Finishing

I have gotten a lot done the last day or two. I start out finishing on my spurs with a 40 grit belt, then get progressively finer, to a minimum of 400 grit. I will run some on to 800 grit if they are wall hangers. One thing I've learned is belts are cheap. Keeping a sharp belt cuts my time in half and does a lot better job. I'm kinda in production mode until Christmas, and use every time saver I can find.

Cutting the rowel slot. I cut it close with the band saw, then clean it up on the belt grinder.
I'm missing some minor steps in all of this, sometimes because I get busy and forget to take pictures, and sometimes because it's boring. Maybe I should hire a biographer, at least he could document the cuss words that it takes to make a set of spurs.

This set is almost ready for silver.


I road to the sale barn this morning with a neighbor. Lots of rough, thin cattle. You could tell that the hard to catch ones are finally getting caught. Lots of cattle that have never been out of the brush, much less in a pen and took care of. Every body is out of grass and water, and hay is to expensive. So goes a drought. Look out, it's going to last another summer, and there will be lots of broke cowboys by next fall.

splitting heel bands

These two sets are 1018/nickel damascus. I forged, cleaned up, and sized the billets, and band saw cut to fairly close to final shape. I leave the bottom part of the shank uncut to give me a little more friction in the vice and give me something to grind off after I beat it into the spur shape.

Both of these spurs are ladies size, and this is my ladies size jig.

Heating to bend my bands. I like to use a rosebud tip and oxygen/acetylene on the damascus spurs, I can concentrate my heat where I want it, and I seem to get a lot less failures in my damascus. There is nothing worse than getting this far, only to have the spur pull apart at the welds.

Two sets roughed out. Now on to finishing.

Things

The bottom is a key chain knife. I've made 2 of them. Kim confiscated the first.

Rasp spurs. Ropers seem to like this style, 7/8" heel band, 1 1/2" shank, with an 1 1/4" rowel.

I am back on spurs for a while. I have 4 sets to do before Christmas. I'm afraid to show to much of them, I really don't know who reads the blog on a regular basis, and would hate to spoil a surprise. Maybe some works in progress, and pictures before I stick the silver.

Turkey

After several days of shirking duties around the ranch, making excuses about why he hadn't got one yet, and keeping left-overs at my house to a minimum, the greatest hunter in the world emerged from the bushes  with a turkey for Thanksgiving.

I thought for a while that I would be eating mashed potatoes with no gravy, but he came through at the last minute.

Retirement buckles

This buckle is going out as a retirement gift. 1018 /nickel damascus, sterling letters.

It's funny how things are ordered or sold. I built a friend a buckle like this one a couple of years ago, and some one that owns an electronics store saw it and ordered one just like it.

Word of mouth has always been my best advertising. The web site has always been just a place that some one that already knows about me goes to get my phone number. It is also hard to get updated, thus the blog. I can do most of this myself, post things as they get done, and show some work in progresses when I can remember to take pictures. I have sold more items and had more inquiries off the blog than any thing else I've tried, but it still can't beat some one bragging on, or showing off something I've made.

Some knives

I finished these 2 today. The top is lacewood and mokume' handle on damascus, the bottom is black locust and stainless. It is a match to one I have shown in an earlier post and they are going to the same owner.

Ironwood, bois d'arc, and camel bone.
It's been a busy month!

Dee's reply

I was pleasantly surprised this morning by a reply to my email to Ms Dee Jepsen. I won't bore everyone with the entire email, but will summarize by saying she seems to be sympathetic to my cause. She stated that she was only the messenger, not the enforcer. Also, she is not with the dept. of no labor, but is a professor at OSU, that teaches farm safety and was merely commenting on the new rules. I started to invite her to my school, there have been lots of kids through it and they all got quite an education.

Now on to important things:

Our first two calves out of our good cows. If prices hold, I'll be able to retire on these two.
We calve on this set between now and Christmas, work them in April, then ween in June. Most years we turn them out on grass until they weigh around 800 pounds, then send them to the feed yard.

A little knife I finished yesterday. 2.75" cutting edge, 7.25" overall length. The wood is black locust that I bought from Mike928, a follower of this blog. Good stuff Mike, it left for a good home this morning.

Kyle's deer for 2011.  He hunts about 15 minutes every year and gets something like this. I guess it helps that he cowboys all day every day on the ranch and knows where every thing hangs out, and what time they get there.