fear

Knifemaking: Chainsaws, Being Gentle of Spirit, and the Lionheart

/ ballardmidyette / Leave a comment

‘Only the weak are cruel. Gentleness can only be expected from the strong.’

–Leo Buscaglia

A couple of years ago I was out in the country with a good friend of mine, giving him a hand in clearing some trees on his property.  There was a ramshackle house on that piece of property that hadn’t been lived in for years.  We were clearing the trees to make a path for the demolition equipment to come in and tear what was left of this house down so a new one could be built.

We hauled logs and trees that had already fallen.  This area had not been visited by anyone in quite some time and was quite overgrown.  We didn’t bother with any of the larger trees but anything under forty feet was fair game.  We were in the middle of the woods and it was just us.  My friend had two Stihl chainsaws and was cutting the trees down.  I was hauling the logs out out of the way and stacking them to be cut into firewood later.

We took a break- there were a lot of trees left to take down.  My friend had two chainsaws, one for each of us, so we decided to divide and conquer.   When we got started again I grabbed a saw and found that I could not get it running.  I yanked the pullcord.  Nothing.  To be safe I topped off the fuel and the chain oil.  I adjusted the choke.  I gave the pullcord another tug.  When it still wouldn’t start I assumed that I wasn’t pulling hard enough.  So I pulled harder.

My friend stopped me and told me to be gentle, otherwise I would rip the cord out.  I kindly let him know that I was an extremely gentle person.

He laughed.  ‘Maybe gentle of spirit,’ he said and gave the cord an easy tug.  The saw started right up.

That man, always with the truth.  I thought I was being gentle….

The truth of the matter, and what became clear that day, is that behind any kind of power is gentleness.  Not everything in this world can be beaten or bullied into submission, though there have been times in my life where I liked to think so.  As with the chainsaw, gentleness sometimes IS the power.  Out in the woods that day, the one who was gentle was the one who was cutting the trees down and that person was not me.

Gentleness is often seen as a sign of being weak.  This is not true, despite what has been demonstrated to us throughout our lives.  While brute and strength and force have their place, without something gentle behind them they serve only to divide and intimidate.  Gentleness serves as a means to connect.  It acts as a vessel for strength, holding it and giving it purpose.  Behind every great leader, parent, speaker, or creator of things there is something gentle.  Without that everything dissolves into fear and chaos.

This is the lesson of the Lionheart.  To find gentle is to find power.  The road to finding those is courage and bravery manifested, which are traits of someone who is Lionhearted.  It’s not an easy road for certain but the best ones never are.

This blade is a 6in filet/boning knife, built from 1/8″ O1 tool steel stock.  It was commissioned by a man who has quite a bit of Lionheart in him, and was the inspiration for the namesake of this knife:

Rough cut:

Filework on the blade choil.  This makes it easier to sharpen and provides a visual aid in creating symmetrical plunge lines:

Profiled:

Initial work on the bevels.  Removing too much steel will cause it to warp in the forge.  Ready for heat treat:

Hardened:

Removing more material after heat treat:

Hand sanding:

Satin finish:

I should have drilled these earlier, but here we are:

Rivet holes in the scales.  The wood is Redheart:

Ready for assembly:

Profiled:

Shaped:

The Lionheart:

Be gentle with that chainsaw….

Knifemaking: The Precedent Epilogue

/ ballardmidyette / 1 Comment

“…feelings like disappointment, embarrassment, irritation, resentment, anger, jealousy, and fear, instead of being bad news, are actually very clear moments that teach us where it is that we’re holding back. They teach us to perk up and lean in when we feel we’d rather collapse and back away. They’re like messengers that show us, with terrifying clarity, exactly where we’re stuck. This very moment is the perfect teacher, and, lucky for us, it’s with us wherever we are.”

―Pema Chödrön, When Things Fall Apart

(you can find the initial crafting and thoughts on the Precedent here)

This was the first real knife I started working on.  I put it aside for a long time.  I had a tough time heat treating it and kept avoiding finishing it.  I’ve been rolling and moving and was at first hesitant to look back on this knife because it was so raw.

I think there’s a hesitation to look back because somehow I fear that I will fall back into those things, or worse, see that I haven’t really moved forward.  I see lots of mistakes and lots of flaws.  There is the fear that things that once were can somehow bleed into what is now.  That the cycle just continues.  I’ve found the opposite is true- that knowing what pain and loss feel like help us to grow.  We remember what it’s like to feel joy and peace.  And while there is the realization that we will most definitely feel pain and loss again, there is the little light that reminds us we’ll feel joy and peace again as well.

All of this comes from the fear.  What a powerful teacher that is.

Fear is there to keep us safe, in the same way that our mind thinks many thoughts and is always requiring input and judging our surroundings to keep us from harm.  So I find that I don’t do things because of the fear of putting myself in perceived danger’s way.  Sometimes there is a fear of not dealing with my shit because I may feel that it is too much and this will somehow put me in an unsafe place.  Then come the distractions to divert the overthinking mind from dealing with perceived danger that is usually not so dangerous in the first place.  Look, something shiny….

Shiny things may manifest themselves as emotional unavailability, codependency, working way too much, not working enough, or a myriad of overindulgences that we interpret as something that can save us.  We tell ourselves there isn’t enough time, ask ourselves what good could come of it all, and other things to devalue ourselves.  All to try to protect ourselves.

Anyway…at some point it’s best to put the shiny things aside and deal with your shit.

As you look inside at past transgressions and flaws it’s sometimes easy to overlook the beauty and power imbued in those things.  The little signatures of being human and the wonderful nuanced lessons that comes with that.  Sometimes I have to take a pause to give myself enough space to see that.  This is the ultimate lesson of the Precedent.

I tried maybe four or five times to harden this knife.  It was a frustrating process.  Finally I got it.  I was working with a forgiving steel.  Forgiveness is a powerful thing….  Those spots are where the blade got too hot during previous hardening attempts and caused a bit of decarburization.  It is still very much functional.  I sanded these bits off later.

Originally when I started on this blade I wanted to craft something that would cut through fear.  For the handle I thought it fitting to use some of my grandmother’s old maple cutting board.  It had split in half when I used it at a tailgating party in the snow and ice.  I use the other half in my kitchen.  I love this board.

I usually do a satin finish on the knife (or attempt one anyway).  In keeping with the rawness that fear can often have I used a coarse finish sanding of 120 grit paper instead of the normal 600 and buffing.

I always want to make something functional as well as beautiful.  I find this to be both.

Maple is notoriously hard to stain.  I used Tung oil to bring out the grain.

Deep breaths…and lean into the fear.  It’s actually all ok.

Knifemaking: fear, flaws, and the Precedent

/ ballardmidyette / 2 Comments
I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.”

Ah fear.  What I’ve learned about fear is that, contrary to what Mr. Herbert says, fear makes one human.  Fear means you are feeling the proper spectrum of emotions.  Fear helps you to think through things rather than blindly charging into them.  Fear keeps you alive.

The real mind-killer is resistance to fear.  Not doing what you know is right because you are afraid.  In my life this resistance is what keeps me feeling stuck, keeps me going in circles, and keeps me from loving at my full capacity.  It is this resistance that leads to patterns of negative thought, that fear is wrong, and that at the bottom of it you are somehow wrong or flawed.

The idea of being flawed is something that operates on a deep level.  A flaw by definition is something that is marked as a fault or imperfection.  In my own life I tend to find the flaws in things.  Maybe I am am looking for validation of my own flaws.  Lately I have been pausing with this and I find that I can reframe it into something else.  As long as I can operate from the level of my heart I find that I am not flawed, that what I perceive to be flaws are beautiful little signatures of being human, of lessons I am still learning, of ways to move forward.

When one gets to the bottom of what they find their flaws to be and sees the beauty in them this provides a springboard to move forward.  It doesn’t mean that the fear is gone.  There is fear of making mistakes, fear of failure, fear of letting people down, fear of letting yourself down.  This is all ok.  I breathe all of that in and step forward.  This sets a Precedent and is the inspiration for this blade.

Part of moving forward was to order a bar of O1 Tool steel.  I found this bar in itself was rather exquisite.  As far as steel goes he is soft and forgiving to work with.  He can be hardened up to be very strong and tempered to be flexible.  It’s not a stainless steel.  He can rust so care and love are a requisite.

I wanted to make a knife that I felt would cut through the resistance of fear.  I found this to be a microcosm of my being at the moment and my intention was to remove from the bar everything that was not me.  It came out looking like this:
I found some plans for a filing setup to help guide me in making a clean grind.  It is a slow process but also a meditation.  Slowly removing that which doesn’t need to be there and finding the beauty in that which is slowly revealed.  Often I find myself counting the strokes of the file….
This where the blade is planed level by drawing a file across.  Here is where I find out how even my grind is.  What I’ve learned is that if I hurry through filing on the jig then I spend that much more time draw filing the blade level.  Best to take that extra time counting file strokes on the jig and spend less time draw filing.
After that comes sanding to polish up the blade before heat treat.  I’ve found that I don’t mind a rougher finish.  I like seeing rogue file blemishes and the grind on the steel.
So here is the Precedent, ready for heat treat (which is a lesson I’m still learning….)

The lesson of the Precedent is to find courage in your fear and beauty in your own human condition.