My first Commission – Part 4 – Welcome to Knifemaker’s Hell

I really wish my first customer has chosen a knife with simpler geometry. For future projects of this kind, I will have to make some more attachments for my belt grinder, because it is woefully inadequate for the concave false edge. I messed that up several times already and quite a few times I got frightened that I will have to start all over again. Whether I manage to correct the slight flaws that are in there remains to be seen, my guess would be no. It will cut alright, but it won’t be perfect no matter what I do. Grrr.

This weekend I have spent with grinding as much time as I could – approx 4 hours each day. More is not possible, at least not for me. Grinding on belt grinder is for me very mentally tiring, because I have to concentrate a lot more than I had to when grinding manually. Because whilst grinding on the belt grinder is quicker, it is also possible to make mistakes quicker.

At this point, I should be finished with polishing, but I am unfortunately not even halfway through. Mainly I have myself to blame for this. If you remember, when writing about the kitchen knives I mentioned that after the first grind with the magnetic jig I went back to freehand in order to be able to alternate the angle of attack to get a flatter and more even grind. Well, I forgot to do that with these two knives and I ground them both up to 120 grit ceramic belt on the jig. The result was ever so slightly wavy grind that I had to correct now that the blades are hardened. So I had to start all over at 40 grit and work my way up, sweating profusely whenever my hand slipped slightly. But at least one thing is clear now – whatever misgivings I had about the blades being perhaps not hardened properly, I do not have them anymore. They are extremely hard and tough to grind, which is why it took me so long to get to 150 grit today, which is the point at which I had to call it quits.

Still a long way to go. © Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size.

I estimate I will need about ten more hours overall, on and off the belt grinder, before I can call these two blades finished. That means at least one more weekend. At least. It also means more than double the time that I think it should have taken me. When I am done with this and with the kitchen knives, I will probably make a batch of these blades as an exercise, I must get the muscle memory and experience and know-how to do a proper job in a reasonable time, I cannot dick around with one blade for months on end anymore.

The Art of Book Design: The Swedish Fairy Book

Klara Stroebe, ed. Translated by Frederick Martens. Illustrations by George W. Hood. The Swedish Fairy Book, New York, Frederick A. Stokes, 1921.

I really enjoyed Pasakas, the Latvian book of fairy tales sent in by rq, so I thought I’d check out some other foreign tales. There are a myriad of Swedish fairy tale books, but this edition caught  my eye. In the preface to the book the author tells us that,

 There has been no attempt to “rewrite” these charming folk-and fairy-tales in the translation. They have been faithfully narrated in the simple, naive manner which their traditional rendering demands.

The tales might be traditional, but the artwork isn’t. The cover art and interior plates are all rendered in soft, flowing watercolors more typical of the art nouveau period than the Medieval period. Enjoy! [Read more…]

Z is for Zaffre

From Nightjar,

Z is for Zaffre

Zaffre.

A deep blue pigment obtained from cobalt ore. I thought these Lithodora prostrata flowers were close enough.

 

Link to previous alphabet post

♦♦♦

It’s obvious that Nightjar put a lot of time and thought into this project and I thank her so much for sharing it with all of us. The series has been full of surprises and gorgeous photography and along the way I learned a few new colors and fell in love with a jet black cat, who is my final choice for favourite – B is for Black Mia with the soft green eyes.

 

Jack’s Walk

Queen Anne’s Lace, ©voyager, all rights reserved

Well, call me sleeping beauty because that’s about all I’ve done in the past 24 hours. Yesterday after my injections I lay down. That was around 7 pm and I more or less slept until 2 o’clock this afternoon. That’s 19 hours of sleep, one right after another. I must have gotten up to pee once or twice because I didn’t pee the bed, but I don’t remember. I don’t think I’ve ever slept so long, not even as a slothful teenager.

Since I’ve woken up I’ve managed to take Jack for a walk and… nap. It seems that 19 hours was not quite enough sleep because every time I sit down I conk out. I’m pretty sure if I go to bed now I’ll sleep until morning so that’s exactly what I’m going to do. Night, night.

Jack’s Walk

Stick out your tongue and say aahh ©voyager, all rights reserved

Jack and I were out pretty early this morning because I had an out-of-town doctors appointment that took up most of the rest of my day. About every 3 or 4 weeks I get lidocaine injections along my spine that help control pain and muscle spasms related to scoliosis and fibromyalgia. It’s a bad day in a good way. The injections are exhausting and wipe me out, but that’s partly because I can feel the relief of my muscles relaxing. It’s a bit like breathing out after holding your breath for a really long time. I’m a bit dizzy, a bit light-headed and a bit groggy. That’s with a successful set of injections. Not every set is as good as every other, but I’ve been with this Dr. for a few years now and she’s gotten pretty good at figuring out the twists and dips of my spine. So, now I’m going to toddle off to bed and by morning I hope to have my cheerful back.

The Art of Book Design: Little Curiosity, The Story of a German Christmas

J.M. Callwell. Little Curiosity, The Story of a German Christmas. London (Glasgow, Edinburgh, Dublin), Blackie and Son, 1884.

Surprise! It’s July 25 –  the perfect day for mid-summer Christmas. I love that this cover has none of the usual trappings that appear on later books about the season. There’s no snow, no crèche, no tinseled tree and nary a gift in sight – just a happy little bird singing.

 

via: University of Florida Digital Collections, George A. Smathers Libraries

 

YouTube Video: What Can House Elves Teach Us About Slavery? (Harry Potter Theory)

In the past, I have expressed the opinion that just about the only really decent person in the whole Potterverse is Hermione Granger and I stand by that statement. Every single wizard was way too keen on having slaves.

I found this guy’s pronunciation a bit difficult to understand, but I got over it and the video was informative. I did not know that the argument “slaves are happy” was actually really used in the UK by anti-abolitionists since education about the minutiae of slavery is not really part of the curriculum in our schools.

Jack’s Walk

Lean on me ©voyager, all rights reserved

Jack and I are enjoying being outside this week. The heat wave has finally broken and so has the high humidity, making it ever so much easier to get out for walks. We don’t have to get up before dawn or go out late at night and even the mid-afternoon is an acceptable time to be outside if there’s a bit of shade around. We’ve also been able to turn the air-conditioning off at home which is the biggest plus of all. I’d much rather have my windows open and tuned to the sounds of my neighbourhood than listen to the droning hum of the A/C unit.