A Bit of Good News from Australia

Lofty is back out on his bike and has sent us some photos of the early stages of recovery in fire-ravaged Australia,

Our bike club has returned to the fire ground as the roads are safe and the local bakeries need customers. Here are a few pictures of survival and recovery one month after the visit from the fire breathing dragon of climate change.

Merely a flesh wound, ©Lofty, all rights reserved

Oasis, ©Lofty, all rights reserved

 

Rain brings green, ©Lofty, all rights reserved

Tour down under, ©Lofty, all rights reserved

Making Kitchen Knives – Part 14 – Straightening Curls

Last time I was working on this project, I had some very bad results from quench. This week I have finally managed to test one idea of correcting the problem and maybe prevent it from ever happening again in the future. And I am glad to say that it did work. Not perfectly, but the new process is definitively worth to use instead of the old one.

Here is first the comparison of the three worst blades before and after. As you can see, there are still some curls in there, but they are noticeably less pronounced and one blade is almost completely straight. They will still come smaller than intended out of the polishing process, I will still have to remove some material from the edge until I get to the straight part, but I estimate it to be about 1/2-1/3 of what it was before. On the worst blade, the curls went about 10-15 mm from the edge towards the spine, whilst now it is about 3-5 mm. That is a significant improvement, and I think that had the blades been quenched from a straight form, they would never have curled in the first place.

As I alluded to previously, the process that I wanted to use for correcting the blades is called plate-quench. It cannot be used for simple carbon steels. Only so-called deep hardening steels can be thus quenched, and N690 is such steel, according to some articles I found on the internet. Nevertheless, it is better to not have the internet at all than to believe everything you can read on it – the manufacturer recommends oil quenching.

So I have tested the process first on one blade that I accidentally broke when correcting an ever so slight banana-bend. When the broken blade hardened properly – which I have confirmed not only by scratching with my gauges, but also by breaking off a tiny piece of it – I went on with the curly ones. On one of these, I confirmed the hardening too by breaking off a tiny piece of the tip, with the remaining two I was satisfied with the scratch test only.

For the plate-quench are used two flat plates from either alluminium or copper. These two metals have very high heat conductivity and thus can cool down some steels fast enough for them to turn into martensite. Luckily I got quite a few nice slabs of alluminium on hand. And because I wanted to make the process a bit faster (despite not making time-measurements this time), I have made a simple prototype quench-jig.

It consists of two identical pieces of alluminium with a small hinge, and locking pliers. The hot blade went out of the forge between the plates with the edge towards the hinge. Then it was firmly clamped by the pliers to hold it straight. When it stopped glowing near the tang – indicating a temperature well bellow 600 °C – I dunked the whole thing in a bucket of cold water just to be sure. And just as last time, because it costs nothing, I have put the blades into a freezer straightway for a few hours before tempering them. None of the three blades cracked.

Not an actual quench, staged photo – sometimes I miss having third hand greatly. © Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full

It worked reasonably well and quick. I will definitively improve it and build a proper jig when the weather is nicer and I do not freeze my nuts off in my workshop. I will add a more stable hinge(s) and maybe even screw one of the plates to the pliers.

Another advantage of this process is no burnt oil gunk on the blade, no flames and no stinking oil fumes.

Yellowhammers Visit.

I had this visitor a few weeks ago, but the light was bad and I was unable to identify the species. Luckily my biologist friend was able to forward it to an ornithologist who was so very kind and identified the bird for me. So when yesterday they returned in good light, I knew what I am looking at.

The ornithologist also sent some bad news with the identification. He confirmed my subjective observation that there are significantly fewer birds. Some species are actually becoming rare – the whole genus Carduelis for example (greenfinches, goldfinches, siskins). This winter I have not seen a single specimen of these three species, whereas in previous years greenfinches and siskins came in flocks counting dozens.

© Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full

© Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full

© Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full

And yes, we finally had a few cms of snow. This week seems to have been the actual winter, what we had before was merely agonizingly long and dark fall.

Jack’s Walk

©voyager, all rights reserved

The weather has turned cold again and the mud has firmed up into ridges that catch the edge of your boots. This morning on our walk I tripped a few times but managed to avoid falling, a feat few of my friends will believe, but I swear is true. It was all a bit jarring, though, and I did come home with a few aches in unusual places.

After our walk, I went for an x-ray of my spine that involved a few “problematic” positions and by the time I got home again, I was in pain and feeling the strain of extra gravity. The pain is better now that I’m supine and resting, but the gravity isn’t easing. I suspect it’s related to the storm that’s moving in tonight. They’re calling for a mix of freezing rain and snow to start around midnight and end around 7 a.m.,  just in time for everyone’s morning commute. I hope it’s mostly snow. Some of our trees are in early bud and a load of ice on their branches right now could be disastrous.

Jack’s Walk

Jack waiting for a treat ©voyager, all rights reserved

Jack and I went to our wee forest for a walk today, and we were surprised to find it was covered with snow. Yesterday was a melting day in town, and most of our snow again vanished into the soggy ground or ran in rivulets down the sewers, but Trillium Woods was still wearing its blanket of snowy white. The snow was soft and wet, and you could see that some melting had taken place, but not the amount that we experienced in the city just a few miles away.

We did notice a lot of tiny footprints all over the forest, and Jack told me that the animals had been helping the little folk gather up sticks and stones and bits of plant debris to shore up their tunnels. Jack went to a few of the entrances to their world but said everyone has finally gone back to sleep. I asked if they were safe, and he said yes, that he could smell damp, but not too much mould and no open water. At the last entrance he checked (somewhere around Big Bob Oak), Jack said he heard Tom Ticktock snoring then he laughed and trotted away. I called after him and he hesitated for a moment before flicking his tail at me and continuing on. I think that’s a bit rude, don’t you?

Resin Art: Wood You Love Me?

When Marcus sends out boxes, they are always two things: treasure boxes and challenges. There’s all this wonderful pieces of wood and they’re asking: “What am I?” and then it’s me who has to figure it out. For some of them the question could be answered.

First two pieces of burl:

©Giliell, all rights reserved

©Giliell, all rights reserved

As you can see the wood is very thin, at the most 2mm, which made sanding quite difficult. I made them by firmly wrapping tape around the wood to create a container and then I filled it with resin. This, of course, creates a rather cylindrical resin shape which then needs to be evened out. I’m pretty happy with how both of them turned out, fire and water respectively.

The next three pieces look rather different but are all from the same piece of wood. The last parcel Marcus sent contained some bog oak with which I instantly fell in love. It pretty clearly told me that it wanted to be SOMETHING so I took the first piece and tried SOMETHING. I have some golden pearl pigment I am not completely happy with, as it is heavier than the resin and sinks to the ground, but which for the very same reason became idea for this project.

The original piece of wood was maybe 2″ by 3″, already sawed into a disc with that sharp angle on one side. I cast it in a big slab, pouring the gold pigment resin first and then filling up with mostly clear resin.

This is the “central piece”:

©Giliell, all rights reserved

I cut off all the resin around the wood and cut the top into a rhombus, matching the angle at the bottom. The gold pigment sunk into the gaps in the wood, filling it with veins of shimmer. As you can see there were still some bubbles trapped in the wood, but they’re actually more visible in the pic than in reality. I’m sooooooo happy with how that turned out because I was quite afraid to ruin the gorgeous wood.

An speaking of the precious wood, it would have been a crime to throw away the scraps:

©Giliell, all rights reserved

This used to be the top of the wood. I cut it into an oval and rounded the sided before polishing. The wire lies in a groove to keep it from slipping, but I still need to glue it to the cabochon with some resin. Same goes for the next piece.

©Giliell, all rights reserved

This one’s a bit smaller and only a tiny bit of wood remains, but the colours are so gorgeous. It’s fascinating how the same cast yielded such different shades. All that was left after that were small pieces of resin, but even they got used, but that project isn’t finished yet, so you’ll have to wait. Those five pieces represent about 15 hours of sanding and polishing and sawing between, not to mention an open wound the size of a big bean on my left palm because I’m stupid.

Always wear your protective gloves, kids.

 

Tree Tuesday

These photos of grass trees were taken by the friend of a friend who lives in Australia. She tells me,

 While driving through the bushfire zone 12kms from the caravan park, I was delighted to see signs of regrowth…. (grass trees) are already sprouting green in the landscape that was so devastated just 6 weeks ago.

… you can read all about them at bushheritage.org.au. They are also a protected species and very expensive to buy from specialist nurseries – I’ve always wanted to have one in my garden! Best of all, grass trees are very resilient and able to survive any bushfire.

©Ozzie, all rights reserved

©Ozzie, all rights reserved

Jack’s Walk

Yesterday was Groundhog Day, and Ontario’s best rodent prognosticator, Wiarton Willie, has called for an early Spring. I think he may be right. It’s about 4 degrees today, and the 8 cm of snow that fell on Saturday and Sunday is melting away quickly. There’s a constant trickle of water running down the streets and into the storm sewers, and patches of green grass are once again emerging. We had 3 melts in January, which felt a bit like spring, and February is shaping up to be about the same. Since when does Spring start in the middle of winter?

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My mother-in-law has groundhogs living under one of her backyard cabins. We leave them be because they’re very entertaining to watch and are as adorable a can be. The fellow in this video proves my point. Enjoy.