Greetings from the cool south:
This spring has been pleasant, and I’m glad of it because it makes everything more pleasant when sweating isn’t a factor during the work day.
I just called Peter’s to check on the 3V blade heat treating status. They are being tempered and I expect they will come back to me in time to finish a couple to take to the Blade show in addition to the ones I owe to a handful of paid customers.
Thanks to a friend and business associate who is upgrading his machine shop and getting rid of a big, slow, but accurate machining center, I will be adding 3 axis CNC capability to the Omnivore BladeWorks production floor in about a week. This new capability will be good for my education, and allow me to make some designs that I couldn’t otherwise accommodate. The machine also might make it possible for me to actually make a living and pay myself a salary that is above the poverty line. Or maybe, it’ll just allow me to take a whole weekend off once in a while and maintain a meager, but happy standard of living.
The 2 month plan at this point, is to bust my butt from now until the blade show on current work so I can satisfy outstanding orders, and bring plenty of items to the show for sale, perhaps at discounted prices. There are blades hanging on the armory wall that need new homes, and I would like to offer them to folks who find this blog post before I let them go to random passersby.
some of these designs will probably not be made again, and in the future, with new ways of making blades, things may not be done the old fashioned way with any frequency.
Despite the occasional challenging day, I am still enthusiastic overall about working for myself, and trying hard to be successful in the knifemaking business. I think it is likely that I will need to move to part time after this summer, because there are other opportunities that I need to explore in the homebuilding business with my cousin and brother in law. We are rarely short on ideas for making the world a better place, but it is becoming more clear that offering a better alternative to conventional built houses might be a bigger step in the right direction than making swords and tomahawks that are primarily designed to chop up bad guys or the occasionally offensive vegetation. My passion for making better edged tool probably won’t go away, but I’m sure there’s more positive things I can do with my time and energy.
That’s all for now.