An Unexpected Treasure

I do not intend to use tropical hardwoods in knifemaking too much. Especially I do not intend to buy and use wood from endangered species, but even tropical hardwoods of not-endangered species are problematic – habitat destruction and all that is unfortunately still a thing, not many tropical hardwoods are grown in a sustainable and renewable fashion (although many species can be grown in a coppice, when handled properly).

I think that local species have very often beautiful wood too, and the high price of some tropical hardwoods has nothing to do with how they look, but with their rarity. However, I will use them if I get my hands on some pieces by accident (for example I received some pieces free of charge with the steel I ordered, as an advertisement gift).

One such accident just happened. I was ordering online wood dust briquettes for winter and when doing that I searched for some wood for kindling. The description on the webpage on one product was something like “Hardwood cuttings from furniture manufacture, size up to 15 cm, 320 kg, extra dry, jatoba and black locust”. And I thought to myself “OK, black locust is an invasive species in Europe, and jatoba is not an endangered species. And anyway these are probably mostly chips and splinters that will be burned regardless, but maybe I get lucky and there will be some 10-15 pieces usable for knife handles in there and that would be nice.” So I bought the palette for the circa 100,-€ it costs. That is a lot for a mere 320 kg of firewood.

This is how the palette looked like in my garden.

Sacks full of wooden cuttings.

Nothing special but you can see a nice big rectangular chunk of wood bulging in there, so I reckoned, “There are 12 sacks on the palette, if in each is one such nice piece – big enough for 2-3 knife handles – then the palette has paid for itself in knife handles already, I will get wood for about 25 knives. Nice!”.

Oh, little did I know. The very top sack was brittle and tearing, I suspect it was standing for a long time in the sun so the plastic deteriorated. I reached into the hole and pulled out one random piece of wood. And I could not believe my eyes.

A piece of jatoba.

This is not what in my workshop counts as “a cutting for kindling”. This is a piece big enough for 4-5 knife handles (circa 25x100x200 mm). Jatoba is not very expensive (for tropical hardwood that is), but even at its cheapest, I would pay 4,-€ for a piece like this when buying it extra. But the price could be somewhere between 10 and 20,-€ as well for this amount of top knife-handle material. And then I pulled out five more pieces – four were like this, only the fifth was really crap fit for kindling only.

I am not exaggerating – I could barely wait and sleep after this. But I had other work to do than to muck about, so it had to wait until today evening when I finally got to taking this wood under the roof. The uppermost sack nearly disintegrated on touch and this is what I saw.

Jatoba bonanza.

My jaw dropped. That is wood for about 50 knife handles right there, in the picture, and twice as much not seen. This one sack alone has set me for life as far as jatoba wood goes.

I did not open every one of them, but by the feel on the surface 6 sacks contain big chunks like this, and 6 contain splinters and small unusable cuttings that I initially expected. So I estimate I have enough material for 600 fat knife handles made from jatoba, enough to start small manufacture if I were so inclined.

Oh, there was one piece of black locust too. That is ordinary and real cheapo wood (except for burls, those are costly), but it is pretty, durable and really environmental-friendly to use, since it is a pest.

A “cutting” of black locust.

To summarize, the ratio between the two species was reversed to my expectations (at least in the first sack) and I need to order some more kindling because I do not have nearly enough now.

I still dislike the idea of using tropical hardwood at all though, it just feels wrong. Although I am not a moral philosopher capable of dissecting the morals and ethics of a situation like this. I should probably heed one Czech saying and “leave these musings to a horse, he has a bigger head.”. What do you think?

YouTube Video: The stropping myth and how to sharpen tools with leather

Today a little video about the maintenance of sharp tools. Unfortunately I am not giving my tools the attention they would deserve, because I am not using them enough, but that should hopefully change soon. I have also bought a thick leather strip to make myself a good strop last year, but then I misplaced it and I found it again only last week.

In a pinch, I have also used following things for stropping a knife blade:

Folded newspaper, paper, cardboard, towel, dog’s collar, wooden board, and even the trouser leg of my worn jeans (whilst wearing them).

And when I had not commercial compound available, for stronger abrasion I have used:

A toothpaste, a bit of fine clay/mud, and fine wood ash (grass ash would probably work even better, it contains silica, but I did not try that one yet).

But the best results are in my opinion obtained with a strip of thick leather and jeweler’s rouge (the real stuff – finely ground haematite made from annealed rust). It is definitively worth stropping kitchen knives, especially if you have knives with an apple-seed edge.

Supporting Punching Nazis but Condemning Punching Antifas is not Hyppocritical

I, for one, support assaulting Nazis but I do not support assaulting Antifa, yet I do not consider that stance to be hypocritical in the least. Do you know why? Because there is a stark asymmetry in the comparison, those are not two sides of the same coin, those are two different coins. Antifa and Nazis differ in principle.

Firstly, Antifa are a reaction to Nazis. If there were no Nazis, there would be no Antifa, so there would be no-one for Antifa to assault. But if Antifa disappear overnight, there still will be Nazis assaulting LGBTQ and POC etc. Secondly, Nazis are historically proven to be inherently violent. If not violently and consistently opposed to the point when they have no real power anymore, they will only use compromises and dialogues to slowly normalize more and more extreme measures, they will get bolder and bolder – right until the point when they run the government and war and/or extermination camps become official policy.

The asymmetry here is that Nazis are active, whilst Antifa are merely reactive. Argumentum ad absurdum to illustrate the point: It is not hypocritical to condemn Operation Barbarossa whilst condoning Operation Overlord.

Appeasing Nazis does not work, they can’t be content without killing those they deem inferior. Debating Nazis does not work, they can’t be reasoned with. Ridiculing Nazis does only work to a limited extent, they can’t be shamed.

The only thing that works is to scare them into hiding. In Europe, this is today mostly done by outlawing Nazi speech. It is not perfect, but Nazis here have learned to be coy and to hide their Nazism, because they know they are treading a very thin line and that a word out-of-order could put them in jail. Is it perfect? No, racism and xenophobia unfortunately still abound ana fascism and nazism still rear their ugly heads again. Is it better than leaving them spout their bile publicly whilst flying Nazi flags as they do now in USA? Hell yes.

And until the USA sorts out its idiotically naive notions about “freedom of speech”, violence is one of necessary ways of opposing Nazis. If you do not take it early on, you will be forced to do so sooner or later. They won’t give you another option, the have proven that in history, extensively.

On the other hand a Nazi who whines when one of their lot gets punched but cheers when one of our lot gets punched is hypocritical, because – as I said – Nazis are inherently violent. They venerate violence in the best tradition of toxic masculinity. Violence is at the very core of their political stance that violence against any opposition is desired and heroic course of action. They only pretend to be peaceful when it suits them, but peaceful coexistence with anyone is never their goal. Their goal is extermination of “the other”.

I was warning about Trump being outright Fascist from the day I learned about his candidacy and how he runs his campaign. Now, mere two years later, USA has outright concentration camps and finally some of those  who initially thought comparing Trump to Hitler is over-the-top started to wake up to that reality. But there are still nearly two years left until next election. And we are debating whether to punch Nazis or being polite to them? Gimme a break.

Sorting out Abrasives

I had all my abrasives in one big plastic case, some further sorted in smaller containers, but the abrasive papers and pads were just one huge pile. So now that my workshop is in a state when it is actually possible to do actual work again, I have decided before I start to make knives again to sort out my abrasive materials for good (again, so in reality until the next stack overflow).

For the papers I have made a little portable shelf where I could sort them out from the coarsest (40 Grit) to the finest (7000 Grit) with some room to spare for clean paper sheets and carbon paper sheets – those come in handy sometimes in the shop, so why not. I still have three slots to fill, which is a good sign. It is a lot heavier than I thought it will be, partly because that is a lot of MDF and particle boards packed into small space, and partly because that is a lot of abrasive paper – and that is heavy, of course, it is covered in sand after all.

Abrasive papers, sorted and ready to deploy.

Precision is of the essence in such an endeavor, as is the quality of used materials of course. That is why I cobbled it all together from scraps of old furniture – 1 cm particle board from an old bed for the frame and 3 mm MDF stripped from an old bathroom door. And I took the time – about 2 hours. Joking aside, I could, of course, buy completely new MDF and have it precisely cut beforehand in the shop, but waste not, want not. I never got used to throwing money at something that will work just fine when made from scraps that I have at hand (my shop looks the part), and I certainly am not going to do that when I just quit a job and am about to lose reliable income.

Now the case could be filled again with remaining polishing and abrasive materials, in a more orderly fashion – polishing wheels, pads, polishing pastes, etc. It is just as full as it was before – which is not good – but it is all a lot less cluttered.

A lot of felt and fat and various odds and ends.

I will probably have to figure out something better for the steel wool, it tends to rust and crumble before I get to actually using most of it. But, as it is, it is a significant improvement.

I no longer have to take a pitchfork in order to get to the bottom of the case and find the grit I need. Today afternoon I will make some improvements to my belt sander and after that, hooray – I will start to make knives again!

Slavic Saturday

Last time when talking about history, I mentioned the overlong prelude to World War 2 as it has played out in Central Europe. Lets now look a bit closer at what has happened afterward. And, again, this is a de-facto merging of Slavic Saturday and Behind the Iron Curtain series.

Today lets look at one of the most prominent Czech artists to date, although outside of the Czech Republic he is probably not that well known – if he is known at all – Vlasta Burian. (You might remember that I have already written about an artist with the same surname, but to my best knowledge that is pure coincidence, they are not closely related.)

Vlasta Burian was one of the most prominent comedians in Czechoslovakia between the wars. Born in a cobbler’s family, he started out in lower-middle class at the time and he indulged in classic sport activities of that class at that time – like tennis and football (soccer). He was a very devout and good athlete, he could be professional – but in his free time, he also did stand-up comedy for the amusement of his friends, to initial dismay of his parents. And this has gradually become his main occupation and through making stand-up comedy routines in pubs he became a professional comedian and actor who starred in movies and who even owned and run his own theater before and during WW2. And he lived in a villa.

But fame is fickle friend. Despite being known patriot for his whole life, he managed to live through most of World War 2 without being overtly persecuted. I say most – Nazis have tried to rope him into making propaganda for them, but after one public routine in radio (which he intentionally botched) he took to feigning illness whenever he was approached by them again. So in 1944 Nazis got finally fed up with him snubbing their attempts to make him their stooge. He was arrested and his theater was closed.

Reasonable expectation after this would be that after the war ended in the spring of 1945, he would be fully vindicated of any wrongdoing. But that was not the case. He has managed to become moderately wealthy, and that was a big no-no after the war when the Communist Party took the reins through a coup. That he has managed it truly through his own works (and was giving to charitable causes throughout) was irrelevant to the new regime. That he was just deftly snubbing Nazis the whole World War 2 was also not enough – he was not resisting enough (in his position, probably anything short of charging at a tank with bare breast and bare hands would be considered “not enough”, after all, Czech pilots who fought against Nazis in RAF were persecuted for fighting against Nazis on the “wrong” front).

So charges were made-up, a kangaroo court was called (multiple courts, actually) and in the end, he barely escaped with his life. All his possessions were confiscated for the good of the people (how convenient) and he was barred from acting – he was only allowed to do menial works. The short imprisonment and subsequent ban from acting and public appearances have seriously undermined his health, both physical and mental.

Like many artists, he suffered from depression. Sports and comedy were probably part of his self-medication. When denied the things he loved, he aged in mere five years noticeably more than he should. When the acting ban was finally lifted after five years, it was too late. He was no longer the springy, energy exuding person he used to be and his acting has suffered. It was still good enough to make a living, but nowhere near as good as it used to be. His health deteriorated quickly and in 1962 he died of pneumonia. His wife followed him in mere nine weeks, grief took her.

His popularity was such that after his death, a movie about him bearing his nickname “Král Komiků” i. e. “The King of the Comedians” was made. And in the following decades his movies were still screened at local cinemas and they are still occasionally aired on Czech TV to this day. Many can also be found on the internet. Unfortunately, unless you understand Czech you won’t be able to enjoy them. Dubbing is out of the question, a lot of Burian’s comedy was in his voice, so you would need really a top-notch dubber. Subtitles would not help too much either, because another significant part was wordplays.

In 1994, five years after the fall of the Iron Curtain, he was posthumously vindicated in court. Historians extensively examined the historical sources and they found a total lack of any evidence of his collaboration with Nazis whatsoever, in any form. Despite this, for Vlasta Burian the long string of injustices and indignities was still not over. In the year 2002 his grave was adorned with his bronze bust, but it was stolen shortly afterward and probably sold as scrap metal.

Today his grave is adorned with a statue of his hands, which were after his face his most prominent feature. May he finally rest in peace.

Free image from Wikimedia Commons

 

Bufftoofbrush

I am currently in the process of re-organizing my abrasives and polishing compounds, so when Marcus mentioned the tedium of polishing his silver casts, my mind juped to this.

I have used this method once for buffing up the handguard for the rondel dagger when it was already mounted, so today just as further proof of concept of a procedure for buffing small parts that are difficult or impossible to do on the buffer due to complex gometry (or safety).

This is what I started with – an old rotary toothbrush head that I have saved up for this purpose specifically, an extremely old and corroded mirror holder (probably chrome-coated brass or something like that), a piece of never polished brass with patina (a waste piece from machining) and hard, coarse polishing compound. A bit too hard, this is a high-speed compound, a paste would be better, but I could not find it. Not pictured here are paper towels that I have used to wipe the polishing compound off of the piece after work and the green scrubbing pad (see further).

The corrosion on the mirror holder was extremely hard and resistant, so I had to use a piece of scrubbing pad too – but I only used it on the left (thicker) half of the part in the following picture, not the right, thin part so some of the pitting from the corrosion is still visible there.  A big improvement over the initial state nevertheless.

On the brass cylinder, I did not use anything else than the toothbrush and polishing compound

It is hard to take pictures of the results, but in the end, I found a way – I think you can see which side is the unbuffed part of the brass cylinder, and which the buffed part. The time it took me was about 5 minutes, but it would be mere seconds on the buffer. Nevertheless, the biggest obstacle to using this on a bigger scale is the battery capacity of the toothbrush, but it could be useful for getting into nooks and crannies on small thingies.

©Charly, all rights reserved, click for full size.

TNET 33 – Spring Cleaning

I am still not done cleaning up my workshop. Here you can see what I have done with my hoard of wood for knife handles – I had to figure a way to get it out of the way so to speak whilst at the same time have it accessible whenever I need it. Unfortunately, this capacity is not enough and I will have to figure out some more.

The incomprehensible mess that was my garden shed and workshop is slowly turning into a comprehensible mess. Today, I hope to turn it finally into ordered state and then I shall spring into action making knives. I cannot wait.

©Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size.

Open thread, talk whatever you want, just don’t be an asshole.

Previous thread.

YouTube Video: What is white supremacy? – A Response to Steven Crowder

Shaun’s videos are always excellently done, and this one is no exception.

I am a bit torn after seeing this video. I did not know much about Steven Crowder, apart from that he is a climate change denier and a typical American conservative in many other aspects. After this, I am even less interested in him.

However, one young and exceptionally talented knifemaker on YouTube is following Steven Crowder and Ben Shapiro. He is only 19 years old, so there is still a chance that he grows out of that shit because legalities notwithstanding, at that age a person is not yet fully developed and I myself was definitively a twerp at that time. But also that age is definitively high enough to know that racism is a bad thing and the excuse “he’s just a kid” does not hold water anymore.

Two years ago I stopped watching one interesting blacksmithing channel after I learned that the blacksmith is Trump voter. I just could not stand the idea of supporting a person who does something as vile as voting for an open and unapologetic racist and misogynist and wannabe fascist. I am not at that stage with this young knifemaker yet, but…

My first Commission – Part 1 – An Offer.

I am still in a prolonged battle with my garden and my workshop, but it seems I am ever so slowly reaching a level of order that allows an actual work to be performed again. The whole workshop, the garden shed and essentially the whole garden were a huge mess whose cleaning took me the better part of my free time for, by now, a whole month. And I need to clean it up because I need to get to making knives pronto. I got my first commission.

I have sent the potential customer pictures of my past work and they chose a design, with a few requests for changes. It is, in fact, the sixth knife I have ever made and one that I am using personally until today – you can see it in the article “Knifesharpenophobia”. I think it is a good design for an all-purpose camping knife but also exactly because of that long time of me using this knife personally, I thought that the blade geometry can be improved, so I did exactly that – the blade is a tiny bit slimmer and the point is more centered and pointy than in the original.

I have drawn a sketch in photoshop, with two different wood variants. Then I made a pretty pdf and sent it to the potential customer to look at and, of course, a price list for the variants portrayed.

They chose and ordered a knife with stainless steel handguard and pommel, peened, full tang and a simple leather sheath. The grip from cherry wood, leather colored accordingly.

©Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size.

I hope to do it justice. This blade has somewhat complex geometry and it was not exactly easy to make it back when hand tools were all I had. Making it on a belt-grinder should be faster, but it also allows for easy mess-up. So I will probably start making two blades and if two knives come out of it, good. I need at least one top-notch blade. And if I get two blades out of it, the second one will be fitted differently and sold in an auction for the Richard Carrier defense fund.

As a result, of course, I do not expect to meet the manufacturing time that I used for price calculation – I have used the expected time after I get some more experience under my belt, and the offer alone took several hours to draft because I had no templates for calculating the prices or drawing the designs. But right now it is not about making enough money to live by, right now it is about getting more experience, getting better acquainted with my tools, optimizing my manufacturing processes and getting some satisfied customers. We’ll see what comes out of it.

YouTube Video: Why is Pride Still Important in 2019?

I know you needn’t reminding, but sometimes it helps to have our SJW arguments refreshed.

In the past, when confronted with a person who complained about how sexuality is a private thing and therefore gay parades should not exist, I have pointed out the publicity and ostentatiousness of (not only) royal weddings.

Sex is a private thing. Sexuality and sexual orientation, not so much. Not in Europe nor anywhere in the so-called “west”.

Slavic Saturday

I have planned a bit about another famous Czech artist, but I got no time, so today let’s have a bit of fun with language again.

Some Slavic languages allow for a syllable being constructed without a vowel, especially Czech and Slovak, where the “r” and “l” consonants can be syllable constructing instead of a vowel. So for example the Czech name for Giant Mountains, Krkonoše, consists of four syllables – Kr-ko-no-še.

I have met native English and German speakers who had extreme trouble with this and they instinctively inserted an “e” before the syllable constructing consonant, so instead of “srdce” (heart), they pronounced “serce”, which is a nonsense word but one eventually gets what the struggling foreigner means in a sentence, as one generally does on such occasions if one is not a deliberately obtuse asshole and actively tries to understand instead of being pedantic.

I do not remember if I tried to tease anyone except one of my colleagues at work to say one of the czech tongue twisters – “strč prst skrz krk” (stick a finger through the throat) which consists  of four monosyllabic words without a single vowel. Or the longest Czech word without vowels – “scvrnkls” (you shrunk (it)). Or the allegedly longest sentence without vowels- “Smrž pln skvrn zvlhl z mlh.” (A morel full of spots got wet in the fog). They are tonque twisters for a reason – even Czechs trip over their own tongue trying to say these fast and perhaps multiple times in succesion.

Have fun pronouncing those, I know you will try.