Summer to Thanksgiving recap

I took some time off after Blade to recharge my batteries, work on machines that needed repairs and start refurbishing an Aciera F3 I received in July. That machine is a Swiss made mill considered amongst the finest ever made. The advantage of this machine is the ability to do many different operations in one mill. You can slot, drill, mill vertically, mill horizontally, tilt the table, tilt the head... it is very flexible.

We had not taken a real vacation in several years so we had a nice beach vacation in Aruba with some great friends and had a blast! The beaches were amazing, the snorkeling was great and we trekked all over the island on ATVs to visit the wilder side of it.

Feeling truly refreshed I got back in the shop and worked on some fixed blades I had been wanting to make for a while. Even though I rarely do nowadays, I still enjoy making them.

I also attended several shows: The Gathering (G4) in Las Vegas on Labor Day weekend, the SICAC in Paris in September and the NYCKS in Jersey City in November. For these shows I made knives playing with textures, carvings on the handles and bolsters and new blade materials. I started using a new steel from Takefu in Japan, it has stainless steel layers with a VG10 core. VG10 is similar to BG42, it is a high grade stainless steel. I had been wanting to use since I first saw it in Japan 15 years ago. I have several kitchen knives made with this steel that we use everyday at the house and I can attest of its edge holding ability.

I am now winding down the year, finishing some knives to offer for sale on time for the holidays and taking a little time to relax and go to the range.