This is to help defray FTB’s legal debts from Richard Carrier’s defamation lawsuit. Details and rules are below:

Note: NEW RULES

Bidding starts at: $1

You can bid in the comments, or bid by emailing me [link]; it may take a while for an email bid to register because I check my email only once or twice a day.

Whoever bids the most wins. The final price is (winner decides) between $1 more than the second highest bidder, and what they bid. So, if someone bids $50 and you bid $100 and that’s the final bid, you pay whatever you want between $51 and $100. Please do not “auction snipe” with last-minute bids. This is more like a silent auction than Ebay. Pay Here: [paypal]

Auction Closed with a Winning Bid of $111

“Occam’s Petty Knife”

I’ve been experimenting with this blade shape since my first attempts (has it been 3 years now!?) at doing forge-welding. Since then, I’ve solved the problems in keeping the raked bottom from forming stress-risers, and have perfected my dead-flat bevel/mirror polish technique.

This blade is made from end-forged 1095 high carbon plow wire rope (‘cable’) that I cut and tiled into a high layer-count. Except for a small safety-spot on the rake, it’s very sharp from heel to tip. The steel is lightly parkerized. Handle is sugar maple fiddleback and ebony.

Right now I have a pretty good stack of commissions on the bench in various stages between “sketch” and “almost done.” And this week I had the propane company take the tank from the schoolhouse and they will be installing a new one at the hot metal shed (still doorless!) next week. There will be some disturbance in my various shop operations while I get my stuff back together and move the forge and forging press and finish and install the doors. Those of you who are on my build list – your projects are still in progress, fear not! I’m just hitting the “pause” button on a everything while I re-arrange things a bit.

A “petty knife” is a “little knife” (“petit couteau”) but chefs can’t be arsed to spell the French correctly, in spite of making sauce demi-glace, etc.