Here is a new project hot off the engraving bench. This is a fairly large knife made by Warren Osbornne. The handle inlay is some sort to of jasper I believe but I am not exactly sure what kind. It is a very attractive stone though.

Anyway the engraving is my intertwined scroll pattern with gold inlay stems/spines. The outer perimeter on this was engraved with a matching pattern. This is a fair amount of extra work to ad to a job but it adds quite a bit to the overall effect of the piece I believe.

Another found project

I found another of those not too far in the past projects while searching through some files trying to find something for Steve Lindsay.

This is another one of those techniques that few people realize I do because I don't have many customers ask for it. Yes folks I do sculpt. Actually I really like to sculpt. Thats what I did my graduate work in was sculpture.

This project had a sort of evil green man/tree demon theme to it. David Broadwell and I did this as a collaboration for a client a little over a year ago. The fittings are carved mild steel that were blued. Then I believe David burnished it with extra fine steel wool. The whole effect of the piece was over the top. I wish the photo had more close ups to show the details better.

I ran across this photo this morning and thought I would post it up here. This was a job I did a while back for Don Cowles on one of his elegant small gents fixed blades. The design is intertwined scroll with gold stems and relieved background. The engraving was continued out onto the blade. This was a fun little project to do.

This was a nice traditional job I did recently for a customer. It is a fairly straight forward engraving using my adaptation of McKenzie style scroll with 24K gold inlay borders. The background is relieved, stippled and inked. The knife is a very nice Persian style gents folder with green apple jade made by Steve Hoel.

It's not often that I get a straight forward scroll with gold borders job. I think a lot of folks don't believe I do traditional work like this since most of the jobs my clients ask for are very ornate thematic pieces. I actually enjoy doing smaller jobs like this. They are a nice change from the laborious larger theme pieces.

A couple new projects

here are a couple Ron Lake knives I have engraved recently. One is a Bengal Tiger theme with 24K gold inlay copper inlay and fine scroll design. This project also has the outer perimeter of the knife engraved.

The other lake also has a big cat. This side has a mountain lion and the other side has a grizzly gear both in full 24K gold inlay.

A little brag on my kids

Hey all,

Just wanted to brag a bit on my kids.

My oldest just got back from three weeks at the Missouri Scholars Academy. It's basically an academic brain camp for 300 of the smartest kids in the state. I am very proud of her!

She also recently qualified to go to national YHEC shooting competition in PA this year

My youngest also qualified to go to go to the national YHEC competition. She also did very well at the Scholastic Clay Target Program's state trap shoot this year. Her squad won first place at state for the Jr high division. She is also going to the national trap shoot (the Grand at Sparta Il) in a few weeks.

All this travel and practice ammo is about to break the bank for Holly and I but we are very proud of both girls' accomplishments this summer.

Defending the Constitution

This evening I was reading on one of my favorite gun forums and in the Second Amendment Discussion section of that forum I ran onto a topic I have been pondering for a while now. The basic topic was, Is a Christian allowed to participate in civil disobedience to defend the Constitution? Apparently I have not been the only one pondering this lately so I am posting my conclusions here. I make no claims to have the correct answer here. However, at this point this is the conclusion I have arrived at after much thought a prayer.

As a Christian (albeit far from a perfect one..I admit that up front) I have pondered the same issue.

The first Issue I had to resolve was the priority of obedience. In a fallen world it is impossible to be perfectly obedient at all times. There are many "catch 22s" in this world. In those cases our only choice is to choose the lesser of two evils or the higher of two goods.

I do agree that we are to obey our authorities and are instructed to do so by our Christian teachings. However, I do not see anywhere in scripture where obeying authority is given as the ultimate obedience in light of injustice.

There are higher principles that the Christian is to obey. The principles of Justice and Righteousness come to mind. When we are in situations where we see people being oppressed and treated unjustly, the greater good is to work or fight for Justice even at the cost of civil disobedience.

The second issue I had to resolve is Exactly what is our government in this country?

We do not live under a king or a noble aristocracy as Phalanx pointed out. There is no hierarchy of "anointed" royal ancestry set over us as a king or emperor. Although most of our legislators and judges have woefully forgotten that fact.

We live under a representative republic who's law is based on a foundational document, Our Constitution. This republic is set up in such a way that "we the people" are empowered by the Constitution to rule ourselves through the representatives WE elect to "enact" the rule of law set forth in that founding document.

"We the people" are the rulers of this country. We hire, through election, (and pay taxes to pay their salary and benefits) legislators and administrators to do the footwork of that self rule. We are the employer... They work for us! That is why it is called PUBLIC SERVICE in this country. Another fact our SERVANTS have woefully forgotten.

This is why every soldier's first oath is to protect the Constitution from enemies abroad and "at home". Their second oath is to obey the President of the United States. This implies they day may come when the military has to disobey or maybe even apprehend/arrest the president in order to protect the Constitution.

This principle in our system of self governance is exactly why the Second Amendment is in our Constitution. Because the day may come when "we the people" have no other choice but to toss our SERVANTS out of the vineyard by force.

Because that is the system of government we have, I have come to firmly beleive God honors our fighting to keep our constitutional rights safe and justice in tact...even if our only choice left is a violent one.

The greater disobedience is to set by and watch as our Servants chisel away at the rights we are guaranteed by the Constitution without reprimand. That is being a poor steward of your government.

I do beleive violence should be the absolute last resort. Vote, petition,demonstrate, heck even riot first. That said, If all other resources and methods have been exhausted and the people's rights are still being oppressed, I do not believe it is sin to take up arms and defend the constitution against tyranny.

God bless,

Ray

Here is a link to the original forum thread
Greybeard outdoors forum

Ya its been a while

Ya I know it seems like forever. Things got super busy there for a while.

I've had my nose to the grind stone trying to get back on track for having to replace two automobiles. My old truck finally gave up the ghost and my wife had a deer belly flop into the hood of hers as she was going down the highway. So now I have a newer Tundra pickup and she has a minivan. Deer season was in there to boot (no I don'thave any pics of big bucks to show). Hopefully the life drama will be over with for a while and things will get back to something resembling normal.


Here is one of the pieces I finished recently. This is the Odin pen from the Norse pen set I have been working on. I still have the Loki pen to go and hopefully will be getting it done next month.

I am also about half finished with the African themed knife with the lions and elephants.
I should have pics of that to post in a couple weeks. I may get side one photographed and posted this weekend. That side is just about done.

Ray

I forgot to mention

I got so into my fish stories I forgot the broken rod (thanks Kevin for the reminder)

The rod I built for this trip broke on the first fish. I didn't even get the hook completely set. I contacted Dancraft to get the manufacturer's contact info to get a replacement mid section but Dan said he had some spare parts and would send me one. That's good customer service.

Here is what happened. Micheal and I got to the river and started looking for fish. There were a pair of salmon side by side about 25ft downstream from me. The one on the right was just a bit forward of the other which made it nice since I am right handed. I pulled off some line and drifted to the fish. The fish took it. I moved my arm to set the hook and heard a crack like the sound made by stepping on a stick. I saw the top two sections of my rod fall to the water and my fish shake the hook off.

The rod really didn't take any stress. There wasn't even a fight with the fish. Of course, the first thought in my mind was ,"Michael's rod is built on the same blank". Needless to say I was fairly anxious while Michael fought his first few fish but his rod did just fine even when bent over on some tough fish in fast water.

Fortunately, I will only have to re wrap 3 guides on the midsection to get he rod back in shape. Dan said he didn't think I would have to do much if anything in the way if fitting on the ferrules to replace that midsection. That's good it will make the replacement easy.

More fish pics

More pics of Mark, Michael and me with Chinooks.


It seems to be the typical reaction of people to want o fish in the same hole as the guy catching fish. Sometimes you just can't find a stretch of crick that has fish and no people there trying to catch them. Saturday and Sunday were not too bad as you can tell by the pics. Monday however, was a different story. We only had half a day Monday to fish so we went to a section of river that ran through town so we had more fishing time and less driving time. Mark and I had settled in to a good hole of water (where I caught he steelhead actually) . It was a short section about knee deep, 40 ft long with a riffle at each end. Visibility was good and it held its fair share of fish. There was a line of fish about four to five deep across each riffle and there were several cruising around the deeper hole. Mark and I pulled about a half dozen fish out of there in about a half hours time. So here we are drifting our fly to the fish we called and PLOP PLOP we look up to see that the two guys who had been fishing just downstream from us had crossed the riffle and were now right across from us interrupting our drift with their flies.

We turn around and climb the bank and took a break. We took a little walk and circled around and got back in where they had originally been. There were quite a few fish there too. In typical Mark form he loudly ask me, " SOOO Ray, how many cast do you think it will take for me to hook one of these? What 3...4 ...maybe 5?" I kid you not, the first drift was perfect right to a 18-20lb Chinook's mouth. That fish started thrashing the water started splashing and one of the intruders upstream was so struck by the scene that he lost his footing and SPLASH butt first right in the water. It was absolutely classic. For sure one of the highlights of my trip.

Just as a thought.................. Youngsters are made to take Hunter safety courses before getting their hunting license. My daughter recently took the class to get her hunting license and its a good program. Not only do they teach safety but ethics and sportsmanship on top of it. I am the last one to want another law or rule on the books. But if people don't take some initiative to teach their kids to be respectful and courteous on the water it won't surprise me some day to see water safety and ethics classes being required before one can get a fishing license as well.

I am not at all opposed to sharing the water with people. As popular as sport fishing has become it is inevitable now days to run onto other fisherman on the water. Practice good sportsmanship, give your fellow fisherman some room and try to stay out of his casting lane to make it possible to successfully share a hole of water.

May you all have tight lines. We enjoyed several this past weekend.

Ray

Fish Pics

The boys and I took our annual pilgrimage north this past weekend to take advantage of the Lake Michigan salmon run. The water was a little higher, faster and murkier than it has been the past few years we were up there. We still caught several fish. Egg sucking leach patterns were the pick fly of the weekend for us. The favored colors were purple , black, and tan. I did catch a few on Saturday with a flo pink but that didn't last long.

I think we were still on the early end of it this year. There were very few dead ones along the banks and the fish were averaging a bit smaller than they have in the years we hit the run dead smack in its prime. Needless to say we had a lot of fun anyway. The nice thing about the timing is these fish were fresh out of the lake and full on fight.

The first pic is of my dad with a nice Chinook. Pic two is me with a nice fresh Chinook. I don't know what happened here in pic three. I guess the fish decided to flop when I took the hook out of his lip right at the time Michael snapped the camera. You couldn't have planned this pic if you tried. Pic four is Michael with a nice Chinook. The last pic here is Mark and me with a tag team. Mark with a Chinook and me with a nice Steelhead (that was fun). I had spotted a few other Steelhead this trip. However, by time I spotted them they were on to me and that was the end of it.

I was wanting to round out a grand slam this year but it did not happen. I got the Salmon and the steelhead but the big brown trout eluded me this year. To make it worse, just up stream from Micheal and me was a jerk who hooked a very nice Brown that would have gone several pounds. This was a 28"-30" fish with solid girth. The guy catches a fish to be prized and what does he do? With his chest puffed out with pride, he drags it up on the gravel bar, steps on it to take the hook out and to release it he kicks it back in the water. What a total PUTZ!!!!!!!!!!!

Mark was closer than the rest of us were so he took the fish and worked with it to get it revived and moving on its own again. We can only hope it lived but after the way it was treated the odds are against it. I considered walking down stream (with what vacation cash I had in my pocket) to talk to those burly Russian guys fishing with the surf poles and grappling hooks to see if I could get the guy treated the same as he treated the fish. Ya ...... beat half to death and tossed in the water. What can I say, a conscience can be quite inconvenient sometimes.

Hang on more to come!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ol' Bessy got sick

Well Blue Bessy had a Bearingectomy over the past couple evenings. I am glad to report she is recovering nicely.

Mark and I decided to get on the stick and finish up our salmon rods for an upcoming fishing trip. Mark was turning his rod handle and the ol' girl started slowing down and heating up. I have suspected her bearings were going out for a while now. They finally gave out on Mark. Fortunately, my local Car Quest had the bearings and a puller to get the old ones out.

I had never used this type of puller before. I guess I should realize how lucky I was to grow up in Dad's shop and have REAL tools. The $20 puller worked but as you can see from the pic three hands and a couple monkeys are required to make it function properly.

Once we pulled the old bearings out we looked them over. Not really a lot of noticeable wear on the bearings but the cup races were visibly wore. I am sure the bearings were wore it was just hard to see. The old bearings had an installation date scribed on their backside 12/12/50. 58 years is a long time to ask out of any bearing. My dad said dating the installation was common on a lot of American Made machinery and in a lot of machine shops doing replacements. These obviously were the original bearings since that is about when the lathe would have been made.

The new bearings are in and the headstock is back together now. I am letting the silicone gasket sealer cure out overnight before refilling the oil reservoirs. Tomorrow evening I should get everything back up and running so we can get back on those rods.

Dragon finished

It was a rainy dreary day out this morning so I did not have my usual sunshine to use my photo box. But all things considered these didn't turn out too bad. I caught a few stray reflections but not horrible. I am sure Mark (the owner) will take better pics. He has a better set up than I do and does a pretty good job with it.

The dragon wraps around the spine of the knife so the dragon dance covers three sides of the folder. The yellow is 24K gold inlay. The red lanterns are copper inlay and the green eyes are emeralds.

This was a very different type of work than I usually do and I found the change to be fun.

Now its back to the bench to finish up the Falcon pen project. I also have pics of my finished rod wraps to post. The reel seat for that is almost ready to anodize. At that point all the components will be ready to glue together into a finished rod.

Ray

Almost done

Almost done seams to be the theme of the day. I almost have the Dragon Knife done. I almost have the Falcon pen done. I almost have my new aluminum anodizing line finished. The goal is to have them all wrapped up before the weekend is over.

Once the Anodizing line is set up I will be able to make my fly rod parts out of aluminum and anodize them. This will make those ultralight rods a lot better to take that extra weight off.
I have all my chemicals now. I have the agitation device set up in the anodizing tank. It basically is a grid of acrylic tubing drilled full of holes to agitate the tank with aeration. I have my hot tanks (I used cookers and crock pots since my items will be small) for the other chemicals, dyes and sealers set up. Good lighting over the line with the power supply at eye level on a VERY sturdy shelf.

What's left? Well I need to finish the lead plate hook up and the hanging aluminum buss bar to complete the anode and cathode in the system. I need some heavy duty gallon jugs for dye and chemical storage. I still need a rinse tank. I have a water hose just outside the garage door next to the line but I still need a collection tank or tub next to the line for the water from the hose to collect. I think that is about it.

One more part to engrave on the reel seat (Oh ya that's almost done too) and its ready to anodize. I am really looking forward to giving this a shot.

Ray

Back to the rod

Finally we got some more done to the rod this weekend. I had the opportunity to do some work on the lathe this weekend and managed to turn out the rest of the parts. I even got the hood engraved and rough cut out.

Parts from left to right.
Trim Band, front hood, wood barrel insert, thread sleeve, slide band, threaded nut, fighting butt housing, end cap.

I am engraving this set with a flair cut style of bright cutting I have been playing with lately. It is a bold and relatively quick style to cut but it still looks good. When the engraving is done this will be anodized.

I think I have all the materials to set up my anodizing station. I am waiting for my friend Mark to finish with my hammer drill so I can bolt the shelving on the wall over the bench. Hopefully one evening this week I will get that done and be ready to do my own aluminum anodizing.

Ray

Ready to hunt

This week was spent mostly engraving. My daughter had her hunter safety classes a few evenings this week and most of today. I spent that time with her at the class. She passed her test with a 96% BTW and we are ready to start doing some squirrel hunting to get her ready for deer season this year.

I have done a lot on the falcon pen. I am far enough along that I will probably go ahead and finish that up in the earlier days this coming week. The copper for the dragon knife has arrived. so as soon as the pen is finished I will be back to that. Both of those projects should be finished (or close to it) by the end of this coming week if everything goes right.

I hope to get back to rod work tomorrow after church and finish up some drawings for the African themed knife and the Native American themed knife.

I have also been setting up my own anodizing set up for aluminum and titanium. That will allow me to make my reel seat hardware out of aluminum to reduce weight even farther than the titanium offers. That will be a benefit (I hope) on the ultralight rods.

Hang the weatherman!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Friends and I had planned a fishing trip for this past weekend. We expected the water to be a bit high due to the remnants of Gustav but the weather forecast was for two days of bright sunny skies for the weekend. Granny Clampets beetles can forecast weather more accurately than those boneheads. Two gloomy drizzly days with heavy cloud cover most of both days. There were few minutes each day the sun peeked through but definitely NOT what the Weatherman told us to expect.

We did catch fish but not as many as usual. The water was a bit cloudy due to the runoff and it was about a foot high. All three of us had decent catches but not at our regular numbers.

Its been a few days since I posted . I have been nose to the grindstone trying to get enough work done to be able to take off for the weekend. Projects are going well. I have the first coat of epoxy on the rod, I have the falcon pen started and I almost hav ethe inlay finished on the Dragon knife. The dragon knife has given me fits. There is one copper inlay around a curve on the butt end of the knife that is driving me nuts. I have inlaid it twice and can't get it to stick. Its wanting to bow up in the middle. I have tried cutting it deeper and recutting the footing. Today I ordered some new dead soft pure copper sheet (I think my current stuff is alloyed). When it gets here I will clamp this inlay as I go to make sure it seats the way it should. In the mean time I will continue to work on the falcon knife for David.

Sketches are also going on now in the evenings. I almost have the drawings for the African Elephant and Lions knife done. I am also working on sketches for a Ron Lake Fixed Blade with a Native American theme.

Back to work,

Ray

Getting started on a couple new ones

I have had the weekend to play around with some rod building now its time to get back to the grindstone.

Here are the designs for the projects I will be cutting on today. One is a falcon themed engraivng for a pen sleeve and the other is the parade dragon theme for the Sawby Knife. I am still working on the African elephant and lion designs for the other knife. The scroll on that is a bit complex and is taking a while. Hopefully, I will get that sketch finished in the next evening or two.

Rod update and other stuff

I got a lot done on the rod this weekend. I glued up the cork rings for the handle Friday night. I spent Saturday making reel seat parts for four rods including the one I am working on here.

Earlier today I finished turning the aluminum reel seat parts and the cork for the handle. Pic #1 is the glue up and Pic #2 shows the turned handle, the reel seat barrel on the mandrel and some of the aluminum seat parts.

I recently got my hands on an aluminum anodizing set up so the plan is to engrave and anodize the aluminum parts. Because I don't want to put a whole lot of time into these I am going to try and engrave it with the "transition" style or flair cut style that Ron smith has been using.

I finished out last week by completing designs for a Chinese New Year parade dragon theme for a knife and a falcon themed pen. I am working on an African safari themed knife for another customer. Its been busy around here.