Knifemaking: remembering the magic, and the Bounty Hunter

May 11, 2021May 12, 2021 / ballardmidyette / Leave a comment

“Come On, Baby! Do The Magic Hand Thing!”

-Greef Karga, from “The Mandalorian“

I remember, at the age of fourteen, running around my grandmother’s backyard and pretending to have a lightsaber and desperately attempting to feel the Force flowing through me. It was around 1998 or 1999, and I had just seen the special edition of “Return of the Jedi”. Other fourteen year-olds I knew were busy with sports, or having girlfriends, or smoking cigarettes, drinking, or doing drugs. In other words, doing nearly anything but pantomiming a nearly fifteen-year-old sci-fi-fantasy film in a relative’s backyard, but there I was. By that point I had been neck deep in the lore of Star Wars for years. I had all the books- from the Jedi Academy series and Tales of the Bounty Hunters, to the books detailing the technical specifications of the weapons, technology, vehicles, and alien races. I played Dark Forces and Dark Forces II: Jedi Knight, Jedi Knight II, Shadows of the Empire, and half a dozen others. I knew the legacies of Dash Rendar, Kyle Katarn, and how to make a Ruby Bliel. I had the soundtrack to all three films, each on double cassette. I hadn’t tasted the kool-aid: I had dove headfirst into a vat of the stuff.

What this type of fixation does in younger people, as any nerd-dom member will tell you, is allows one to cultivate a rich inner life and vivid imagination for things. It also teaches one to see the magic where one would not normally expect to see it. This is why many nerds grow up to be incredibly interesting and capable adults.

On top of this, everyone experiences times when they find it difficult to see the magic in life. Falling down rabbit holes teaches you how to nurture yourself when everything might not be so inspiring. The thing that has always saved me is remembering what it is to feel the mystery of it all. The past year has been an exercise in this. Most of my work has been cancelled due to Covid and as of yet has not come back. No knife shows, no gigs, minimal commissions. One of the bright spots of this whole debacle has been season two of the Mandalorian in the fall and winter of 2020. When you’ve been stuck at home doing menial pandemic work just trying to pay the bills, there are few things like a person of a mysterious creed and badass armor having interstellar adventures with Carl Weathers and Bill Burr and a Force-sensitive baby Yoda. Every week I tuned in like I was fourteen. It’s deeply reassuring to know that during such troubled times there are things to make you remember why you pursue that which you value and help you to feel the magic in everything.

For me this is the beauty of having a small custom knife shop. You can do anything you like. There are limitations, the greatest being time, but almost anything that you can think of you can usually do (provided you have the patience.) In this respect, it’s important to keep the mind limber and receptive to creativity for when the muse strikes us. If I am not inspired, I know how to find those things because I’ve been doing it since I was little. Sometimes it’s podcasts, or a song, or a line from a book, or perhaps even a conversation or something I’ve eaten. Because of the pandemic and not going out into the world in my accustomed fashion, this has been quite challenging most days. If I can stir myself, then i can certainly stir someone with a knife I’ve built. If I’ve done that, then my job is complete.

But sometimes we get commissions where WE are the ones who get stirred. We prefer to do everything in house and make sure the work comes from our own hand. While we don’t outsource tasks very often, occasionally we’ll get a commission that is interesting to us and requires that we do so. I received and email from a very good customer asking if I could get a Mythasaur skull on a custom blade and sheath. I thought of how the Mandalorian was such an oasis during a tough time; my own personal magic-hand-thing. I came up with a design that I hoped could fit a Mandalorian bounty hunter and found a laser engraving company in town. Chase your muse, do the work, and walk your path, don’t give up. It’s a journey but this is the way.

Removing a bit of weight and putting in rivet holes

A technical schematic for the laser people: precision is the name of the game.

Proofs showing how the engraving will look- the blue is for contrast.

The handle is made from a pair of Carhartt Dungarees I got too fat for….

And this is the raw material, about 3/16″ to 1/4″ thick.

A PCB filler blank, rescued from a dumpster.

Everything gets drilled and glued/riveted together.

Shaped to fit the hand. This is off the grinder at 60 grit. The rest will be done by hand to help the material speak.

At around 120 grit you can see the “grain” start to speak. The higher you polish it, the more pronounced it will be.

Knifemaking: softening and connection; and the Gun Dog

November 11, 2020December 10, 2020 / ballardmidyette / Leave a comment

“How we fall into grace. You can’t work or earn your way into it. You just fall. It lies below, it lies beyond. It comes to you, unbidden.”
― Rick Bass, Colter: The True Story of the Best Dog I Ever Had

I wouldn’t have ever really considered myself a dog person, not really. There is an appreciation and respect for all animals, both wild and domesticated, and whatever creature I meet I try to let them know that I see them- a deep namaste and acknowledgement of being. But as far “being a dog person”… I’m just not sure I have whatever that is.

A couple of years ago my girlfriend said she was thinking about getting a dog. I told her don’t do it. My only reasoning was that we were all very busy doing interesting and challenging work, her kids were getting older and doing more things, and everyone was tired all the time. I figured it would probably be best if we held onto every ounce of emotional energy that we could.

In spite of my reasons, which themselves came from a lovingly practical and pragmatic place, she did not listen to me. This lady is one of the most unfailingly capable people I know, a wonderful mother, with the uncanny ability to make everything around her better than it was before, even on her worst days. It was no surprise when she brought home a several-month-old rescue puppy. This dog was a lemon drop beagle mix with the biggest ears I’d ever seen. She seemed to be equal parts fruit bat, luck dragon, and polar bear.

The local animal league had told my girlfriend that this dog and her sister had been found abandoned in a barn. The puppy’s sister had some sort of severe muscular dysplasia and had found a home. My girlfriend’s puppy had a little bit of this, but much less so. She moved around fine but a closer look showed her front half didn’t quite work together with her back half.

When I met her she was still adjusting to her new home. She was terrified of doorways and dinner plates. She didn’t want to leave whatever room she was in and when she did she scuttled through like something was going to get her. If you were to put down a plate of puppy chow in front of her she would back away as if it were going to bite her. In spite of all of this she was a deeply loving and affectionate dog which was amazing considering the shit sandwich of a beginning she had been given. At that moment, shortly after meeting this dog, I felt something soften toward this wonky little barn dog that was part fruit bat, luck dragon, and polar bear; this sweet little creature that I told my girlfriend not to get.

Over the next few years I would tell this dog that I was sorry I told her mom not to get her. She had grown into a rather stunning animal, and her front half worked together much better with her back half. Doorways weren’t too much of a problem though her old nemesis the dinner plate still gave her pause. I found myself very attached to her and, though she was very much a lady dog and a product of my girlfriend’s deep nurture, I would find her to be the loving presence that I didn’t know I needed. The dog just loved everybody.

A couple of years ago I had a table saw accident that left me needing reconstructive hand surgery. It was incredibly stressful and emotionally grueling. All of my work and projects and everything I was so busy with would come grinding to a halt for the next few months. My girlfriend moved me into her house for a week and took time off work- thankfully the kids were away at summer camp. My girlfriend’s dog never really left my side. I remember the dog licking my gimpy hand every so often and then pressing in to me and going to sleep, which prompted me go to sleep. I don’t remember much of that week, except my girlfriend smiling and her really sweet dog. It sounds really silly, and perhaps it was the massive amount of post-op hyrdromorphone I was prescribed, but I figured I should probably take the example of the dog that I told my girlfriend not to get and find a way to dig in a little deeper with her and the kids.

Connection can be a struggle and there’s no manual on the right way to go about it. Sometimes it takes a sweet dog after a traumatic event to help you see what you should be doing. Part fruit bat, part luck dragon, part polar bear (everybody is good and healthy, including my hand and the dog I told my girlfriend not to get). If a responsible adult in your life tells you they want a dog, you should tell them to go right ahead.

This knife was commissioned for a retired gentlemen who trains English Setters for hunting. Hunting Dogs, or Gun Dogs as they are called have been around for centuries. Particularly, the training of Setters can be traced back to Robert Dudley, the Earl of Leicester in the 1500’s. It was commissioned by a loving daughter, and has “Pop Pop” etched on the flat of the blade from his grandchildren.

Removing material in the handle make for a more balanced blade.

Everything profiled out. Being that it is made from thinner stock, it will go in the forge as is to prevent warping during hardening.

The blade needs to come to critical temperature, which is around 1500F. By the colors you can see that it is almost there.

After the quench. There wasn’t warpage but I still clamp it in the vise at the areas where it would typically bend. When it comes out of the oil it is around 300-400F, and during this time any major warps can be corrected before it cools.

The bevels have been ground in and machine finished to 120 grit.

This has been hand sanded up to 600 grit, finishing with vertical pulls. This will get etched in acid to provide a scaffold for the patina to build, and also give it a more rustic look.

Electro-chemical etching using nail polish, some salted vinegar and a nine volt battery with some alligator clips. This allows me to essentially burn text onto the steel.

A pair of Carthartt work dungarees, probably about 10 years old.

Instructions for Care:

Your knife is made of high carbon steel, which means it will take a keen edge, hold it a good while, and will be easy to sharpen. It has been etched in acid and shipped to you coated in food safe mineral oil. It will stain and patina and tell the stories of the places you’ve been. Be sure to keep your knife clean and oiled when not in use. Should you find any unpleasant surface oxidization you can remove it easily with a lightly oiled bit of 0000 steel wool, or a coarse rag with a bit vinegar on it. She is built to be used, so don’t be shy about getting her dirty.

You can read more about Gun Dogs here, as well as find more resources on this very old tradition

Knifemaking: a commencement address (of sorts), and the Masilda

June 26, 2020July 27, 2020 / ballardmidyette / Leave a comment

Dear Younger Person Whom I’ve Never Met Before:

Some very dear friends of mine asked me to make a knife for you. These friends of mine are wonderful people that I have known for quite some time, and shared many adventures. They told me they have known your parents for a long time as well, so I can infer that your parents are wonderful people too. They have also known you since you were born and, if I may be so bold, I can only assume that you are a wonderful person as well, and that we are well met.

I was also told you have completed your secondary studies and are going out into the world- congratulations! My very dear friends asked me to make you something special, but also something that was functional and practical. Something that would serve you well on outdoor adventures; an elegant tool and faithful companion. Something to remind you of where you have grown up. A security blanket that doubles as a prayer rosary and, if I may say so, a bold fashion statement.

As you may have noticed, Younger-Person-Whom-I’ve-Never-Met-Before, the situation of the world is a bit spicier than usual. To be honest, the only thing that has gotten me out of the house most days in this great year of 2020 is knowing that I will be coming back home as soon as possible. In spite of my trepidations of late, I’ve found that time marches on and life stops for no one, and there’s no point in staying home and being afraid while life passes you by. The world cares not for our anxieties, worries, or fears, Younger-Person-Whom-I’ve-Never-Met-Before, and the sooner this is understood the freer we become. Be sure to wear a mask, practice social distancing, and listen to the experts. That is what they are here for.

I have designed and built you a bushcraft knife. She is made from 1095 hi-carbon steel, which has been differentially hardened. What this means is, while the whole blade is hardened, the cutting edge is the only part of the blade at full hardness and the spine is just slightly softer. This offers durability and a slight bit of give, like a samurai sword. There is a smoky line along the edge of the blade and a slight color change where you can see the differences in hardness.

The handle contains a piece of bookmatched Texas Mesquite. It comes from a cousin of mine near Big Springs, milled on his property. The bolster is made from a pair of lady jeans that belonged to my girlfriend- vintage Levi’s 501’s, something strong and deeply feminine. Your knife is stout and sturdy; strong enough to baton firewood but lithe enough to prepare dinner.

I named her Masilda, which is an old Romany-Traveller name that means ‘battle-ready’. And while I am no authority on anything, your knife does contain a few truths and values in which I strongly believe. Having a knife named battle-ready is no empty moniker and I have consolidated a trifecta of practices and that you may find useful in navigating a complicated world. When you use your knife I hope that you think of them:

-Speak your truth. The media says that we are in the post-truth era, an age of alternative facts, and other dressed-up horseshit designed to keep you from critically analyzing what’s going on around you. The reality is that the truth always matters, and always will. Make sure you know your own truths- the things you know to be right and good about yourself and how you see yourself in the world. Clothe yourself in them. Should you ever feel lost you’ll know exactly where they are- they will help you find your bearings.

-You can always make more money, but you can’t make more time. Time is the currency of our terminal human experience. While making a living is necessary, be aware of how much of your time you sell to a job that only cares about profit margins and what they can squeeze out of you. If you ever have any doubts about what you should be doing with the time you have been given, refer to the above bullet point. You’ll know what to do and you’ll be able to hold yourself in esteem while doing it.

Be kind. It’s sounds cliche, like something written on a shoddy mass-market pressboard wall decoration in the Housewares Section of Target, but do your best to be kind. It’s the connective fiber of our collective human experience during our brief time on this lovely little world. If you can, you will find that the world opens up to you a bit easier, and is perhaps a bit richer and more vibrant. There may be situations you need to tell someone to eat a big bag of shit. Only do so out of kindness.

Wishing you many happy years with the Masilda.

The Masilda started with a drawing, a drop point style:

I had a bigger piece of steel than I thought, so the actual knife is a bit longer than the drawing:

Jimping- to prevent slipping when choking up on the blade:

Rough grinds:

Wet-sanding out the machine marks:

The hardening process:

After quench:

After tempering, a satin finish:

A pair of vintage lady jeans from my partner, deeply-loved and well-worn:

Fiberglass resin will be layered between pieces of denim, like a lasagna. The pathc will go in as well:

Now smash the whole thing together:

The raw material:

Cut and drilled in, with the blade profile traced in so that i know where everything is:

Texas Mesquite:

It smells really good:

Computer board blank rescued from a dumpster. It’s just a thin piece of fiberglass board:

Denim and computer board at 60 grit:

At 800:

All ready for glue up:

Glued and clamped

Shaping up:

From here, all the sanding is done by hand:

The higher the grit you go, the more pronounced the grain and fiber:

The Masilda:

Instructions for Care:

Your knife is made of high carbon steel, which means it will take a keen edge, hold it a good while, and will be easy to sharpen. It will stain and patina and tell the stories of the places you’ve been. Be sure to keep your knife clean and oiled when not in use. Should you find any unpleasant surface oxidization you can remove it easily with a lightly oiled bit of 0000 steel wool, or a coarse rag with a bit vinegar on it. She is built to be used, so don’t be shy about getting her dirty.

Knifemaking: on doing a good job, and the Scout

December 10, 2019December 26, 2019 / ballardmidyette / Leave a comment

“What is success?” poses the Copt. “It is being able to go to bed each night with your soul at peace.”
― Paulo Coelho, Manuscript Found in Accra

As a grown person, you are rarely ever told that you’re doing a good job. Many times we don’t have a frame of reference for how we’re doing until we’ve screwed something up and gotten yelled at…or fired. Or dumped. Or sued. Or arrested.

As a result, most of us move through life feeling like we might not be doing such a great job. While uncomfortable, this is not entirely unhealthy because it helps to cultivate a growth mindset. If you are cognizant enough to know that you might not be doing so well at whatever it is you are doing, then you are probably aware that this means there is room to grow and get better.

Ironically, the people thinking this way are probably doing just fine. Self-doubt in large quantities can be debilitating, but small doses can be a great tool. In questioning what we are doing, we have a chance to grow.

After I got out of music school, I did my best to make a living as a musician. That lingering bit of self-doubt was fuel that helped keep me sharp and at my best. I wrote music for tiny indie films, did instrumental arrangements for church Christmas programs, played on recording sessions, and took any gig I could get. Many of the best paying jobs were church gigs, especially around Christmas and Easter. I am not religious, and probably an excellent candidate for bursting into flames upon crossing the threshold of any religious building. That being said, the people are always kind, the checks always clear, and there is about a thousand years of badass sacred music written by the rockstars of the classical music world. This is partly why big churches typically end up with killer instrumental and choir directors. They are usually competitive jobs.

One Easter I got a call for a job at a massive Baptist church about 20 miles outside of the city. On Easter Sunday I showed up for a small rehearsal before playing two services. I was the only hired musician- everyone else was from the congregation or community. Immediately it was not good. The instrument parts were in different keys and the director didn’t know the cues for the giant video projector and how our music was supposed to line up. Easter is the Woodstock of church music and this was a mish-mash of cacophony. As a professional, this situation feels like being on a burning ship with no way off. Two services and four hours of this for a congregation of a thousand and no way to fix it made me want to rip my hair out.

Nobody else seemed to notice or care- and ultimately that was ok. Because in the end, voices were raised, offerings were offered, tithes were tithed, and the faithful answered the call. I got paid and went home. The takeaway, besides being able to pay my health insurance, was that, while it’s important to do the best you can, sometimes the best thing you can do is let things be what they are and sleep well at night.

This knife was commissioned by a lady I went to college with for her husband, a former Cavalier Scout in the Army and a new father. I don’t have children but I imagine being a new father, where there are so many things out of your control, can be at odds with the capable nature of a military mindset. The intent of this knife, the Scout, is to put some of that at ease. I tried to capture that duality by marrying those two parts together. The handle was made from an old piece of Black Walnut trim molding- solid, seasoned, and strong. The bolster was made from their child’s blanket, which required a lot more care and work. The blanket contained a bit more uncertainty because I didn’t know how it would turn out till it was finished. Peppered in the blanket was one of the gentleman’s old Boy Scout badges to act as a guardian to that uncertainty.

The Scout starts with a drawing:

Profiled and drilled. The four larger holes reduce weight to improve balance:

Centerline scribed on the blade. This is where the cutting edge will be:

The whole thing gets hardened before grinding. This helps prevent warping:

….and despite our best efforts, warping does occur. Since the blade is still hot from the oil quench we have some time to correct it:

Tempering- this gives the blade flex and bend, while also relieving stress incurred during the quench:

Grinding the bevels:

A full flat grind at 36 grit:

Removing the machine marks:

Satin at 320 grit. This took about three hours of handwork. Now on to the other side…

Electrochemical etching of the makers mark:

A baby blanket. I like the stripes. This will become the bolster.

It wouldn’t be a scout without a Boy Scout Badge. This particular badge shows that the younger scout has demonstrated proficiency with and is allowed to carry a knife:

The blanket is cut into equi-sized pieces and the badge into slivers. Everything will be layered with fiberglass resin and smashed together:

After the resin has cured:

A cross-section of the material and you can see the scout badge slivers. This has become one piece of material:

Drilling rivet holes after the bolsters are cut:

This piece of trim molding came from an abandoned house and is made of Black Walnut. It doesn’t look like much right now:

It makes for a better fit if the holes are drilled now before the scales are cut:

Circuit board blank for spacers:

Finally everything fits:

Prepping for glue-up:

Glued and clamped:

Profiling the handle:

Contouring for a comfortable fit. All sanding after this is done by hand:

The Scout:

Knifemaking: the things that are ours and the Notre L’affaire

September 9, 2019October 1, 2019 / ballardmidyette / 1 Comment

“But then I have always been somewhat of a square peg in a round hole.”

Cressida Cowell- How to Speak Dragonese

When I was five years old I had my first lesson in finding out that the world might not be built for me. I was not in kindergarten yet because I had told my mother that numbers and letters had looked too hard for me. Perhaps I really wasn’t ready, or perhaps I was just stubborn, but this would leave me a year older than all my classmates through my entire academic career. So at five years old I was sitting with all the other five year old preschool kids who, for whatever reason, weren’t quite ready for kindergarten either. It was around Thanksgiving time and we were making hand turkeys out of construction paper. You are probably familiar with the process, where you trace your hand and your fingers become the tail feathers and your thumb becomes the head and then you cut the entire thing out and add all the plumage. I was having an incredibly difficult time with it. I couldn’t get my scissors to work and I had no idea why.

As it turns out I was, and still am, left-handed. They had no left-handed scissors, and the poor ladies couldn’t explain why I was the only one who cut with my left hand. The silver lining was that when I looked at the wall of hand turkeys for the next two weeks before we took them home I knew exactly which one was mine- the sort of mangled looking, Mattisse-inspired one with it’s shredded, soft edges and pastel color themes. It might not have quite fit in, but that turkey belonged to me.

I think a major source of anxiety today comes from a pressure to fit in. We are pack animals after all, social creatures, and there is a large degree of comfort and safety that comes with fitting in. For whatever reason some of us just don’t fit. Maybe our personal values don’t align with the metrics of what society calls success. Maybe the things in the world that move us have been wrought and tempered in such a way that makes the mainstream feel incredibly dull and boring. Maybe we were brought up in a fashion that causes us to question the rules and the people who make them. Or perhaps our idiosyncrasies and the way we see the world simply makes others in the pack feel uncomfortable.

Because the reality is that life is uncomfortable and existence is messy, and no amount of corporate team building exercises or ‘life is beautiful’ bumper stickers will change that fact. The square pegs of the world know this, because things have probably always been uncomfortable. The beauty of being a square peg that doesn’t fit into the circular opening of life is that you find a way of living that is unique and meaningful to you. Usually that means crashing through more than a few romantic relationships, getting fired from a few jobs, making a whole lot of mistakes, and generally being a mess for awhile.

When you finally pop out on the other side of all that, you may find that what you’ve become is completely and totally your own, free of mimicry and imitation. All those things that you’ve become- those belong to you and no one else.

(I taught myself to cut right-handed in elementary school to save myself and my teachers a lot of grief. I cut better right-handed than I do left-handed. You have to pick your battles.)

This knife was commissioned for a chef at a local restaurant by his girlfriend. I love making knives for restaurant people- anyone who winds up in food service is totally a square peg. In talking to the girlfriend, who works in hospitality, she told me that they were both a little crazy, which is part of what makes everything so interesting. ‘Notre L’affaire’ roughly means ‘our thing’ in the sense of something intimate and personal, like a slightly rough-around-the-edges turkey made of construction paper hanging on a pre-school bulletin board. You should always recognize and honor the things that are yours.

An 8″ chef in the German Style:

Hi-carbon American 1095 steel:

Profiled and drilled:

Into the forge:

Making sure everything is straight:

Grinding the bevels:

Hand sanding:

Satin finish:

An acid etch to help with corrosion resistance:

For the bolster we’ll make a material out of bow tie pasta:

After it gets smashed up and set in fiberglass resin…

…you get something like this:

Texas Mesquite:

Glued:

The Notre L’affaire:

Knifemaking: The Ace, revisited

August 29, 2019September 4, 2019 / ballardmidyette / Leave a comment

“When we are children we seldom think of the future. This innocence leaves us free to enjoy ourselves as few adults can. The day we fret about the future is the day we leave our childhood behind.”

Patrick Rothfuss- The Name of the Wind

(you can read about the original crafting of this knife here)

As I approach early middle-age I find myself surrounded by the children of my close friends. They are marvelous little beings, unfettered by the troubles of the world, and always see possibilities and wonder around every corner. In watching many of them grow up I feel like I’m let in on a beautiful little secret as they walk, talk, and become more cognizant of everything going on around them. Boldly pursuing their curiosities, there is a pronounced presence in their endeavors and the way they move through their little worlds.

This unfettered presence of being is a subtle reminder that as an adult I am always second-guessing myself. “I wish I had done that better,” I will think to myself, or “I wish I had been kinder.” Rumination at the end of a bad day can trouble my sleep, and the thought of facing the day the next morning can be daunting. I will often judge harshly my perceived tumbling through the world and wonder if I am doing any of this right. There are moments when I find it hard to get excited about anything. Many of the adults I confide in are often thinking the same thing. These are merely symptoms of being grown in an extremely complicated world, and as many therapists have assured me over the years, are completely normal feelings to have.

Much of this melts away when I spend time with the children of people I’m close to. They don’t think about any of those things. As someone crashing through adulthood, I find that to be deeply reassuring. I am also reminded that I am in fact an adult- no, you can’t have cookies for dinner, you can’t use your Ipad in the bathtub, and yes I do have to leave (please don’t be sad, I’ll be back). I’m not sure how such big feelings can be contained in such tiny people.

About four years ago I made a blunted knife for the oldest child of some good friends of mine. They have a house on some property in the country about 45 minutes out of the city. They grow mushrooms and berries and have animals and forests. I know the place pretty well- I helped them move out there.

There are now four children at their home. They are farm kids in the summer. I saw all of them the other week when I was doing a side job delivering some water containers to his dad, who uses them to run his homestead. While he was sorting out another visitor, I went in to say hello to the kids. They were all confused, except for the oldest, and asked me who I was and why I was in their house.

I told them who I was and that I was there to help their dad. I was then barraged with questions and chatter- the oldest shows me their puppy, the second oldest tells me she doesn’t remember me, the third oldest asked me why I was there a second time, the youngest doesn’t talk yet but eyes me suspiciously. Dad comes in and clears everything up. I don’t think there are too many visitors during a weekday, and I felt that my presence was a happy little gift. I’ve found the most sincere thing a kid can do is talk to you.

Before their dad and I unload the truck I brought in the oldest, whom I’ve known since he was three, wants to show me his treasures. He pulls a box out of his room and starts removing things- some small folding knives, a bit of paracord, and a compass. He is immensely proud and can’t even contain it. I’m a bit jealous. As a large man when I get excited it usually scares people. So I quietly and secretly took in his excitement with him. Whoever figures out how to concentrate little boy excitement and put it in supplement form will make a mint.

His dad and I went out back to unload the truck and this little boy received instructions to make lunch for his brothers and sisters. A few minutes he comes out with a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for me. His dad hands me his blunted knife I made a couple years ago and asked if I could make it into a real knife. I tell him I sure can.

Because in the end, it’s not just a knife.

This little boy isn’t thinking about the bigger picture but I am. In seeing his reworked knife, I hope this little boy will learn to see what it is to grow and improve as he figures things out. I hope that he will learn to look back on where he’s been and feel satisfaction in seeing how far he’s come. I hope he will see what it means to put beautiful work out into the world and the empowerment contained within speaking his truth. Most of all I wish him to not fret about the future and to trust in his tireless human spirit. This is the lesson of the Ace.

This was the knife I made him four years ago. It is a hardened and tempered butter knife that allowed him to get comfortable with carrying a bladed tool.

The handle was coming off- we’ll put a new one on. Off with the old:

The blade is re-profiled so it has a point and will cut:

Giving him a good polish:

Satin:

Black Walnut:

Computer board blank for spacing material. Though it looks yellow, it will be green when fully polished:

Drilling the rivet holes:

The part of the handle that meets the ricasso is shaped and polished before glue-up:

Glued:

Profiled:

Shaped. From here on out it’s all hand work:

The Ace, revisited:

Knifemaking: a restoration

July 14, 2019July 30, 2019 / ballardmidyette / Leave a comment

“You didn’t get the quest you wanted, you got the one you could do.”
― Lev Grossman, The Magician King

Every so often our shop will get calls to put a new handle on an old knife. We always make every effort to do as many of these as we can.

The ability to make something broken work in the way that it once did is a virtue. This is especially true when the something that was broken is special to someone. In most instances it’s pretty easy to replace what was broken, but the sentiment becomes lost. Whenever possible I always try to fix what is broken, especially in the shop.

I treat these repair jobs as an exercise in incorporating as many broken or discarded things as possible into the finished product- it gives something totally unique back to the client. Our jobs as craftsmen are to give a voice to our materials, allowing them to speak for themselves. Many times we don’t choose what comes to us but nonetheless it is our job to turn what comes our way into something beautiful. Making something better than it was before-this is the goal of a skilled craftsman. For those in the know, these are the things that put the color in our world.

A gentlemen contacted us about re-handling an old boning knife he got in the 1970’s. It was an old Zwilling knife, made from good Solingen steel, with Zwilling’s proprietary ‘Friodur’ subzero tempering process. The handle had cracked, as natural materials tend to do over the years.

This one was partial tang, meaning the metal in the handle doesn’t run the complete length of the handle:

First, we remove the old handle and the rivets:

For the handle we’re going to use Black Walnut, which was formerly a baseboard salvaged from an abandoned house in North Carolina:

To extend the tang, we’re going to use a fiberglass computer board spacer which I dug out of a dumpster at one of my workplaces. Though it looks yellow, it will turn green as it’s polished:

Drilling the rivet holes. The black spacing material is a heavy plastic that came from an office mail separator:

This is the top of the handle, closest to the ricasso of the blade, of the belt sander at 40 grit:

Sanded from 60 to 800 grit:

Ready for glue up:

Glued and clamped:

Roughly profiled:

Shaped to the desired shape. The rest of the work will be done by hand, starting with 80 grit sandpaper and going up to 2000 grit.

Finished, sealed, and oiled:

Always take the opportunity to create something beautiful.

Knifemaking: how I spent my summer vacation, and the Persuader, MkIII

January 2, 2019October 1, 2019 / ballardmidyette / Leave a comment

“Warrior,

The bite marks soon will heal.

Warriors do not forget how it feels”

Stepdad- Warrior (Jungles Pt. 2)

(This is the second part of a story. You can read the first part here).

On a late afternoon in mid July of 2018, three weeks after I nearly removed two of my fingers on a table saw, I found myself sitting with my girlfriend in a an empty group physical therapy room in a wing of the orthopedic center that had performed my surgery. My hand had been repaired: a third of my thumb amputated and my index finger wired together to fuse the shattered bones and blown-out joints into one piece.

I had been ordered to physical therapy by my surgeon for two-part treatment. The first part was wound care. This would ensure that everything healed as it was supposed to, with no infection or complications, and to keep scar tissue to a minimum. The second part was the actual physical therapy, to regain as much use as possible in my injured hand, which which was currently completely bandaged with only my pinky and ring finger exposed.

I didn’t protest. Nobody really talks about the aftermath of surviving something awful. It will take the fight right out of you. There is a truckload of emotional baggage that comes after the ‘get well’ flowers have wilted, the care cards have been boxed away, and normal life begins to resume. Bills pile up and normal work responsibilities resume, but you are still fragile and adjusting and most likely carrying the weight of trauma. Despair, depression, and existential crises of a behemoth magnitude are very real aftermaths of life-altering health emergencies as well as the emotional, physical, and financial burdens contained therein. All of this greatly lowers your resistance, and I found myself more than willing to do what I was told.

This included a mountain of paperwork filled with verbiage of responsible parties, guarantors, and out-of-pocket maximums, essentially telling me that I would be paying for all of this for a very long time. My girlfriend filled most of this out for me because I couldn’t even button my pants at that point much less sign my name.

In this room filled with all sorts of proprietary rehabilitative contraptions, I was introduced to Steve, an orthopedic hand therapist and educated hillbilly from West Virginia. He was assisted by Justin, a former football player and mammoth of a man who was getting a Masters in Occupational Health and working in the office for the summer. Normally this therapy room would be filled with patients but as it was late in the afternoon, it was just the four of us.

I found out, firstly, that hand therapists was a career that existed, and secondly, and paradoxically, they were the kindest sadists I had ever met. As we sat down to remove my surgical dressings Steve told me that we would be spending a lot of time together and it was going to hurt a lot, starting immediately. Boy he was right. It took him half an hour to get the surgical dressing off as it had fused to my skin and surgical wounds with dried blood and other fluids and had two weeks to calcify to my skin and raw flesh.

Pain, as I would slowly learn, is an extraordinary teacher. It reveals things about yourself that you most likely didn’t know were there, provided you lean into it a bit. So I leaned in. Steve was unrelenting and asked how I was doing. I told him it hurt like a motherfucker. “Great,” he said, “let’s keep going.”

When he finally disrobed my fingers I couldn’t look at them. They looked like raw hamburger that had been stitched up. I felt a little nauseous and so did my girlfriend. Steve, however, said everything looked great and as it was supposed to look. He bandaged my index finger and what was left of my thumb individually with inch-wide gauze dressing. I was told to come back the next morning to get fitted for splints to protect my healing fingers and instructions for bandaging.

My girlfriend and I left and got Bojangles. Bojangles chicken had become part of the healing process after one of my pre-operative visits several weeks before. While the surgeon was concurrently examining my mangled hand, making a surgery plan, and giving me nerve block shots through massive syringes, my girlfriend was holding my other hand and staring away from the carnage and at a stack of magazines across the room. There was a Southern Living magazine on a nearby table with biscuits on the cover. “We need biscuits”, she whispered to me. This was a welcoming distraction because I immediately stopped thinking about my hand and how much all of this was going to cost and thought about the glorious coming of biscuits and fried chicken. From that moment on Bojangles became Orthopedic Trauma Chicken: the patron saint of reconstructive hand surgery, may her light ever shine upon us.

(Many months later one of her children broke their wrist and the other dislocated his knee. They too learned of the virtues that Orthopedic Trauma Chicken offered.)

The next day I went back to the office early in the morning by myself. Steve was waiting for me with some sterile wraps. He explained to me that the bandages would serve as an infection barrier, but also to help my fingers to keep their shape as they healed, specifically my thumb. In this early part of the healing process, he told me it was important to wrap them as he had shown me, as that was the desired shape that they would take. I wasn’t to wash them or put any balms or ointments or disinfectants on them. The body takes care of itself, he said, and I was to let my body do it’s thing. Infection was a dangerous possibility and I was to call them if I showed any signs, but the 2,000 milligrams of antibiotics I took everyday kept that from happening. I did exactly as I was told. I left with two bright blue removable finger splints made from a thermo-setting plastic. I could button my pants again.

I went there two or three times a week after work. It was always in the late afternoon and usually only a couple people were in the therapy room. Steve would unwrap my fingers and let them air out. Justin would bring a small cup of water cut with peroxide that I would soak my fingers in for about half an hour. Steve would then pick off the eschar with forceps to prevent scar tissue from forming. Every few days he would remove a couple of stitches. All of this was extremely painful and it went on for a month and a half but I was so glad for those two guys. Steve would tell stories about the dumb things he did in the boonies of West Virginia growing up, and Justin would regale us with stories of dancing on the bar of a downtown drinking establishment. Justin also had excellent playlists that he would have going over the speakers. I came to really look forward to these appointments.

As I sat there soaking my fingers day in and day out I also noticed some other other patients there. There were several gentleman with work injuries who were there on their company workman’s compensation. There was a lady who had damaged a tendon in her hand with a kitchen knife, and a couple ladies and gentlemen with wrist injuries. Steve and the gang tended to all of them. There was one gentleman who stood out- a large muscular guy whose injury I couldn’t figure out. I knew he wouldn’t be there if he hadn’t had something serious happen but I couldn’t discern what that was. One day as I was sitting with my hand airing out waiting for Steve, I heard somebody tell me how good my fingers looked. It was the large gentleman who came in everyday. This surprised me because for one; I felt that despite what everyone at that office was telling me, my fingers did not look great and that I was a disaster, and for two; I wasn’t used to talking to anybody but the therapists outside of small pleasantries.

The large man then showed me his left hand and I saw that he only had four fingers. His thumb was nothing but a nub and his index finger and the flesh immediately below was completely gone. I had to look twice because it was so completely normal and comfortable for him that I didn’t notice at first. Amazingly enough, that wasn’t even why he was there- he was an electrician by trade and had torn a major tendon in his bicep that had to be reattached. His hand, he told me, had happened after an accident when he was nineteen years old. The surgeon had saved his index finger, but he said he had it removed a month later because he was pissed off that it wouldn’t work right. Young and dumb, he told me, and he wished he had kept the finger and learned to use it as it was. He told me to figure out how to work through the pain and get as much use out of it as possible.

……..

While all this was happening I was going to work, and sorting out the massive stack of bills I had accumulated. Even with insurance, this whole ordeal was phenomenally expensive. I learned more about the financial workings of the healthcare industry than I ever cared to. Shortly after the surgery, which was covered by my insurance, I got a $4,000 bill from the anesthesiologist, saying it was an out of network provider and not covered by my insurance. After spending hours on the phone with the insurance company, the surgery center, and the anesthesiologist, I found out that it should have been lumped in with my surgery but wasn’t. The reason for this was because the tax ID for the anesthesiologist’s claim was in-network, but the provider they sent wasn’t. All three of them told me I was stuck with this bill and there wasn’t anything they could do for me. Through some stroke of fate, I found that my neighbor worked in insurance and knew the billing manager of my surgery center and gave me her number. I spoke with her once and I don’t know what she did but she waved her black magic healthcare wand and made it go away. That was just one incident of many, but it was always a whiplash. I renamed my mailbox the Mailbox of Doom because I never knew what fresh hell was going to be waiting for me.

As my hand healed, I got back into the shop a little bit. Steve had told me that I would be able to do all the things I had done before, but I would definitely have to find different ways to do them. Finding those different ways added up to teaching myself to make knives all over again. I found myself thinking of a professor I had in music school. The man was a brilliant concert pianist. I didn’t find out till much later that he had suffered a stroke and had to teach himself to play piano all over again- I had no idea of this when I was taking class with him. The man had since passed and I found myself wishing to be able to ask him about what the rehabilitative process looked like for him and how it felt.

I also called my yoga teacher. I missed being able to do yoga and asked Steve what I could and couldn’t do. He told me I could put weight on my forearms, but not my hand. I told this to my yoga teacher and she choreographed a modified Ashtanga series for me that I could do on my forearms. She told me to get some yoga blocks to help facilitate this. When I saw how much foam yoga blocks cost, I decided I would just use a piece of treated 4″x6″ lumber cutoff that I had in my truck. I did Viking Recovery Yoga a couple times a week and it was brutally difficult. I leaned into the pain.

……….

Slowly I eased into more physical therapy work and getting facility back into my hand. Justin had gone back to college and I often met with another therapist, Kay, a lady from Puerto Rico. She was fantastically kind and gentle, and always wore fiercely hip shoes. Her husband was retired military and they went on wild adventures on the weekends. She showed me pictures of a trip where they had taken visually impaired kids on a whitewater rafting trip- all the kids in the picture are tearing ass down river rapids and had on the giant sunglasses that you see the elderly wearing. At first I wondered how she functioned in such a deeply masculine work environment but the reality was that she was probably the wildest of everyone.

With Steve, I always took a ‘make it suck more’ approach to physical therapy. Make me do more, give me more things to work on at home, kick my ass a little harder, I’ve got to do better. With him it was like being at the gym with a buddy. While I was working through my brutal hand exercises, he would be timing me and telling me about his last bow hunting adventure. One time he had me dig twenty marbles out of five pounds of silly putty with my two gimpy fingers while he went on a soliloquy about a regional restaurant chain in West Virginia with the best damn breakfast biscuits he had ever had.

With Kay everything was a little bit gentler. I still pushed but the drive was more subdued. Conversation was turned inward and bravado was dialed way back. She asked about how things were going in the shop and I would do my best to articulate all the digital nuances I was navigating and modifying. My type A disposition would be disarmed before I even knew it was happening and she would talk me through issues I was having. It was a lot. After I had spent forty-five minutes struggling with an exercise, she would always tell me I was doing really well. I would then go sit in my car and cry before I drove home.

……..

In December I had another smaller surgery to remove the hardware that had been in place while the bone in my index finger fused. Compared to everything else it wasn’t that big of a deal. In February of 2019 I had my last post-op follow-up with my surgeon. Before he discharged me from his care and the care of the physical therapists, he told me I had healed very quickly and my results were not typical of people who sustained my severity of injury. I told him that I didn’t have a gold plated insurance plan and zero workman’s compensation. If I gave up I would just sink. There was no other choice.

I also told him that there were a lot of people who had invested a tremendous amount of time and energy into a very expensive process to help me, and it would be a huge disservice to everyone, including myself, if I didn’t honor that by doing the best that I possibly could.

This was the first knife I completely finished after I was discharged.

This steel came from a friend. The man they bought their house from made lawnmower blades and they found these in the garage when they moved in. This is a 1/4″ oil hardening steel:

Rough grinding:

Hand sanding before hardening:

Hardened

Tempering:

Satin finish:

Spalted Pecan from my cousin in Texas:

The black lines weaving their way through the grain is actually a fungus. This fungus that injures the tree actually makes it more beautiful:

The Persuader:

Move on, but don’t forget how it feels.

Knifemaking: therapy for large men, Buddhism with the boring parts left out, and the Rumfoord

November 20, 2018January 21, 2019 / ballardmidyette / 1 Comment

“I was a victim of a series of
accidents, as are we all.”

Malachi Constant, from Kurt Vonnegut’s The Sirens of Titan

A few years ago I went to see a therapist. I was stagnating. I had lost my job and was doing all sorts of ridiculous things to make ends meet. Over the course of about six months I floundered about. I worked security for outdoor festivals, fixed toilets in a friend’s apartment buildings, and did tree work with another friend.

I remember being baffled by the whole situation, and feeling like a victim of unfortunate circumstance. This wasn’t how any of this was supposed to happen.

Knives were not doing well. As I was sitting there staring at my belly button and not doing anything about my situation, it was suggested by those close to me that I go talk to someone who could help me. That was the last thing I wanted to do.

After some consideration, and a good amount of trepidation, I called a counseling office recommended by my insurance company and I went in for an appointment.

I remember sitting in a very Spartan office, with lamps suggesting a mood of emotional intimacy, and an institutional nightstand with a box of off-brand tissues sitting on top of it. My therapist walked in. He was a large African-American gentleman, crisply dressed, and carrying a folder.

He asked me the formal therapist/patient questions: what I hoped to accomplish in our sessions, and what it was I hoped to gain from our time together. The truth was that I was a little stuck. There were things about myself that I missed, a spontaneity and ease of being that I had lost. I knew where I was and I knew where I wanted to be but I didn’t know how to get there. Also there was a lot of emotional clutter and traumatic bullshit in the way. I told him all of this.

‘I think I can help you with that’, he said. ‘As for the emotional clutter and everything else in the way- I think it’s time to let that shit go’.

So we began. Nearly every two weeks for about a year, and then maybe once a month for the year after that. My therapist was technically a licensed clinical social worker who specialized in substance abuse counseling. I didn’t have any substance abuse issues- I had simply told the administrative lady at the office that I was most comfortable talking to a middle-aged man, and this gentleman had an opening. He didn’t wear a suit like all the other therapists. His dealings with addicts, I found, left him with a particular knack for getting to the root of personal problems , and a no-bullshit way of going about it, like a sort of Krav Maga of psychotherapy. I come from a place where you didn’t talk about how you felt so to voluntarily talk about things that were bothering me was, and is, something that is incredibly uncomfortable. And honestly I wasn’t looking to talk about what was bothering me- I was looking for someone to tell me what to do.

Of course that isn’t how therapy works. He didn’t tell me what to do. He would ask how situations made me feel and then challenge me. I came in one time really bothered about something and I remember him laughing at me. ‘Welp, you’re in the shit now’ he said, ‘What do you intend to do about it?’

The bluntness was empowering and it didn’t come with any judgement. This was simply how one large man was helping another large man. I would go in and tell him that my shit was all fucked up that week. And he would nonchalantly ask me if I had a plan for unfucking my shit, and that if I did not, perhaps there were some goddamn unresolved childhood issues being played out and my fucked up shit was just a manifestation of that. Then we would unpack my goddamn issues so that I could start unfucking my shit.

I would tell him that I struggled with faith that everything would be ok. He said everybody does. I told him I had a hard time dealing with disappointment and uncomfortable feelings that came from harboring resentments. I let him know I was ashamed about not being able to accept failure. He told me that all these made me a completely normal human being. Month after month he would talk me off of existential cliffs. ‘Don’t be a victim’, he would say. ‘Be a warrior.’

We talked a lot about transformation and how it can be difficult to change. I would be frustrated about something that was so deeply innate to my being that I didn’t know where to start. He would gently tell me that a person can only change so much, and some things simply can’t be changed. And then he would say that some of the things I was trying to change weren’t bad things and I should reframe what it was I was trying to do. It was a study in Buddhism, but with the boring parts left out, and a whole lot more expletives. When a sculptor wants to make a statue of an elephant from a block of stone, he simply removes the parts that don’t look like an elephant. There comes a point when you can’t remove anything else to make the stone look more like an elephant. This was what we were doing- removing (or at least identifying) the parts that didn’t serve the whole, and accepting everything else with kindness and compassion. Om Mani Padme Hum…

We laughed a lot. Lots of sad things came up, and I would get really weepy and reach for the off-brand box of tissues in that intimately lit office. We talked about music and books and art, and what it was to be a good man and what doing the right thing looked like. We usually ran over our time limit.

After a while I started bringing in the knives I was making and talking through the stories. It was like sculpting an elephant, or yourself, but I was taking away the parts that didn’t look like a knife. I was afraid it might be weird bringing big knives into a shrink’s office week after week but he told me to keep bringing them and to keep telling him their stories. So I did. I told him they were guardians that helped me to write the ridiculous experience that life has been for me. I’ve never done things the conventional way, or even the smart way, and bringing your handmade knives in to help you talk about your story with your large African American psychotherapist probably falls into at least one of those categories. He was always kind to that part of me. He told me to keep building little sharp guardians and to keep writing. At the end of each session I would shake his hand and thank him. ‘No, thank you,’ he would say. He said he always looked forward to seeing me on his schedule and to what I would come in and tell him. I think he dealt with people much more fucked up than I was.

I started seeing him less frequently. I found, slowly and when not crippled by self doubt, that I was getting to where I wanted to be and was able to find what I needed in myself. I was doing good things and feeling alright. He told me that much, and that nobody really knows what they are doing anyway, and he was always there if I needed him. He also told me to keep my knives sharp.

Every so often, when I’m about to do something dumb, I’ll hear that man’s voice telling me not to be a dumbass and I’ll think twice…

Sometimes one may know where they want to be but don’t always know how they’re going to get there. The journey to that destination is often the most interesting part of making it in the world. This blade gets it’s name from one of my favorite books, The Sirens of Titan, where the main character is at the mercy of the whims of chance and destiny (and also aliens), but through the grace of the almighty chonosynclastic infundibulum, ends up precisely at his foretold destiny. Along the way all of his core beliefs are challenged and his world is completely upended, yet there he is at the end of it all. This is the lesson of the Rumfoord.

This knife was built for a gentleman who was waiting a very long time for it:

Heating can cause warping. A sophisticated setup for straightening…

Roughing in a full flat grind:

Removing all the machine marks…

…to achieve something a bit more pleasing. A smoother finish helps the blade to move through food better.

An acid etch to force a patina. This helps with corrosion resistance on the high carbon steel.

A PCB board blank from a server chassis. This will be spacing material for the handle:

Texas Pecan, from my cousin Bill:

Drilling out the rivet holes:

Laying out the handle profile:

The handle near the ricasso, at 40 grit:

The handle near the ricasso, at 1500 grit:

Glued up:

Profiled:

Shaped:

Smoothed:

The Rumfoord:

Knifemaking: managing it and the Directeur

August 27, 2018May 8, 2019 / ballardmidyette / Leave a comment

“…also he had learned that a person could be happy with having done the best they could under the circumstances. It didn’t always have to be bright and shiny and impressive to the outside observer.”
― Ellen Airgood, South of Superior

When I was twenty-two I took a summer job at the the university I was attending. The School of the Arts at the university put together a three week summer residential program for high school kids. For three weeks in July, roughly a hundred and twenty teenagers would come to the university, live in the dorms, eat in the dining hall, and take classes in their respective art disciplines taught by real college professors. This was a way to give kids a little taste of what art school was like, and hopefully to get them to apply to the university when they graduated. I did this for eight summers and it was one of the best jobs I ever had.

High school kids who were interested had to submit portfolios and go through an application process. There were disciplines for sculpture, photography, dance, theatre, fashion design and merchandising, filmmaking, digital animation, and drawing and painting. Some of the applications were pretty hysterical.

The University hired forty other college students like me to be counselors in the program. We were there to keep the students safe. Students were divided up amongst us. We would stay in the dorms with them, take them to their classes and meals, make sure they were in bed when they were supposed to be, and come up with activities for them to do. Our presence was designed to keep bad behavior to a minimum. We had a week of training to go over protocols and procedures. There were university policies that handled underage alcohol in the dorms, as well as drugs, and what to do when students went missing or fell ill. There were a group of grad students who were our bosses and handled disciplinary issues. Nearly everyone at the program was between the age of fourteen and seventeen, not legally adults, so these policies and procedures were important.

The kids moved in and for three weeks we were their caretakers. We took them to class, ate dining hall food with them, and came up with evening activities for them to do as only art school kids can do. We made themed dances- my personal favorite was “Merry Christmas Taylor Swift: Live from the Galapagos Islands”, and everyone dressed accordingly. There was “Dress Your Counselor Night”, where one of the more attractive male counselors wound up shirtless and in a dress. On the weekends we took kids to museums, and to some of the nearby restaurants. Counselors took some of the kids on morning runs. One time I bought my kids a bunch of Nerf guns and we went to an unoccupied floor of the dorms and had a giant battle. Kids were always working on their art and we helped and encouraged them. I scored the music for a film one of the kids was working on for class. We kept everyone occupied and mostly out of trouble. Mostly.

Every year there was pretty predictable behavior. With a little bit a freedom the kids would start to push boundaries- they were teenagers after all. Some kids would go vegan during the program and then get sick because all they were eating were french fries and Captain Crunch. Other kids would dye their hair or cut it all off, and then we would have to explain to a parent why their little Jessica had a purple buzzcut. The lactose intolerant kid would order a large cheese pizza and fart up the dorm. Some kids were figuring out their sexuality and we delicately did our best to be supportive and help them along their path.

We had a lot of kids with…peculiarities? One kid with irritable bowel syndrome had to get his mom to overnight him his homeopathic diarrhea medicine from New York because he had left it at home. There was a Saudi Arabian boy with Aspergers Syndrome who terrified all of the girls because they thought he was yelling at them when he tried to talk to them. One year we had a kid from the Make-A-Wish foundation come who was on kidney dialysis- his dorm room looked like a medical lab. Another year there was a girl acting out horribly the whole time and we couldn’t figure out why until we called her mother. Turns out her father had left the family six months before to live as a woman, and this little girl was pissed about it. I worked with a team of really awesome people and and no matter the situation or issue, nobody ever had to shoulder anything by themselves.

Every so often there were really awful kids that we had to send home. We called one kid’s father at midnight on a weekday because he was smoking pot in his room. That kid was gone by morning. Another kid decided to throw a frozen water bottle out of his 14th floor dorm window at ten o’clock at night. It smashed the windshield of a car driving on the street below. The police came and woke up everyone on three of the floors to find out who did it. That kid ended up getting sent home and having to pay for the guy’s windshield, but he did avoid a felony charge.

By the end of my tenure at this summer gig I was supervising all of the counselors and everything that went on in the dorms. I had graduated but it looked good for the program when Alumni were involved. The money was good and it fit into my schedule. The only person I reported to was a tenured professor who was the program director, and she trusted everyone to do their jobs. I was on the hiring team and doing all of the scheduling for the counselors’ shifts. I ran a lot of the training, wrote policies for the program to help it run better, and wrote itineraries for staff meetings. I handled disciplinary issues and procedures and when kids fucked up, they dealt with me. I made changes as I saw fit. For example, in the earlier years the other counselors and I would all go out and get hammered after we put the kids to bed, and then stumble back to the dorms wasted. No longer. Funny how things change when it’s your ass on the line.

I’ve never really considered myself a very good manager or administrator. I’ve also never been great at following the rules or being a team player, and I’ve always struggled to fit into corporate and traditional workplace scenarios. In the instance of this job I just tried to make sure everybody was safe and all the institutional ‘t’s and ‘i’s that kept everyone safe were crossed and dotted. It wasn’t always cheeky and fun. There were two separate summers where I was going through really awful breakups, and another summer where there was a death in my family. I would still DJ dance parties and take sick kids to the Urgent Care facility and make sure everyone was ok. The responsibility and sometimes difficult tasks were worth it.

Because in spite of all the shenanigans, and the calling of parents, and confused teenage sexualities, and homeopathic diarrhea medicine, the vast majority of these kids left our little three week program at our state university really inspired and ready to do kick ass things, and a lot of them have. That felt really good and was what kept me there all those years. I grew a lot. I made lifelong friends. I met my girlfriend, though I didn’t know it at the time. I learned what it was to run something and to have people back you up.

I’ve worked for a lot of crummy managers, people who are ready to throw you under the bus and only care about how they look to the company they are supposed to represent. A real manager is someone who knows how to steer their organization toward its goals while inspiring their people and navigating through all the stupid things that get in the way. This is the lesson of the Directeur.

The Directeur was a commission for a lady who has been running restaurants and events in Washington DC for the past decade. It’s probably similar to working at an Art School summer program but I’m sure the stories are much better, as only Washington DC can provide.

A quick design for an 8″ chef’s knife, in the German style:

Profiling the blade:

Hardening the steel…

…and oil quenched.

Grinding the bevels:

Hand Sanding:

The blade is then soaked in acid to etch the steel. This knife has a Hamon line, meaning the cutting edge is at full hardness while the spine is a touch softer. This gives the blade durability. You can start to see the line forming: