gtwister09

Panhandle Leather in Amarillo carries it. Panhandle Leather Regards, Ben

Nice carving and coloring... Good luck with the sale! Regards, Ben

Mixed emotions on his part I would imagine after all this time. He will certainly make the best of it. Regards, Ben

Marlon, Ironic how things come full circle and George returns to Tandy. Regards, Ben

Kim, Check out #7104 and #5288 patterns. Regards, Ben

Kim, Check out Bob Klenda's patterns here. Klendas Patterns Regards, Ben

Here's some food for thought. What vehicle do you drive? What cell phone do you use if any? Do you wear tennis shoes/sneakers? Do you wear pants? What computer do you use? Do any or all of these have their makers mark/brand name on them? Just something to think about.... As far as advertising for the maker. I guess the ladies that carry D&B, Louis Vuitton, Chanel, Prada, Gucci, Hermes, Ralph Lauren and Versace just to name a few might not agree with you on that point. They want you to know that they are carrying such and such purse and they absolutely want you to know whos purse it it. Makers marks in good taste...is the key. Even the big names listed above generally don't overdo their marks. Regards, Ben

Here's another side of the story concerning patents. Patent Declared Invalid Regards, Ben

Here's some pictures that I sent to Johanna a few years back... Stohlman Museum - Sheridan Hope that helps or are you looking for more detailed drawings? Regards, Ben

Mike gave you some good information on Moran's method but I would have assumed like he did that since you were already doing knives that you already knew of the method from the various forums and many internet sites that carry information about it. However I am going to have to disagree partly with him and Bob on the full tang. Full tangs are great if you already know the size and length of handle for the person involved. I made the same mistake with the first designs that I made for round/head and half round//head knives. I have seen handle lengths differ as much as 1" to 1.5" when people properly fit them to their hands. With a full tang it becomes a little difficult for people to remove the length whereas with a wooden only handle it is much easier to modify to fit. This was the same argument and criticism that the knife makers gave me when critiquing my designs. If you make a completely custom handle then a full tang custom fit to their hand would be fine but when you are making it for multiple customer delivery then I wouldn't use a full tang. Just my thoughts and some thoughts provided to me from other round knife makers. I still think that it was sage design advice but everyone has different preferences. Regards, Ben

I have been meaning to put this up for a while. Some additional information to look at. I purchased the Jet based on the following reviews in early 2007 and set the Tormek aside for a while (I actually lent it to someone who was just starting to do woodturing). Initially I was quite happy with the unit and would have to say that you couldn't tell the difference between the two when it came to sharpened product. The slight increase in speed (rpms) did give the Jet a slight advantage in time to sharpen and hone tools (25% or so). FYI. Some of you may have seen the Imitator report from Tormek and I must say that some of their issues I did not run into like motor heating. See these reviews below. Jet Versus Tormek Jet/Tormek Comparisons I continued trying out the Jet and was dismayed at the wheel wear contrary to what the reviewer above has said. I had thought that some of the features were better but some of them I also found to be required versus convenience (I quickly realized the convenience of the tensioning adjustment was a requirement - However I also think that Tormek could learn from this as well). I also had some other minor issues so I went on a mission in forums and such to see if I was alone. Unfortunately not. One of my neighbor kids that does pen turning now is presently borrowing my Jet. His amount of sharpening is a lot less and besides he was already using mine on a regular basis anyhow. Here's another article/review of the Tormek vs Jet systems that had some of the same problems/issues that I had. Your mileage may vary but here's some of the same issues that I dealt with after I was sold on the cost effectiveness and apparent overall upgrade of the Jet. Sharpener Shootout A really positive thing is that it has brought the Tormek price down and has also made some more jigs available to the Tormek. If you don't sharpen your tools a lot then I would say that the Jet would be much more economical. Both of them are pretty overpriced when you get down to it. However with that said... I LIKE JIGS! Repeatability is a wonderful thing especially when it comes to sharpness. Regards, Ben

I had some designs critiqued many years ago by a couple of knife makers that created round/head and 1/2 round/head knives for Marlin and here's some things that they said. The knife edge for round knives should only be made one of two ways... (1) Taper from the edge to the tang (2) A taper 3/4" back from the edge of the knife Their preference was (1) because the knife edge was always thinner until you were about an inch to inch and a half from the tang but it also required the knife to be thinned each time as it was sharpened. Whereas (2) maintained the same edge throughout the life of the knife. Also none of them liked the full tang because you could not modify the handle to fit the user properly. Hope that helps. Regards, Ben

Just a recent tidbit on the Kindle.... They can delete books directly from your machine and they just did. Now here's the rest of the story. It deleted Orwell's 1984 and Animal Farm. Ironic that one of them was about big brother, censorship and complete control of man. Hmmmmmmm. Here are some articles about class action lawsuits and such against them as well as the Orwellian saga. Kindle Articles Fast Company Regards, Ben

It never hurts to try something new. Ummmm.... usually it doesn't. Good luck. Regards, Ben

Johanna, Glad to hear that he is there. Amen to the Assassin. Billy loved that thing even though it tore up his tools. Regards, Ben

John, I don't know about blue guns as to their specific properties but here's a great site that I have used in the past for various castings... Smooth On They have many free How-To Guides here. There are guides to show you how to make a mold and pour a substitute for the real weapon. These will give you an idea of how to do it but be forewarned this is NOT going to meet your financial desperation criteria. It is expensive to get into casting with release agents, molds, material and so forth. Not to mention that experimentaiton is always costly. Regards, Ben

Ian, Very nice work. I have been known to admire sculptures of horse and such for hours at museums and shows. Regards, Ben

Ronny, Don't think that I meant to slight you at all or insinuate any shady deals. There was no finger pointing at you at all. Just a friendly warning that the quality of the stamps in the latter years was not up to par. Agreed that they are nothing like hand cuts but some people really like using them. I gave away all 6 or 7 sets that I acquired through other purchases over the years to various people. One of them was a poor set but he modified two of them on some small pipe to fit the proper shape after I gave them to him. He used the printouts from doodle pages to "fit" his properly. He could afford to do that since it cost him nothing. Regards, Ben

One word of caution when buying these..... Many of them are not shaped correctly. In fact most of the people that I know who have purchased them lately (7-8) all have poorly formed tools. Regards, Ben

Great gift and some wonderful history in those older magazines. About 4 years ago, there was a sale of a complete set from Volume one (mid 50's) to 2005 and a library bought it up at the whopping price of $15,000. $300 a year seemed a little steep ($50 per magazine) but I imagine that it was the set that brought that intrinsic value. Obviously the library placed that high of a value on them. Good for that seller. Enjoy! Regards, Ben

Ed, I too have used a belt sander for years for shortening them. Quick and easy - no fuss or muss. I presently use a pair of vise grips that has rubber covers for the teeth (Sears used to carry those rubber booties for the teeth). Before that I had relegated a pair of vise grips to this task and used Rubber Dip for the teeth to keep them from marking/marring the finish. When the rubber dip was torn up I would just re-dip the teeth. As others have said, keep the screws cool. Only thing I would add is that you may want to chamfer the top edge slightly to aid in the alignment and screwing in of the screws. Regards, Ben

Bob, The first time I bought some of the Henley's knifes/blades was more than 13-14 years ago and they had the medium and fine both offered then. I have 7 or 8 of their blades and a couple that Peter had modified for very light leather. I likewise have the very fine detail blade from Bob. I tried some of the of his beader blades as well as Henley's beader blades.... I also have a couple of older hollow ground Joe Cordova blades. I have given away all 4 of the ruby blades that I had as well as a number of ceramics and "cheap" steel blades. The ceramics I had polished at work and we heat treated the cheap blades as far as we could before I gave them away so they would at least hold an edge for a little longer. I have not tried Paul's knives and blades. I imagine that I will test it out one of these days. Knife bodies include one modified Chuck Smith's, several Henleys, one Beard, an old Tandy Pro and several starter ones that are in a box that are set aside. Like others have said try them out. I can't stress that enough either. The first nice knife body that I bought was a Chuck Smith knife. I have fairly large hands and so I bought one of his thin long barrels. WHAT A MISTAKE!! The barrel was too long and made my hand extremely tired and fatigued it quickly. Since that time I have bought short barrels almost extensively. Once again make sure you try them so you can see what they feel like (barrel length, knurling, etc). Regards, Ben

Ed, It's actually quite easy but digital readouts are a great feature to have. When I get around to replacing gear it will be one of the larger mini-mills with a DRO and CNC kit added to it rather than the Sherlines. Work envelopes are larger and they are more heavy duty and are less expensive. On the other side if you don't need the size then the Sherlines are great. They also are higher quality equipment out of the box with CNC ready kits as well as ready made machining kits to add to the mill and/or lathe. Regards, Ben

Another good read is Machine Shop Trade Secrets by James Harvey. Regards, Ben

Ed, If you are looking to get into desktop type CNC machining and are interested in learning about all aspects there are a number of good forums as well as some great retro-kits (DRO and CNC) for the smaller mills and lathes. One of the better books for the Sherline desktop machines is Joe Martin's Tabletop Machining. He also wrote some business musings at the following address… Sherline Business Musings The Sherline shown in the picture is a good machine. It has a smaller work envelope but they have great support and comes as a CNC ready package in various configurations.. Sherline Site There are a lot of larger mini-desktop machines that you can add CNC capability to that will give you larger work envelopes. These desktop mills and lathe machines are from Cummins, Grizzly, Harbor Freight, Homier and Micro-Mark are some of the ones out there. Micro-Mark is considered to be the highest quality one but it is also the most expensive. It likewise is the only one that comes w/o metric threads. Some of the forums for these are: 7x12minilathe@yahoogroups.com 9x20Lathe@yahoogroups.com GrizHFMinimill@yahoogroups.com CNC Zone There are places that have DRO (digital read out)O plans and CNC plans like fognoggle. Here's some of their YouTube videos. FigNoggle YouTube Videos I have used some of their DRO and CNC plans on some other's machines. Another great resource is Little Machine Shop. Little Machine Shop Hope that helps with some information to get you started. Regards, Ben