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Post by Brendan Olszowy on May 25, 2023 7:34:11 GMT
pgandy Hi, how are you going? :-) Thanks for the welcome treeslicer That's cool, hopefully you can get some to play with. Let us know what you think of it, if you get to playing with some. Lace Sheoak is some next level stuff too - has an amazing firey chaotic grain pattern. I used some on this wand: www.fableblades.com/Wand%20Breathe.htmlIt does indeed grow like a weed here. Especially on coastal areas. I've planted a bunch of various Ash and Magnolia at my property actually. We're free of the borer which is cool, such a shame what's happening to them back home. But they're both such hardy species for my challenging conditions - persistent hot summer wind, heavy clay soil which baked in summer and waterlogged in winter. Ash and Oak are about the best survivors of all the exotic trees I've planted. Nothing matches Eucalypts but I'm trying to avoid our hyperflammable natives.
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Post by Brendan Olszowy on May 25, 2023 8:53:23 GMT
mrstabby Hi :-) On my Patreon Channel www.patreon.com/fableblades I discuss all aspects of my sword making and customising techniques, including my preferred wood finishes. I'm not an expert on everything I do, I just share what I've found works for me over the years. Where suited I prefer natural wood finishes because they are so easy to touch up if they get worn or scratched. So usually I oil my timber, then Shellac it, then coat it with a hard wax paste - usually Gilly's Gun Polish - so a basic french polish. These touch up very easily without having to sand the original finish right off, and can be maintained with an application of wax when you're oiling your blade. The dye is Feibing's Alcohol based leather dye (not the Pro). Beech takes dye beautifully.
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Post by Brendan Olszowy on May 25, 2023 8:57:33 GMT
Brian Kunz yeah it's crazy how long since we started tinkering around with swords and sharing out fun on these pages, yet here we are still keeping on. Ditto for your leather craft setting the standard in Scabbard Art forms and garnering endless admiration. And thanks for your help to point me in the right direction in leather craft. :-)
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Post by mrstabby on May 25, 2023 10:52:08 GMT
mrstabby Hi :-) On my Patreon Channel www.patreon.com/fableblades I discuss all aspects of my sword making and customising techniques, including my preferred wood finishes. I'm not an expert on everything I do, I just share what I've found works for me over the years. Where suited I prefer natural wood finishes because they are so easy to touch up if they get worn or scratched. So usually I oil my timber, then Shellac it, then coat it with a hard wax paste - usually Gilly's Gun Polish - so a basic french polish. These touch up very easily without having to sand the original finish right off, and can be maintained with an application of wax when you're oiling your blade. The dye is Feibing's Alcohol based leather dye (not the Pro). Beech takes dye beautifully. Leather dye is an interesting idea. Unfortunately I tried getting my hands on Feibing's products for a sheath project, but I just can't get a source for it (I was after edge kote specifically, but no joy). I haven't had much luck with shellack, it takes so long to dry fully (without being tacky). I have resorted to storing my projects in silica gel to dry it, but I might just have always left too thick a layer on it (gave up after trying 5-6 times). I have a knife here that needs some grip scales. I might try my luck again, I have an oak board earmarked for this, but now I might buy a beech one, thank you for the tip. I didn't go for beech because it feels a bit too soft for me as grip material, but I might find an excuse to try staining some beech wood. A sheath maybe?
Reading oak described as exotoic feels weird to me, but all is relative. It's the most affordable hard wood for me.
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Post by Brendan Olszowy on May 25, 2023 11:22:06 GMT
mrstabby The main thing to watch with Oak is that it has high levels of tannic acid, so don't use it on a scabbard or it may stain the blade. On a grip shouldn't be a problem though, no one's looking at the steel underneath. Oak is near impossible to source in Australia, as is Ash, Poplar, and Beech. I have a little stockpile of them all. Actually a big stockpile of Poplar I bought before Master's Hardware was shut down over here. Yep oak is exotic here, we have Silky Oak (Grevillia) SheOak (Allocasuarina) Mountain Ash (Eucalypt) but you try buying a real Ash or Oak tree or timber... :D I grow them from seed For the Leather Dye be sure to use an Alcohol based one, as the oil based can affect adhesion of the top coats. Try diluting your Shellac with a good amount of methylated spirits, it will go on thinner and dry faster. Even half the retail concentration is usually fine.
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Post by mrstabby on May 25, 2023 11:26:37 GMT
The blades I plan to put handles on should't be that succeptible to it, 2 are 440C and the 1060 has a powder coating. I just liked the look of the oak heartwood over beech. Can't find ash for a reasonable price here either.
EDIT: I got a 1kg bag of red shellack as a present, I have been using this dissolved in Isopropanol. Now I am angry at myself that I didn't buy the beech wood plank, It's no longer availabe.
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Post by Brendan Olszowy on May 26, 2023 9:52:31 GMT
The blades I plan to put handles on should't be that succeptible to it, 2 are 440C and the 1060 has a powder coating. I just liked the look of the oak heartwood over beech. Can't find ash for a reasonable price here either.
EDIT: I got a 1kg bag of red shellack as a present, I have been using this dissolved in Isopropanol. Now I am angry at myself that I didn't buy the beech wood plank, It's no longer availabe. Yeah Beech is great Sword grip and scabbard wood, it's PH neutral, glues well, carves and dyes well. :-) I'm sure no timber will bother the stainless. Sometimes you have to be creative for wood sources... I got some willow for a recent project by cutting up a cricket bat. I'm sure you could find Ash axe handles or baseball bats? Just reading that Isopropyl is slightly slower than Ethanol which is handy for application but takes a touch longer to dry. :)
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Post by mrstabby on May 26, 2023 10:36:01 GMT
The blades I plan to put handles on should't be that succeptible to it, 2 are 440C and the 1060 has a powder coating. I just liked the look of the oak heartwood over beech. Can't find ash for a reasonable price here either.
EDIT: I got a 1kg bag of red shellack as a present, I have been using this dissolved in Isopropanol. Now I am angry at myself that I didn't buy the beech wood plank, It's no longer availabe. Yeah Beech is great Sword grip and scabbard wood, it's PH neutral, glues well, carves and dyes well. :-) I'm sure no timber will bother the stainless. Sometimes you have to be creative for wood sources... I got some willow for a recent project by cutting up a cricket bat. I'm sure you could find Ash axe handles or baseball bats? Just reading that Isopropyl is slightly slower than Ethanol which is handy for application but takes a touch longer to dry. Axe handles! Man, thats a good idea. Most handles I can get from the hardware store are hickory, but this should be good as well. Ash isn't as common anymore as it was, since the 90s they have been dieing unfortunately. You can find small trees all around but big ones seem very few now. A fungus is killing them off...
I find Isopropanol evaporates as quick if not quicker than ethanol, and you can get it 99.9% pure, whereas ethanol can be 96% maximum (unless you dry it with something like calcium chloride, also you have to be careful with 96% ethanol since most of it has additives to make it undrinkable). The ethanol shellack takes even longer to dry for me because of the 4% water content, pretty sure now I was just going too thick instead of more often. A drop of I-proanlo evaporates cleanly, a drop of 96% ethanol leaves a bit of water behind. But as I said, I have not gotten it to work like I wanted (been trying to emulate the finish on a rifle I have).
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Post by Brendan Olszowy on May 26, 2023 11:26:29 GMT
mrstabby yeah maybe just needs to be thinned some. It's so bad that the Emerald Ash Borer is devastating your Ash populations. I hope yours don't get hit. I think early coppicing can help save them. And it's less of a problem in colder areas like Orgeon, though I'm not sure on that. I love my Ashes.
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Post by mrstabby on May 26, 2023 11:48:56 GMT
mrstabby yeah maybe just needs to be thinned some. It's so bad that the Emerald Ash Borer is devastating your Ash populations. I hope yours don't get hit. I think early coppicing can help save them. And it's less of a problem in colder areas like Orgeon, though I'm not sure on that. I love my Ashes. That might be true, it could also be that I took too long to use it. I have read if it gets too old, it oxidizes and won't be usable anymore. Did you have any shelf-life problems?
Unfortunately by 2015 60% of all ash trees in austria were dead from the fungus Hymenoscyphus fraxineus. Surely much worse now.
EDIT: After looking at my shelf, the ethanol solution looks much better than the isopropanol for some reason. They are around the same age, but the i-propanol solution has gone milky after a year in storage. So the ethanol seems not to be oxidized quite as fast. Weird.
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Post by Brendan Olszowy on May 27, 2023 15:27:43 GMT
mrstabby yeah maybe just needs to be thinned some. It's so bad that the Emerald Ash Borer is devastating your Ash populations. I hope yours don't get hit. I think early coppicing can help save them. And it's less of a problem in colder areas like Orgeon, though I'm not sure on that. I love my Ashes. That might be true, it could also be that I took too long to use it. I have read if it gets too old, it oxidizes and won't be usable anymore. Did you have any shelf-life problems?
Unfortunately by 2015 60% of all ash trees in austria were dead from the fungus Hymenoscyphus fraxineus. Surely much worse now.
EDIT: After looking at my shelf, the ethanol solution looks much better than the isopropanol for some reason. They are around the same age, but the i-propanol solution has gone milky after a year in storage. So the ethanol seems not to be oxidized quite as fast. Weird.
That is interesting. Are you in Austria? I assumed US, dumb of me. That's such a shame about the fungus killing all your Ashes, they can't get a break between that and the Borer, except in Australia... The American chestnuts wiped out by fungus, and the Dutch Elm Disease - another fungus wiping out all the Elms. I'm growing the Wych Elms (Ulmus glabra) here too.
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Post by mrstabby on May 27, 2023 20:23:11 GMT
Yeah, bad days for some trees. Can't even touch some of these trees without 3 seperate permits. Even f they are in your garden some are very highly protected like yew for example. You said something about having a magnolia and liking the wood. I had one at another house once, those things grow hella slow. It was like 20 years old and not higher than 5m.
BTW I definately put he shellac on too thick. It works, finally. You know I have a spear head to mount on a spruce shaft, this might look nice in red shellac. I know spruce isn't the best, but for 5€ a good solution for now.
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