An Unexpected Journey: A Newbie's Walk In Wet Shaving

[Blade-meister]

As your Minister of Manliness I've not been very faithful to regular postings lately, but I hope to provide a good shot of testosterone.
First, let's talk shaving. I use a Parker variant, so I can adjust the aggressiveness. I mixed it up at the end of my Feather blades life & discovered that for me any irritation is directly resultant from that first pass. So I shifted the setting down to 3 for the first pass then back up to my normal setting of 4 for my last 2 passes. Usually I get so-so shaves at the end of my blades life, but doing this shift down on the first pass, no chance of irritation.

Ok, now on to man stuff. I finished my first knife that was forged from a coil spring out of a car. Nothing special, but it will slice paper effortlessly. My wife has been enjoying using it in the kitchen. The handle is made from curly oak I had hanging around.



I got to try it out the other day on a ham we smoked, and man it was just melting right through it effortlessly. It felt great to use something I completely made from raw materials. From forging the blade to mounting the handle materials.

This first knife was a learning tool and I have to thank @ShawnF for all his wisdom & advice.

 

[Blade-meister]

Now that I am working in law enforcement, I found that ordering off the shelf stuff for my duty belt just didn't cut it. I had a multi-tool I wanted to carry but there was nothing off the shelf to fit it. So off I dove into the world of leatherworking.

The only requirements by my employer us that duty belt accessories must be black and of the basket weave pattern. So, I got to work on a pancake style holder.

I've never attempted anything like this before, but I read up on it. There's actually a stamp that creates the basket weave pattern pretty easily. You first have to wet the surface if the leather, let the color get back to normal, then you start your pattern. I used my forge stamp since I do not have a leatherworking one.

Here's the final holder all sewed up with saddle stitching and with a coat of leather wax. Most thought I bought it. I was happy with it for a first try.

 

[Blade-meister]

So now my favorite flash light needed a proper holder. Again, nothing off the shelf fit it and I really like the small lights vs. The larger ones. Well this is more advanced leatherworking because I'd have to wet form the leather to the flashlight. I've never done this before either. First step is making the back piece with slots for the duty belt and stamping out the front basket weave piece.

Now it's time to let the patterned piece soak & form it to the light. I wrapped the light in kitchen saran wrap first.

The molding process is all by hand every 20 minutes until the leather dries. There are other molding methods, but this one seems to work best. Once dry, I glued & clamped it to the back piece.


Once dried I trimmed everything up to a finished raw holder.

After sewing & dying + a coat of wax


I was happy with it. I really like the ability to customize my duty belt to the tools I prefer to use on the job. All of this is a warm up to tackle making gun holsters.

 

[Blade-meister]

Many here know I like collecting old knives. Just this year I discovered a pretty neat historical knife category. They call them theatre knives. These knives were made in the theatre if war mostly in WWI & WWII. A lost of the Seabees on the ships had access to scrap materials & made these knives to sell or trade for battlefield souvenirs.

This one was my first acquisition. It's handle is made from a 50 cal casing with a headstamp dating 1945. The blade feels like it was part of a Japanese sword or possibly some other enemy blade. Given the patina pattern on the shell, the GI was a lefty!

This would be the smallest blade I bought!

Next up is the grizzly slayer. This knife is a beast. This one had an inscription but no date. Based on my research, the maker was a WWI vet working on the Alaskan highway during WWII & made this knife & sheath for someone shipping off to war. Once I sharpened it, this knife was darn scary sharp.



The last one is probably my favorite. The handle stacked pieces are made from crashed or damaged WWII cockpit windshields. They were made out of highly durable plastics ^ were a common scrap material available. I'm guessing the blade is made from an industrial bandsaw blade or something along those lines. Wish this blade could tell its story






These knives really showcase American ingenuity at its best. Many of the WWII GI's weren't issued great knives or their leather stacked handles deteriorated quickly in the salt water so they had to come up with something usable with scrap materials

 

[dangerousdon]

Amazing leather work! I have definitely seen a lot worse on the retail market and customized leather will last a lifetime. Be careful though...you might find yourself with a lot of orders for your handy work by your co-workers if you are not careful!

Those knives are definitely tell a story and those stories are in good hands with you!

 

[BarberDave]

Good Stuff

 

[Blade-meister]

careful though...you might find yourself with a lot of

The true danger is having a duty belt with too much on it. I hope it leads to orders, but even if it doesn't I learned something new that is useful. I'll never buy another knife sheath again.

 

[Blade-meister]

I've had a bit of a rough start after moving as far as getting my hobbies back in the mix.

Went out metal detecting a few months ago to an old building & found these WWI service buttons all in about a 6 ft radius. The building was built in the 1800's but has been gutted so there is so much trash right around it that you have to get out around the property to find things.


A lot of detail cleaning had to be done to get them looking decent. Below is one clean & one not yet cleaned.

 

[Graybeard57]

I've had a bit of a rough start after moving as far as getting my hobbies back in the mix.

Went out metal detecting a few months ago to an old building & found these WWI service buttons all in about a 6 ft radius. The building was built in the 1800's but has been gutted so there is so much trash right around it that you have to get out around the property to find things.

A lot of detail cleaning had to be done to get them looking decent. Below is one clean & one not yet cleaned.

Amazing work. I love early military artifacts.

 

[Blade-meister]

Been a long while since I posted anything new here. Shaving has pretty much hit a daily norm with the same soaps, AS balms, & AS.

The biggest development is finally having a new shop space built to forge & flintknap in. I spent a long time saving & contemplating rather I wanted to build it or not. It came down to the fact that some good 'ol boys can do it in 3 days instead of me taking a ton of weekends to build it. With the heat here in AL, I'm glad to hire someone to do it. Here it is:





Starting to move in, but I have a lot of work benches to build. With it in the high 90's, I need to work early mornings, but lately mowing the lawn takes priority during the cool Temps.





Lots of work ahead of me including having my neighbor use his tractor bucket to move my anvils out. I got one out there, but the wood base is huge & heavy. The bricks will be the base for the cast iron stove from the cabin we built & sold when we moved. I scored them from a dumpster. A dang whole pallet of new bricks was thrown in that dumpster. I still have to mortar them in on a piece of backerboard. Lots of cool weather work to do for sure, but so thankful to have a dedicated forge space again that I could design for what I need. It's really a tiny house!

 

[BarberDave]

looks Awesome

 

[Graybeard57]

A Man Cave with purpose.

 

[Blade-meister]

Happy Independence Day everyone! Be smart & be safe. My shave today. Parker Variant is the razor, everything else is easy to see for yourself


Little patriotic theme in the dress up props. The coin in the front is a 1775 King George III Half Penny. It's well worn so it was in the pockets of Amercans during our revolution. It is actually an American made imposter made at the time of our revolution so you know it wasn't in the pockets of British soldiers.


Here's the backside with the date under the Britannia figure at the bottom. Hold it in your hand, and you hold a bit of this country's great history. If this coin could talk!

 

[NurseDave]

We found the one guy that uses that chocolate aftershave stuff!

 

[Graybeard57]

Love the photos, and love that coin. I love old American coins for exactly the reason you described - it is history in your hand. Did you find that yourself?

 

[Blade-meister]

Love the photos, and love that coin. I love old American coins for exactly the reason you described - it is history in your hand. Did you find that yourself?

I wish I'd found that coin, but they are somewhat rare metal detecting so I bought mine online. I did a bunch of research first and began my search.

We found the one guy that uses that chocolate aftershave stuff!

I'll tell you what, I love that aftershave. It's like I just finished smoking a fine cigar & walked into a fine chocolate shop. The tobacco notes are darn near even with the chocolate so both hit you at the same time. If anyone has the same one & hates it, you can send it to me for proper disposal

 

[Blade-meister]

Finished my first workbench in the new shop. $0.00 invested in it. The materials were left over from the builder, & the top is all pallet wood from free pallets. I have one more to build on the opposite side before I can really start moving in and getting things set up.
I love the variable colors & woods from pallets. I could have done plain old plywood, but why not give it some character?

 

[Blade-meister]

Workbench #2 was finished this morning before it got too hot. I still have some finish work to do on the top so all the boards are level.

Even though I started before 8 am, I still soaked through a set of clothes. We hit 100 today with high humidity too.

With all the building done, it's time to start moving in the anvils, storage bins to go in the lofts, & the tiny cast iron stove for those cold winter days where we might dip into the 30's or 40's.

I feel like I'll have more room to work now on the hobby stuff. Even though I probably had more space on paper in the half garage, I had to also have my woodworking areas mixed in. Now woodworking & finish work is just in the half garage while flintknapping & blacksmithing are in the new shop.

 

[Blade-meister]

*

 

[Blade-meister]

This morning was move-in time for the anvils & cast iron stove. So how does one move a 170 lb anvil on a 100 lb stump? Well, using a hand truck, ratchet strap & a 3 ton car jack! Oh, and my wife helped too. She pumped the jack while I steadied the teetering anvil on the stump. The jack got the whole thing up to the porch & then we walked them in from there. Now it's starting to look like a forge!