Sambar Stag Skinner

[Raymond Richard]

Finished this one last night. The blade is 4" and was forged from my favorite leaf spring. Wrought iron half guard and butt cap with a sambar stag handle. Its just under 9".

[nifeman]

Boy Ray, gotta love them short blades. That's got to be one of my favorites of yours...Bud

[Blaine Whitney]

Beautiful. I love the finish. Your Iron work is great!

[MaxTheKnife]

Nice looking knife. How does it cut, Ray?

[Raymond Richard]

Originally Posted by MaxTheKnife

Nice looking knife. How does it cut, Ray?

Hey Max, Thought you had fallen off the face of the earth. I haven't put an edge on it yet. I learned a lesson while doing sheaths to wait till the sheath is done before putting the edge on.

Are you back or just out surfing?

[Mike Turner]

Ray,

That is beautiful, I really like your work. The old hand made horseshoe is cool to.

Mike

[Raymond Richard]

Hey Mike, That really is an old horse shoe. I'm 99% sure its also wrought iron. It was out where I feed my cows.

[Mike Turner]

Ray,

That shoe maybe 100 years old or more.

Mike

[Lawrence Kemp]

Good lookin one Ray. I really like the patina on the iron.

[MaxTheKnife]

I guess you could say I'm back Ray. I tuned in here when I heard of Bill Moran's passing. It hit me pretty hard and brought back a lot of memories. I guess we go where we're the most comfortable when we're hurting, don't we? Anyway, yeah, I learned that lesson about putting the edge on a few years ago myself Ray. I figured everyone knew that.

I'm getting ready to build a new smithy and I'm going to totally submerge myself in forging. It'll be a year or so with my schedule but that's the plan. How are you holding up these days Ray?

[Raymond Richard]

Max, Good news about you getting back at it! I knew you'd find your way back, the lost son sorta thing. To bad about Bill. I met him for the one and only time at Blade last year and then he didn't look like he had long for this world. I just got an email from Wayne saying he's in the process of writing a story of his history with Bill. I had asked Wayne what Bills age was and was surprized that he was 80.

I'm doing good. My smithy is now a hole in the garage. Decided to hold off on rebuilding becasue of the weather we get this time of year and glad I did. Leaf springs have been getting most my attention. Got forging on a piece of one yesterday that wore myself out. After a few heats 6150 came to mind. What a huge difference that little bit of vanadium makes in the way the steel moves.

You still making wood?

[MaxTheKnife]

Nope. The wood business flopped. I'm what you'd call a sawmill hobbyist. It's nice to have a sawmill around when you need one. Right now I'm helping a fellow finish his house up and not doing much else. He's a good hand at brick laying and I'm going to talk him into helping me build a genuine masonry forge with all the bells and whistles. I might even build a bellows to go with it. I'm looking forward to getting back at it Ray. But I really needed this breather in order to gain some perspective. Now and then I walk out to the old smithy and just look around. I sure put some serious time in out there a few years ago. And I will again. I'm building the new smithy around the old one. I'm just going to build the new building around the old one and leave everything where it is. It should be interesting to say the least.

[mstu]

Well, I guess you won't run out of lumber for the new smithy. Too bad the sawmill didn't work out, but you never know until you give something a try. Glad to have you back at the Outpost.

Michael