Real nice Chad. Looks like an angry wolf.

Over last few day I have made a coffee scoop, a butterfly (stick welded the 16ga wings ,I am pretty happy about that) and, I too need a new scoop….

 

Como Park's Sunken Garden in St Paul.  My daughter and her fiancé both really enjoy D&D and those are their favorite character types.  

I was a D&D nerd when i was younger. The Grayhawk edition is where the Owlbear was first introduced into the D&D world. There is a whole backstory to the Owlbear, some say they were created by a deranged wizard while elves and fairyfolk say they have always existed. 

I have lots more useless information. 

Nice work on them. 

Rojo, i like that butterfly. 

Chad:  nice manbearpig!

Pedro:  love the butterfly!

I made the last of the tooling needed to make my first hammer.  What do you call these?  Bolsters?

I bought a 2x2 piece of mild steel square bar to practice on.  I need a heavy, mild steel hammer to use with my guillotine tool.  A hardened hammer damages my 4140 dies.

Socks, your guillotine dies are consumables. Make them from mild steel. You should be using them on hot metal so mild steel will work fine. It is also cheaper. My dies have held up nicely for a few years now made of 1018. 

Too late.  I made them out of 4140 a few years ago.  I didn't heat treat them.  I still have a couple of feet of the 1/2 x 2 flat bar for any others I may need, but I haven't had a need beyond the butchering or fullering dies.

Tenoning dies. We all need several sizes of tenoning dies. I use my guillotine more for making tenons than my spring dies. 

Finished this kitchen knife. I am no bladesmith but i think it came out alright. It cuts carrots and onions, sharp enough to shave with. 1095 steel with a cherry wood handle. It will have a happy home in my drawer with the others. 

Started this hammer for a raffle. Hole punched and started getting into shape. I had to come in when the street lights came on so a lot more work to go. 

On 1/17/2026 at 5:45 PM, BillyBones said:

Tenoning dies. We all need several sizes of tenoning dies.

I'll make a couple of sets. I don't like my spring jig either.

Interesting about the spring fullers. I want to make a spring butcher for the treadle hammer although the guillotine works well for me with the few I've tried. 

On 1/17/2026 at 5:42 PM, BillyBones said:

Socks, your guillotine dies are consumables. Make them from mild steel. You should be using them on hot metal so mild steel will work fine. It is also cheaper. My dies have held up nicely for a few years now made of 1018. 

I make mine from S-7, but that's because I got a whole lot of 2-1/2" x 1/2" bar for massively cheap several years ago. 

How does the S7 hold up?

My mild dies only get damaged on the struck end. I was thinking of welding some coil spring to strike on but that might just move the mushrooming to the bottom of the spring steel.

 

It was too cold too go out to the shop,  I made a burnt honey bochet instead.   Look up tasting history,  the first time I made it was 8 our more years ago but the recipe he uses is the same.  

First job in the new year.

I believe angele sells dies made from c45 or in your terms 1045.

 

4 hours ago, Chad J. said:

I made a burnt honey bochet instead. 

Caramelized, not burnt. A good cook never burns anything, how do you think blackened was invented.

I have wanted to try a bochet but my wife would provably shoot me. She gets mad enough just when i back sweeten and spill a little sugar or something. From my understanding cooking the honey to make a bochet can get quite messy. 

I started a mead a couple weeks ago. Just a "traditional", honey, water, raisons, and a little orange zest. I put a cider in the mini keg this past weekend to carbonate. And i also got a mead, technically a melomel, i amde with a bunch of left over juice. Pomegranate, blueberry, cherry, apple, and peach.  That has been aging for about 4 months now. 

My mini keg i got as a Christmas present to myself. I got a notice that it was delivered. I went and looked on my back porch, not there, looked on my front porch, not there. So i contacted that place named after the giant river in S. America. I actually got to talk with some one. So they arranged for a replacement. The next day my first one shows up, i call them back and tell them to cancel the replacement. It shows up a week later. So now i have 2. 

I like to watch "city steading brews" on youtube, they have some really interesting recipes. 

Billy, it was messy.  Going to take some time to get it cleaned up but it pretty much solidified once cool.  The recipe calls for it to boil until it gives off puffs of dark steam and is very dark.  That's pretty much burnt.  I've that's done you add water back to the boiling hot honey.  I used a glove and tried to add it slowly but still shot all over.  Then the grains of paradise, long pepper, ginger.   I made this once before me divorce so it was fun to do it again.   I need to make my cranberry again,  starting to run out. 

Lucky on the keg, I've never tried it. 

15 hours ago, Rojo Pedro said:

How does the S7 hold up?

So far, so good. I only hardened the working end, so the struck end has been mushrooming a bit.

11 hours ago, BillyBones said:

The next day my first one shows up, i call them back and tell them to cancel the replacement. It shows up a week later. So now i have 2. 

 

Same thing happened to my dad, he bought a DeWalt tool and it was very cheap because it came with no battery, but there also a deal on to redeem a battery with the purchase anyway. So he did it online and 4 months later it still hadn't arrived (2 week delivery time) so he rang them and asked and they sent another and then a couple weeks later his first showed up so he got a second battery. $300 batteries too (~$200 USD)

Alexandr,

My wife is not wrong. Painted forged things look very nice.  I really like that light!

What is that wooden ring?  Is it a mahogany veneer wrapped around a wooden core?  I see a couple of telltale signs.  

44 minutes ago, MeltedSocks said:

What is that wooden ring?  Is it a mahogany veneer wrapped around a wooden core? 

Hi! Thank you!

This is Walnut veneer. There's more. I posted it on Instagram, and a customer from Cincinnati saw it. I sent her two chandeliers during COVID. She saw this chandelier and asked me to make her an identical one. I'm figuring out how to arrange delivery; it's become quite complicated right now.

Alex your New Year's lamp is very attractive, both with lights on and off! I'll offer positive thoughts on being able to arrange a successful delivery.

--Larry

Alexandr, I live about 45 mins from Cinci. Pretty cool knowing that some of your work is that close. It sucks that delivery is a pain in the behind. All i can say is that i hope and pray that the situation is resolved soon. 

13 hours ago, ILikeShinySteel said:

$300 batteries too (~$200 USD)

Crazy how much the batteries are. A couple years back though your could go to the big box hardware stores and buy a drill with 2 batteries and a charger for like $100US, 1 batterie alone cost $75US. So i own 4 DeWalt drills. Couple, well almost 10 years ago now i guess. That was when i was still building transmissions, i quit doing that 6 years ago. MAC tools made their cordless tools so that they would take DeWalt batteries. Or most likely DeWalt makes their cordless tools like Fluk makes their multimeters. That was back when the 20V first came out. 

I used to be a Bosch guy, but I started going through impact drivers on a yearly basis. They rattled themselves to death.  Then a $250 cordless jigsaw basically crapped out after a year of light use, and the price of the replacement part made it effectively unrepairable, so I switched to DeWalt 20V.  Zero problems after many, many years.  All the Lithium-ion batteries are still strong.

I do like Bosch's small 12V drills and drivers.  Lightweight.

Mac Tools and DeWalt are owned by Stanley Tools, that is why their batteries are the same.

Neil