5/1/2009

Well, the newsletter is late again, but I have a good excuse.  I’ve been at the Spring Piney-Woods Hammer-In, in Washington, Arkansas.  This Hammer-In has been a two day event for years, but is now hosted by the American Bladesmith Society.  They changed it to a three day event; so I drove down the evening of April 30^th and got back the evening of May 3^rd.  I had a great time there and learned some new stuff.

I spent most of the event helping Raymond Rybar with his mosaic damascus demonstration.  Raymond made six billets of mosaic damascus in different patterns.  I did all of the grinding, cutting, restacking and tack welding of his billets to prep them for forge welding.  With my help, Raymond was able to focus on forge welding and drawing out his damascus billets, and so was able to provide more information for the attendees.  I learned a lot about mosaic from this experience and hope to utilize some of the information in the future.

We have a big announcement!!!  We have been blessed with another Grandchild.  Delayna Marie DePrima was born to our daughter Jennifer and Son-in-law Rick on April 21, 2009.  All are doing fine; and of course, Delayna is beautiful.  Not that I would be biased; as her Grandfather……  Mary and I now have eight Grandchildren; four boys and four girls.

The shop tour, held April 11^th, at my shop was a great event.  There were about 35 people in attendance, from three states.

We had an “Iron in the Hat” raffle that netted $144.00 for the KCKA. 

The festivities also included a cutting demonstration.  The cutting challenges included the free hanging rope, cutting water bottles, aluminum soda cans, ping-pong ball stab to test knife points, a thick walled cardboard tube cut, and a 2x4 cut.  The highlight (most fun) of the cutting demonstration was the rolling ping-pong ball cut.  The ball was rolled down a sloping tube and across the table.  The cutter was to cleanly slice the ball in two, as it passed between two markers that were about 6 inches apart.  Making contact with the little ball as it zipped across the table was quite a challenge, but two ping-pong balls were finally severed.

I have three damascus hunters and a camp knife finished for the Blade Show.  The hunters are posted on the “Available” page; I’ve still got to photograph the camp knife.  I’ve got a damascus bowie and a slip-joint folder in process right now.

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