Hand-made by Skalla

Beautiful and inspirational! Man makes me realize I gotta get off this damn computer and do something real!

Don't get me wrong I am a gardener and outside all summer but here in Montana the bad weather just won't give upl I have been taking care of baby chicks and hauling water to my itsy bitsy green house to keep my heirloom seeds from freezing twice a day!

But I what your doing is awesome! Love it! S & F!

Wow, awesome job Skalla! Keep up the good work!
I have a thread on my handcrats here on page 1 and 3.
www.abovetopsecret.com...

Originally posted by skalla

and finally a psychedelic warlord hat, modelled by my fair self

Oh well hello there...

Oh and forgot to add, LOVE your work! S&F for you.

I like to dabble in polymer clay crafts and just took up sewing..I like to make gamer pieces from World Of Warcraft lol, seems to sell great on ebay lol.

Really dug looking at your work.

muchos gracias for the further replies and kind comments it's great motivation to kick on to the next stage ta muchly

Awesome crafting!



I've made some stuff on here too, look for Toast's cross stitchery

Nice work, Skalli.

I need the wavy spoon, the darker one...


I used to make ashtrays and stuff from titanium or stainless steel.

All my best work has been given away as birthday or leaving presents.

When someone owns something that you made,

they carry a piece of your friendship with them.

I have a titanium knife-blade that i made in work years ago.

Any tips on fashoning a handle from wood myself?

reply to post by Theflyingweldsman


Glad you liked them tfw, I'm on a real spoon phase at present and have made a lot this week - the ones pictured are quite old and my newer ones are smaller though less twisty. I' m trying to refine my technique so it's more streamlined and I can make them more efficiently with a view to selling them at a decent "hourly rate".
Re the knife, I have one (my only one, maybe four years old now) awaiting final filing/polishing (by hand) then tempering and hafting.. While I have never hafted one i have researched it plenty re methods etc.. I don't know much about tungsten though - does it behave fairly like steel, ie can you drill holes in the tang? What type of tang is it and are you familiar with knife scales etc..maybe post a pic of the piece and ouline a few ideas you had for it, then I'll see if I can help etc

Eta: the spoon you mention was gifted away some time back.. I may make others like this in future though, but I think I'm out of beech at present.. It would be winter when I cut more

reply to post by skalla


That's a beech, being out of beech.

The blade is made of Titanium.

It was my brotzeit knife from work, nothing special,

but I learned how to sharpen knives by practicing with it.

some woodwork from this week



L-R

hawthorn t-spoon, this was the blank in the first pic in the thread

4 more hawthorn t-spoons... all hold 5ml - been trying to make some "regular" ish spoons that have definable kitchen use, will probs make measuring sets at some point, eg, tablespoons and other defined/oft-used sizes.

hawthorn spoon, part way through the process

elder blank

the start of a holly scoop, need a bigger gouge for this one though

at the bottom - a blackthorn half-teaspoon - my first spoon in blackthorn, i love the result!

then the start of a hawthorn blank.

yes, i make a lot of stuff with hawthorn, for craft as well as somewhat mystical reasons



and my sole self-made knife blade, it's a few years old and i should really finish it off one of these days


reply to post by Theflyingweldsman


i've never seen a titanium knife, i'm quite intrigued.. and you may think it's nowt special, we often view our own work that way but it's usually different for the observer. i'm happy to try help if you can post a pic and give the info i mention etc.

this is a quite awesome blade makers forum, heaps of info and tutorials and hafting with wood, antler, horn, bone, leather, micarta and so forth, as well as some wonderfull finished knives..

www.britishblades.com...

reply to post by skalla

Lovely stuff, skalla! I especially like those spoons. Such a great idea -- specially as you used some cherry wood.

I have some sizeable chunks of cherry wood from the old tree in our front garden. A huge branch on it had to be cut back because it was almost impossible for the big farm machines to get up the narrow roadway past our cottage without scraping on it, so a couple of years back our neighbour's lad (about 40) offered to lop it for us.

Trouble is, he did it while we weren't there and being a country Czech he just did what they often do here: he lopped the branch then cut it up into sections about a foot to 18 inches long -- that could later be split for firewood.

Firewood!

I know he was just being helpful, but I was gutted. Instead of having a 12-foot-long log of cherry wood lying in our front yard that I could saw into thick planks, season and later use to make a nice piece of furniture or two, I had a pile of wood for the fire.

I've just not had the heart to split the bigger pieces and simply burn them, but had no idea what I could do with them. Now you've at least given me some ideas.

reply to post by JustMike


many thanks... i often twitch too when folk burn lovely cherry, apple, pear, hawthorn and so on. i like to carve green wood when i can, but i also gather wood when i'm able so often build up quite a store for walking stick making and the off cuts go to spoons, so at press i'm making from seasoned wood, quite different of course and harder in some ways but i like that i dont worry about the piece splitting as it dries out while working... sadly it's hard to do jusyice to all wooden walking sticks in photos so i have not inclued any here, plus the fact that i generally store almost finished ones (i make mostly knobsticks if you'll pardon the phrase, alternatively shillelaghs) as i'm working on decorative carving for the "knobs".. i've started making some into norse dragon prow inspired forms. early stages though and i'm working on it, maybe i'll update the thread in future with some of those. i'm happy to offer advice on spoon making if it's needed too, i do enjoy sharing crafty based chats

reply to post by skalla

thank you for the reply and apologies for my slow response.

In the past I've mainly made practical items or toys, but most often with metal. (Special tools, pedal cars and things like that.)

I mean, when I've done woodwork it's tended to be pretty straightforward items, like furniture or shelves. Nothing too complex and very little carving involved. So trying to make things like spoons should be quite a challenge and I'm looking forward to giving it at a when the summer comes and I'm out at the cottage for longer periods. Meanwhile I'll have to invest in some more chisels, I suppose.

Mike

I like all your stuff. I never knew anyone who made their own felt before. Do you raise your own Beavers to harvest the fur from to make the felt? Last Halloween I made a coffin and an animated tombstone prop for the front yard.



I used to build gold mining equipment and I am thinking about tooling up and doing that again.

reply to post by JustMike


well i can make spoons but to me furnoture seems a proper challenge, horses for corses i guess but no doubt your woodwork skills exceed mine! if you work on seasoned wood, chisels are the tool to use imo, but on green wood you'll be much quicker and easier with a spoon-knife/hook -knife/crooked-knife - mora do fairly good ones and they are inexpensive as such things go... it's an addictive hobby, i have to pass my "craft table" on the way to bed and often get delayed by late night carving! obviously i have wood shavings everywhere, even when i work outside when its warm and light enough i tread them into the carpets when i come back indoors

Originally posted by groingrinder
I like all your stuff. I never knew anyone who made their own felt before. Do you raise your own Beavers to harvest the fur from to make the felt? Last Halloween I made a coffin and an animated tombstone prop for the front yard.

I used to build gold mining equipment and I am thinking about tooling up and doing that again.

cheers! felt making is suprisingly simple once you get going, i've learned off some well practiced folk and made a variety of small items with help (like little pictures, felt balls, a dreadlocked wig and helping others with part of their work etc) but by the time i made the hat i didnt need any assistance or guidance etc.
as for beavers lol, its all sheepswool - we dont get many (any) beavers where i live, though i do know a guy who has a couple of rescued beavers small zoos that closed, but i'm pretty sure their hair would not work, i think it's too thick and straight - but dog hair can work (some breeds at least), i knew a lass who made a jumper of her dogs hair that she had collected over a few years of grooming them. it freaked a lot of folk out, but it was rather cool i reckon

good luck with building your prospecting kit do you use it yourself, or sell it to others?

reply to post by skalla


Thanks for the information. I had to shear my dog five or six times a year because her coat was too heavy for the high temperatures here in Arizona. I often thought about what could be made out of all the hair we ended up with. Usually two plastic grocery bags worth every time I sheared her. I intend to sell the prospecting gear I make at yard sales, but I always have something in the shed for myself.

I used to do a lot of prospecting and drywashing for Gold out here in the Superstition mountains and the surrounding territory. This was Apache territory back in the day and when the federal troops were withdrawn to fight in the Civil War the Apaches really tore the territory apart. After the war the troops started coming back to restore order and used Pima Indian Scouts to root out the Apaches. Near a place called Picketpost Mountain a large group of men, women, and children were caught in a cave by the cavalry and their Pima Indian Scouts. No Apaches came out of the cave alive.
This area was one of my favorite prospecting haunts. You could still watch the cowboys bringing the range cattle up the dry washes to get a drink at the windmills and watering holes. I was always turning up bits and pieces of broken Indian pottery as I dug the dry washes to feed my dry washer. I found no appreciable Gold, but put in a lot of hard work and learned some History and Geology while I was at it.
One time I had been there three or four days and my water and my spirits were running low. It was the middle of summer and I found it very hard to get any sleep because it stays hot all night long. It only cools off at night in the Winter. That night I drifted off to a fitful sleep. All night long I dreamed the Apaches were torturing me with Cholla cactus. They would drag me through the cactus fields with rope on horse back and use their long lances to force me into the worst thickets of it. I had cactus in my eyes, mouth, and everywhere else and it was very painful and I was afraid and lonely. Well when I finally woke up the sun was already up and making life miserable and I got up and dressed and went outside. When I stepped outside the tent, I noticed a red arrowhead sitting on the ground in front of my tent. To this very day I believe that I had a supernatural experience that night.

reply to post by skalla


Great work by the way!

reply to post by Infernalis


many thanks

reply to post by Infernalis


i have really really enjoyed our interactions over the past couple of days, thanks for stopping by.. sadly i did not get to see the snipped comment. i cant begin to tell you how much enjoyment i got this morning when i logged on and saw the string of snipped comments you made over the two threads and your newfound lack of membership

in the newly found free time that you have, perhaps you could take up a new hobby. perhaps i can inspire you in that regard as well - spoon-making is very therapeutic and i think that you would find such input most valuable