[gdenby]

I've been staining and tinting and waxing and oiling various all-but-finished sticks. The house sometimes reeks of drying tung oil.

The art museum I worked at had a program for young children aimed at blending art with art history. The museum has a spectacular collection of Meso-American ceramics, with a very large number of figurines. I found that the kids were using something called "Paperclay." Non-toxic, easily formed, and air dries to moderately hard. Easy to make inscribe fine detail. Takes paint. I've read that once set it can be cut w. craft knives (which the kids were not allowed to use.)The woman in charge of the class made a very good approximation of one of the more complex terra cotta figures. It was good enough that when I saw it sitting in the middle of a table, for a moment I wondered who had removed it from its display case.

I haven't tried using any myself, but seems like a good material for fast proto-typing.

 

[gdenby]

Not carving much, except food. Made a classic mistake, and tossed one of my better knives into the kitchen sink. As I was pulling it out of the rest of the utensils, bumped my index finger into the blade edge. Sliced it nice and clean. Not deep, but right over the end joint, so I won't be bend that for a few days.

Guess I'll go ogle some tool vendor sites. Saw a few Japanese carving knives yesterday with an Rc of up to 67. Made me want to open my wallet right away.

 

[gdenby]

arrgh done that.

i to like japanese tools but there pricey but very good

...

Saw a picturs of a gun,this is cpmpletley out of character for me as i belive they all should be banned as you know, i think you call it a peace maker, and a old dueling pistol ,it suddenly dawned on me these would make good walking stick handles the shape of them is perfect,the colt 45 was still in its holder i think thats what its called? .It would take some carving but i think it would work,so another project to draw up to scale

My 1st encounter w. Japanese steel tools was a carpenter's saw, a Ryoba nokogiri, that a home builder friend of mine had. I was immediately impressed, and bought one for myself. As I became more interested in cooking a few years ago, I started buying some Japanese kitchen knives. Expensive, yes, but once well sharpened, will cut easier and smoother than any other knife I've used. So a couple gouges are very tempting.

A pistol grip should be quite comfortable. There are saws and a few culinary knives with so-called pistol-grip handles. However, I think some people might become more than a little uneasy if they saw someone holding a pistol handle attached to something that might be mistaken for a 36" long barrel.

I don't know that a Colt .45 was ever used for dueling, but are often shown being used in in Western movies during shoot-outs. They were nick-named "The Equalizer." From what I have read, the early ones were quite inaccurate, probably because most bullets were hand made, and very irregular. The best way to win a gun fight was to get within just a few yards before slowly drawing and firing very deliberately. The quick draw, or a quick turn and fire wasn't worth much.

And they are placed on holsters.

 

[gdenby]

You might want to check the New York Metropolitan Museum's website. They have an extensive collection of arms and armor. I just glanced at their site. A search for pistol returns around 400 citations, and Colt pistol about 30. Not everything is illustrated, but google searches using the exact term the Met has to describe the different model returns lots of images of historic revolvers.

As it happened, the museum I worked at briefly held a small collection of pistols used in the American West. The values on them were very high, and they never went on display because we could not find a place in the galleries that we thought was secure enough. The collection had a couple of holsters. They were very plain, and quite beat up, as were most of the guns. There were a few fancy guns, including a set still in their presentation case. The fancy guns had engravings, and I suppose if they were ever worn, their would have been holsters made just for them. The guns that showed lots of wear were of various sizes and shapes. I would suppose the common holster would have been designed to fit any number of different revolvers.

 

[gdenby]

tried the museum Only one pistol on line but thanks anyway

Try plugging this into your browser location bar:

http://www.metmuseum.org/search-results?ft=pistol&x=0&y=0

altho a similar search for "dueling pistol" does return only 1 gun.

 

[gdenby]

more into the choice of the shank, ,staining , and removing the bark.I still dont get why the bark is removed as hazel,chestnut,blackthorn has good characteristcs and when oiled should last a lifetime, I havnt seen a lot of wood you use over there (

While hazel and blackthorn do grow in No. Am., there is no hazel that I know of within hundreds of miles. The only blackthorn near here is planted as a garden ornamental. The American chestnut is all but extinct. There are a few remnant stands a few hundred miles north of where I live.

Of the trees around me, beech has a nice smooth bark. I like carving the wood, but I think most would find it quite hard. Young sycamore, similar to the English plane tree, has a beautiful smooth bark, mostly ivory colored, but mottled w. patches of green and brown. But sycamore rarely has straight limbs, except when young, and then tends to be to light and flexible for stickmaking. Early on, I tried leaving the bark of those trees on some stick, but put coats of polyurethane on them, not oil. Some of the beach bark became brittle after a year or so, and began to split away from the wood. The varnish on the sycamore bubbled up, and began to flake off. I may try doing some w. an oil finish in the future.