MS, you’re thinking of “reneg” (short for “renegotiate”). “Niggardly” means “stingy” or “ungenerous”, from “niggard”, a 16th century term for “miser”.

12 hours ago, JHCC said:

 “reneg” (short for “renegotiate”). 

Ummmmm, you sure 'bout that? 

Okay, I admit an error. Two errors, actually:

1. It's actually "renege", which (curiously) has a hard "g" despite having a terminal "e".
2. It comes from the Latin "renegare", meaning to renounce or deny.

My apologies.

6 hours ago, JHCC said:

1. It's actually "renege", which (curiously) has a hard "g" despite having a terminal "e".
2. It comes from the Latin "renegare", meaning to renounce or deny.

You posted before getting your caffeine levels up to normal. 

I welded a handled onto the slot punch.  I made this wheat twist years ago as part of a custom Big Green Egg ash tool. Didn't use it much.  A big spoon works just as well. It's shown next to the top-hit-punch-thingy I made last week.  Both are S7 at the business end.

I made a handled center punch (or it will be tomorrow) out of an old tie rod end I found under the magnolia tree by my shop.  I tossed it there years ago.  It was from my daughter's car I think.

Anyway, I had fun upsetting it and making it into a square bar on my power hammer...I mean square enough for a center punch.  My slot punch worked fine, but I found out today that it is too long.  While punching out the plug over the hardy hole, I guess the edge caught the anvil. It surprises me that my Chinese anvil is harder than S7 steel.  I'll grind it shorter and redo the bevels.

The tie rod end might be 1040, 1045, or 4140 according to my AI pal, Grok3. I'll water quench and temper in my kiln.  Should I do anything special to the struck end after tempering?

 

You might like that another cognate of renegare is renegade, which originally passed through Spanish and meant someone that was a heretic because they abandoned Christianity and switched to Islam, say mid-16th century. Got a more general meaning of traitor or outlaw maybe a hundred years later. I completely geek out on etymology.

Niggardly didn't originally have a racial context, (my sources say more 14th century) but since people have been conflating it with racial slurs since at least the early 19th century, it's sort of picked one up along the way, however undeservedly.

If you want to offend people that don't read grammar books and the OED for fun or are confused by words of more than two syllables, may I suggest accusing them of being rapacious instead? It has a wonderful effect.

Love the punch by the way. I need to make another one like it; my last one finally broke at the eye.

There was an official in DC who got in trouble a few years ago for using the word "niggardly' in its correct meaning of being tight with money.  The dreaded homonym (almost).  And I suppose that "homonym" itself would be thought by some folk these days of having to do with something regarding with sexual orientation.

Having a large vocabulary can get one into trouble with folk with a more limited knowledge of words.

BTW I obtained my copy of the OED many years ago here in Wyoming by trading it for a buffalo skull and a couple of deer hides.

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Rainy day yesterday so i got some shop time, when the rain lets up i have to get my porch stained. Nothing pressing in the shop so i made a small broke back seax. Going to give it to the SIL for his B-day. Made of 1095.

The more we talk about people not knowing what words mean the more examples I recall. While I was still drilling our new supervisor(?) corrected me on the use of "acute". He said something I'd said  was "very astute". I replied, I have my moments of acuity but am only astute when provoked. If you read the whole definition astute is NOT a compliment.  I had to explain it to the other guys on the crew, they knew how much I despised the boot lick, backstabbing toady. He was in fact the reason I transferred to a different department. I couldn't hide my contempt for him and that's a BA D habit to develop.

Frosty The Lucky.

I quenched and tempered my center punch.  I gently heated the stuck end and let the straw color almost to the tip of the business end.  I also fixed the slot punch.

My touch mark is on the wooden handle.  I'll take guesses as to what it's supposed to be.  Just like the Castle Anthrax, it's not very good.  It's hard to get a good imprint on hot steel.

That touchmark looks like perching sheep

I'd say it is a tree and I like it.

Bird bath. The bowl is just a food bowl. It's made to be pushed in the ground.

Nice Davor! Very clean design which offers the possibility of variations to make each unique if you're thinking of making more of them. Looks like the sort of thing that would do well at craft markets.

--Larry

I agree with Larry. My wife would be very tempted to bring that home, Davor.  Looks good!

9 hours ago, George N. M. said:

I'd say it is a tree and I like it.

Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding!  Winner!

We had a huge grapefruit tree in the backyard at the time I was thinking of a touchmark. I used to give away 5 gallon buckets of the fruit, with just as much fruit falling to the ground and rotting. And we ate fresh grapefruit frequently.

But an unusual December hard freeze really damaged the tree.  It's been declining year after year as we keep getting hit with hard freezes.  This past winter's 6" of snow and cold weather didn't help.  This is the last of all the citrus trees we used to have.  We had a lime tree, lemon, blood orange, tangerine, kumquat, and this massive grapefruit tree.  All gone except this one that is slowly dying. :-(

But our Saturn peach and plum trees are doing well, but the squirrels quickly denude the trees of fruit, wastefully leaving half-eaten un-ripened fruit on the ground. >:-(  I can't kill them with a shotgun because I'm in a residential area, and I'm worried that my pellet gun would only wound them, making them suffer.

Anyway, it really boiled down to something I could make myself.  I'm thinking of getting a proper one made. Most of the time I don't get a good hit and it's hard to get it seated correctly for a second hammer blow.'

I might make it into a die for my press.  In fact, that's today's project. :-)

10 hours ago, Farmall said:

That touchmark looks like perching sheep

A perching sheep with festering boils. 

Perching sheep... reminded me instantly of this:

 

 

"lt is my belief that these sheep are laborin' under the misapprehension that they are birds." 

My Sunday leisure project.  The press-mounted touchmark looks a lot better.  I've decided to remake my touchmark as a perching sheep. 

 

Dang it, I was gonna guess blacksmith's Rorschach test. That or a scoop of Rocky Road that fell off the cone and now had one rivulet of melted cream running down the sidewalk. And now I want ice cream, sigh...

I started these several weeks ago, but I got frustrated with them. The 3/4" stock was too hard to work with to me.  I set them aside until today, when I decided to just finish the darn things so I can keep my grubby hands off the nice paint on my workshop doors.

I made the tenons in the morning out of 3/4" round, took a break for lunch, then finished them up in the afternoon.  I've seen better, but I guess they'll do. I wish I had remembered to twist in opposite directions. Oh well. Next time.

I finished them with Trewax.  They're under a roof, so hopefully they'll look good for a while before the elements take their toll.

Tonight I finished forging the “Done at home” competition item for the Indiana Blacksmith Association’s State conference this weekend:

Spatula made from 10-1/2” of 5/8” square bar.

Looking forward to the event! I’ll be helping in the beginners classes in the morning (maybe all day?), but really looking forward to seeing Jennifer’s demo and maybe even meeting her.

Keep it fun,

David

Looks good David, I especially like how the handle turned out.

Frosty The Lucky.

Great looking spatula Goods. I wish I could attend the conference and meet some of you, but maybe in the future.