leather will come directly from Wicket and Craig, over the phone and explaining what I want and that I'm willing to pay for good leather.

I’ve had the same experience, I’ll explain later this evening when I’m on my laptop.

Nice work Chuck, knife looks good, stamping looks great, and I like that keeper strap. That knife would make a nice patch cutter.

Thanks Purplefox! Thanks Chuck! Hey Doc, I got it at a knife show years ago, I bought a few different colored ones. there was a guy selling some exotic leathers, he had a couple boxes of frog skins, which I think are actually Australian toad skins. he had a few different colors. I believe they were $8-10 a piece, I just googled them, their out there but it looks like the going price now is around $16.00.

Nope, I’ll pass.

You lost me at Bowie....and inside the waistband carry. how big a knife are we talking about and will you be able to sit down?

I'm just south of Georgia's border and I know anything I've ordered lately that comes thru Georgia has been a mess. when I track a package it seems to zoom from state to state across America......... then it hits Georgia...two weeks ago I had a package coming from Pennsylvania, rolling south on schedule till it hit Georgia. I kept my fingers crossed at that point, after sitting in one place for two days my tracking said the package is running late, then it was lost, yep lost. never did get it. Other then the man that actually delivers stuff right to my box I think the USPS is a disgrace. I won't go into politics but I believe they play a large part. I know Knifekits is on the southern outskirts of Atlanta so their stuck with what service they can get, short of using UPS or Fedex. Jacksonville Fl. USPS seems to have a trapdoor that packages fall into to, frankly I think USPS has some pretty serious issues right now and they need a major overhaul. they keep raising their rates but the service never changes.

Here's a picture of the backside...

No I didn’t take a picture of the back, I can take one today and post it later tonight.

Thanks Jarrod.

I've done some skin overlays on holsters but this is my first inlay on a knife sheath. I used frog skin. Thanks for looking!

So, instead of using 6-7 oz leather we’re really using 0.17 - 0.198 kilogram leather?

There’s some recipes on the internet, one is a mix of glycerin and alcohol. Glycerin can be bought in any drugstore, I used this method a couple times and they came out nice. Another is antifreeze, DON’T use that, I did once and it ruined the skin. There’s also commercial tanning fluids you can buy. I think Tandy sells small bottles, it’s called Reptan.

They’d have to climb up a flag pole to get on mine ha, ha.

I've read that the generation 2 dishes had heaters built in, I don't know about the gen 3 I've got but on the app it does have a place where you can activate a heater for melting snow. What I need where I live is an anti hurricane - tornado button.

Well, I got starlink. took about a week from ordering it to delivery. setup was fast and pretty uncomplicated, once the dish is in place, cable run and router plugged in you just set up your account in their app. at this point they can tell the equipment is on and they know who you are. the app walks you thru adjusting the dish in real time, that was pretty cool, as you turn the dish is shows it on your phone, once you get it into an outlined rectangle it tells you your set. then it's just going to your phones, computers and TVs and setting them to the starlink wifi. it comes preset at 5 ghs or you can change it to a split signal 5 ghs - 2.4 ghs. I added some cameras that only ran on 2.4 so I'm running a split signal. some older things only run on 2,4 so it's good it comes with this option. The signal is good even during storms and bad weather although it did drop once last night during a really bad thunder storm. I live in the Florida panhandle by the Georgia border and we've been having some really bad storms and tornadoes, watching the weather radar it showed a tornado passing thru my area when starlink went out for about 10 min. we got 5" of rain from that storm last night. I've been running a Verizon hotspot with my phone plan for three years, I did a couple speed test before and after on two different days so far...... Download speed Upload speed Verison hotspot......... 1.34 1.97 Verison hotspot......... 3.13 1.67 Starlink....................... 140.3 12.8 Starlink....................... 224.9 23.6 The starlink does fluctuate, my highest reading was over 300 download and over 30 upload. the readings posted above were in the first 12 hours of set up. So......I got to say this to me is kind of unbelievable being in the deep woods and getting signals like this. I'm glad I finally bit the bullet and went with starlink.

Sorry to hear of this, it’s always sad when we lose a fellow artisan. RIP MtlBiker.

Thanks Jarrod!

Here's a picture of some stainless steel Damascus on a folder I finished a couple weeks ago. the bolsters are from the same piece of steel, with ivory scales.

I do all my heat treating in my shop, I have a fully equipped knife making shop, I’ve been making knives for 33 years. I cut my profiles out with a bandsaw. I usually use high alloy stainless steels but I also use high carbon and stainless Damascus from various makers.

I buy large billets of it straight from Brad Vice, the owner of Alabama Damascus. Then I rough cut a profile from it, surface grind it, then finish profiling. Then I hollow grind it, heat treat and temper it, then etch it in acid to bring out the pattern. Then I do the handles, I don’t sharpen until the sheath is completed.