Bench and Brush

Bench Update

I have a lot of projects on the bench right now.

Recently I discovered a place that sells hair knots for shaving brushes, so I bought a few as samples to try out. And then I played with my lathe and turned a bunch of proto-shaving brush handles. I didn’t really have a good idea before turning on the lathe how big they should be, but made a nice variety ranging from a huge piece that I made from purpleheart, to a tiny little tulipwood. Turns out that the smaller size is better for brushes. Right now I have handles of tulipwood, purpleheart, cocobolo, wormy pecan, salt cedar (tamarisk), pear, manzanita, apricot, and recycled ironwood fencepost, and I may be forgetting one or two more. I only have three brushes, boar (coarse), black badger (pretty soft), and silvertip badger (softer). All brushes don’t fit in all handles, but let me know if you are interested.

I bought a bunch of new wood, mostly domestic: Hickory, red gum, spalted ambrosia maple, rainbow poplar, and I swear there was another that I can’t remember. I use a lot of exotics, but some of these have some nice character as well. We’ll see what they turn into.

Knife-wise, I have a couple of big chef’s knives in progress (both CPM 154 Stainless), at least three full tang hunting knives (two drop point, one nesmuk), a few partial tang hunters, a couple daggers, and some miscellaneous others. I’m getting ready to start a couple more, with the basic idea of simple and full length tangs, so I can try out a couple of new handle ideas.

I’ve got some fancy decoration ideas for a couple of knives as well, like for finishing the copper and cholla dagger shown above. It will be pretty southwestern, lots of copper and turquoise. I just have to get around to doing some filework on the guard and pommel.

Using that idea I made this fancy manzanita brush with inlays of turquoise and copper.

Sorry for the Blurriness, phone pics not so good. :)

I also helped to teach Rocketpants how to do it too. His turned out pretty well. The brush is nylon, the handle: cocobolo.

That doesn’t sound like too much does it? Maybe it’s just that I don’t have any time.

Family Walks

Family walks don't happen quite as often as they should, but we do try.

Not far from the house there is a "lateral". Laterals are turn-outs from the main irrigation channels of the Rio Grande. They are opened in the spring to feed water to the little ranchitos that are abundant in our area. They also make very nice little walking paths.

Autumn enjoys the walks, and was fond of this graffiti until it was covered up.

Erica and I enjoy them also, but the pace is definitely a little slower with Autumn.

We'll probably be taking fewer walks for a while since Erica will be expanding for the next few months, and then we will have an additional non-walking family member.

Sometimes Autumn needs to take a break from walking.

Daddy getting older.

Autumn being cute.