'Nother project knife...

Last night I cut down another Old Hickory. I mucked up the tip (not enough point) and will have to fix it if I can.
Also made a sheath for it:






Cheers!
PMZ

The benefit of buying "junk silver."

Yes, silver. No, not junk. Junk silver is what numismatists call circulated coin with an 80% or better silver content. There are many ways to buy such coin but I will give a few pointers.

"Why silver?" you may ask. Well, for one, it is much easier to break down silver coin into cash. For example, even in a relatively minor SHTF situation, silver would be worth more than gold because it would be easy to use it to trade for needed items. The thing about any precious metal is that WHILE the S is hitting the F it would be very difficult to convince people to take it in exchange for things that they could use more than money. Some people will try to tell you otherwise--but think about it and examine history and then tell me what you think. Sure, you may get some suckers' goods in exchange for a sackful of silver coin on the first day of a major disaster, but chances are that as the days without government intervention or relief go on, you will notice that people will be more and more reluctant to take your "precious" metals. Chances are they will tell you to take your "precious" metals and do something very inappropriate with them.

This phenomenon is only heightened by the value of the coin itself. If the coin is gold, for example, it is much harder to break it down or know the value of it enough to want to trade with it. Platinum suffers from this problem even more than gold. If the coin is worth more than what people have to offer you, why wouldn't they want to trade for it? Simple: Their goods are more useful to them than your coin, during SHTF. Conversely, if the coin is worth more than what people have to offer you, why don't you want to trade it? Simple: Because if you make it through the disaster alive, you will have lost a whole bunch of tied-up assets (tied into the gold you bought before SHTF) and you will have taken a BIG financial hit.

The answer? SILVER. Specifically, silver that you can get on the cheap--often termed "junk silver" by coin collectors and mints, it is usually 80- 90% silver per coin and when you have enough of it (not hard to do) it is worth a whole lot, enough to trade with for sure, but not worth so much that it's impossible to get anybody to trade for it.

The common channels of buying "junk" silver are through both mints and auction sites such as Ebay. My favorite ways of buying both "junk" silver and "rounds" of 99.99% pure silver bullion is through Ebay. Just be sure as always you should, to check feedback ratings on the seller to avoid being scammed. It has been known to happen on auction sites. Tin, steel, or aluminum "silver" dollars are not unheard of.

Some good coins to look for:
Pre-1920 Canadian silver coins are sterling (98%) silver.
Pre-1967 Canadian silver half-dollars and quarter-dollars are all 80% silver per coin.
Pre-1964 American silver coins are 90% silver.
Chinese "Dragon" silver dollars are 90% silver at least.
English silver crowns minted before 1920 were made of sterling (92%) silver.
Mexican "8-reales" coins are generally fairly high in silver content (usually 90%).

All of these can be found online via auction sites and government mints.
There are also U.S. Barber dimes (90% silver), Mercury Dimes (90% silver) and silver quarters from the pre-1960s.

I hope you get into silver too. Remember, if you can't trade it off, it's not worth much in the end.


PMZ

Dagger sheath and More...

Cross-posted from BCUSA:
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Here is a small sheath for a double-edged sock knife I got a while ago. As it turned out, leather wasn't the best choice due to the shape of the hilt, esp. wetformed. Kydex would've been better. However it works all right as long as I don't turn it up side down (lol). This is the first time I made a sheath with a welted seam. I kinda like the "sturdy" feel it provides.

Pics:







What I've been doing is a sort of reverse-saddle-stitch, where I single-line stitch it one way, and then at the other end I turn around and go back around again through the same holes, only the opposite direction. This way there is only one fuse-mark where I snip the sinew lol!

And here's another "Cutpurse's Delight" coin pouch:

Cheers!
PMZ

Medieval Girdle Purse...

Cross-posted from BCUSA:
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Made this out of some astoundingly ugly leather, after attempting to dye the leather I gave up and am now somewhat resigned to it.

Made in the Middle Ages fashion with a flap and a "neck." Button is a piece of buffalo horn left over from handling my GRK.


Belt loop detail:


I had riveted it but the rivets were obviously a weak point with such thin leather, so I also bartacked it at key points.

Current contents:


There's more in there... including my silver and my herb pouches.
This was my first time utilizing a gusset so it is terrible IMHO...first times always are at least in my experience. I almost sewed in some pouchlets or sleeves for small items, I might still do that eventually.
Cheers,
PMZ

Escapades in Leather...

MMM...sounds like the title of a really bad B-grade movie:D

Well, here's my latest and not-so-greatest leatherwork:

Slipcovers for my new Gaga spoon knives!
PMZ

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Update on the pellet/.22 ammo dump pouch:PMZ
Holds 2 boxes (100rnds) .22 and prob. even more in pellets:



Originally put a single snap on the belt loop, found it was too loose, added some velcro, STILL too loose, added another snap and finally a D-ring and a safety pin:





Afterward I added a paracord belt loop, maybe 3ft of OD green cord attached to the D ring so as to make it easier to put on my belt...
PMZ
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And this one's a bigun. About 6-8" long and 2-3" wide at widest point. I tried to flare the lip, was somewhat successful.
I call it "cutpurse's dream."

Modeled off of my limited knowledge of a medieval coin pouch:


Now I just gotta find some gold and silver to put in there haha!
PMZ
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Here's another "cutpurse's delight" pouch I just put together tonight:


More of a flared top for easier loading and dumping.
I've only got one (well two actually) silver pieces...one troy ounce silver bull, one old silver dollar...
PMZ
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More silver is on the way lol
Here's a pic of a belt pouch for a folder I made a while ago out of the lining of a police duty belt.


For a toggle I used a fishing weight or some such with a loop of paracord threaded between the doubled-up front of the pouch and up through the front and melted down, thus preventing snagging on the interior of the pouch.



I tinkered with a belt loop but ended up not havin enough room to sew it on, so I simply cut part of the stitchmarks out and reinforced the corners of the cuts to prevent further wearing.


PMZ
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And this is one I just made tonight


Yay, pants for my GRK!
PMZ
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This one is a departure from the norm and IMHO also a departure from my forward progression--I didn't even the edge out correctly, the grommets are too unevenly spaced, and the belt slit is rough around the edges.
But insofar as the wetmolding goes, I did much better this time.


Cheers,
PMZ

Those are just a few of the things I've made. I hope they give you ideas for your next project too!
PMZ

The Hemlock Kingdom...

I wrote the following article for one of my college courses. Since then I have recited it at two conferences and people have said they enjoyed it. I hope you do too.

Copyright 2008, PMZ. All Rights Reserved.

The Hemlock Kingdom
Presentation Edition.
INTRODUCTION:

“In Phillip Lopate’s well-known anthology titled “The Art of the Personal Essay,” we read about the value of quotations and allusions in creative nonfiction. As he explains, "…the personal essay has always striven for the ideal of 'light learning," which graciously informs without humiliating or playing the pedantic schoolmaster. It has always distanced itself from the pedantic schoolmaster.” As I read my narrative piece “The Hemlock Kingdom,” I invite you to listen for the “light learning” it contains, which I will comment on briefly at the conclusion of my story.”

BEGIN READING:

As I crouch, feeling dry and resinous needles, leaves and twigs crunch beneath my booted feet, I wait for the sound of cloven hooves disturbing the debris. The air is cold, very cold. For an hour I shiver miserably. It is still dark out here, but slowly, ever so slowly I see the sunlight creep over the horizon. I hear it: a shot, and then the sound of a panicked deer shouldering his way through the heavy underbrush and hemlock boughs, splashing through the small stream that feeds into the greenbrier thickets, the swamp that is his hiding place. I see him; he is huge, at least an 8-pointer (perhaps 10), broad-shouldered and muscular, puffing huge clouds of steam from his warm wet nostrils. He steps slowly into the shooting lane my friends and I trimmed a week before this day, opening day. He must have caught my scent or he would not have come to a standstill like this. He is on guard, scouting his terrain as surely as did I three months ago. I curse myself, for in the excitement of the moment I have forgotten to raise my rifle to my cheek. Slowly, ever so slowly I bring the cold hardwood stock up against my shoulder, seat it, and begin to sight in on his vitals, but as I do so he stiffens. He looks straight at me, in my eyes. We lock gazes, daring one another to be the first to blink. I lose, and in an instant he is gone, crashing through the other side of the stand of hemlocks, on his way to the acre and a half of heavy green thornbushes, impenetrable, a safe haven for his harem.

Now ten years and many seasons later, I pass the massive three-trunked oak tree where my Dad sat, eagerly awaiting the sound of my .243, excited to see whether I would manage to bring down the enormous monstrosity, no, the masterpiece that was the buck which escaped me—the Emperor of the Hemlock Kingdom.

Measuring only about three hundred fifty feet lengthwise and a hundred fifty in breadth, the Kingdom is not large. But what it lacks in physical size it makes up for in small, poignant details; mainly the smell of the sap that leaks in small teardrops from the rough bark, and exudes its beautiful fragrance from each needle. As soon as I cross the stream and pass the three-trunked oak, my olfactory senses perk up, bringing memories of long woods-walks with my Dad, Grandpa, or by myself. The aroma grows stronger as I approach the dark green wall of tight-knit hemlock boughs, which simultaneously forbid my entrance and dare me to touch their prickly, flat-needled stems. I can almost hear them speaking to me tauntingly. “Bet you won’t enter here, Paul. That’s right; I said I bet you won’t. Hey, what do you think you’re doing?”

But as did Max from Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are, I simply growl my terrible growl, and roar my terrible roar, and gnash my terrible teeth…

…And the cowed branches give way to the Emperor-in-League, Lord Ziegenfuss. I am reminded of the scene from Lewis’s The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe in which Lucy discovers the pine-woods in the back of the wardrobe in the Spare Room. Pushing through the branches, they are reluctant to let me pass despite my Lordship. “Royalty is spared no pain here,” say they, as they grab at my clothes, prickle my skin, and lash my eyelids with their rending claws.
Soon, however, I am through their first and only line of defense. For you see, the Hemlock Kingdom, for all its aromatic majesty, is really a very vulnerable commodity. At any time it could be besieged by Pennsylvania Power and Light, who has owned that part of my Grandpa’s land for nigh on twenty years, but I do not tell its residents that—no, never. The beauty of this place is contingent upon its ignorance of the housing developments sprouting up all around it. Let it live in peace while it can, I think to myself, and move on.

I enter and find my happy place; in here it is quiet and still, dry and protected from the wind. There is no need to pretend for anyone—no, not at all. I am here; I am here in The Kingdom.
As I walk I am accosted by a posse of angry squirrels, who remember me from that early morning of deer season several years ago when I threatened them with death, interrupting their chitchat which was disturbing my sense of hearing. Their leader steps up to the plate, crosses his arms, and puffs out his chest. “Why are you back here? One day you’re friendly, and another not. If we come one by one you feed us small bits of granola bar or talk to us friendly-like in the sacred squirrel tongue, but if we visit your blind in a group you become angry, waving that smokepole of yours around. We demand restitution.”

“I’m sorry,” I say. “You were disturbing my morning of silence with your chattering. If you’d been quieter I wouldn’t have minded. I won’t do that again, don’t you worry.” Their leader gives a curt nod, tips an imaginary hat brim, turns on his heel, and scrambles up a tree, giving orders for his troops to disperse. The squirrelly soldiery disappears in a flash of their bushy tails.

I continue my progress toward the middle of the Kingdom. What will I find? I know what was once there, but will it be there still? There’s only one way to find out, I think, and trudge on for twenty or so feet, during which one or two small cottontail rabbits spring from their warm, dry, resin-scented burrows and flee for more substantial cover. Luckily for them I am not toting my Mossy today, or I’d be tempted to try my hand at bringing home a brace for supper.
The moment has arrived. Have my fears been justified? Since my cousin has been given control of this land I was afraid he would have done some horrible misdeed like putting up dirt bike ramps and cutting trails through the woods, but so far I haven’t seen anything of that sort. I round a small clump of stranded ash saplings (strangers in a land far from home) and see it: the giant pine. White pine, to be precise. How a white pine got to be in such a place, surrounded by hemlocks is beyond me. But here it is. It has not been cut on, hacked at, burned, or otherwise mutilated. There it stands, a giant in defiance of all travelers, five to eight feet thick in the bole and three times that in height. In the intersection of its massive branches lies the wreckage of a rotting tree stand. Homemade stands are no longer legal in Penn’s Woods, due to their typically harmful effects on the trees they’re installed upon and their permanent, intrusive nature. Rusty nails penetrate and poison the inner bark, kill their hosts like lamprey eels on sharks. Not so with this tree; for it is still very much alive, dormant in the dim light but alive nevertheless.

It begs to be climbed, but I decide not to risk it as I haven’t climbed a serious tree for a long time and nobody else is with me. I am all alone here in the Kingdom, here in my happy place. Instead, I walk straight up to it and put my nose in a crack in its bark and inhale deeply. This is what my Scoutmaster told us to do when we were backpacking at Philmont, although those trees (Ponderosas) had a different smell, like minty bubble gum. This one just smells, well, piney. Like Pine-Sol, but better. More real, less pungent.

I still struggle to understand and put into words what draws me to this place. Suffice it to say that a pervading sense of realness speaks to me of peace and happiness, protectedness and warmth while I rest within its boundaries, quite unlike that cold, blustery morning only a few feet beyond when I had my early-morning encounter with the Emperor. I sit for a few minutes at the tree’s base, in recognition of its superiority. There is no way I’ll live anywhere near as long as this tree has. White pines are some of the shortest-living conifers but even so this tree has to be at least a hundred and fifty years old. I’m pretty sure it’ll outlive me as long as the Kingdom stands, the Hemlock Kingdom which I now take my leave of graciously, saying farewell to rabbits, squirrels, boughs and all, until my next visit, whether it be to vie with the new Emperor or simply to nap beneath its sheltering eaves.

I only went out for a walk, and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, I found, was really going in. (John Muir)

CONCLUSION:

“My references to Sendak’s and Lewis’s books are intended to help readers visualize this scene more fully, more dynamically than they otherwise might and to heighten the sense of adventure and escape. Additionally, the use of the Muir quote at the end is intended to attest to my sense of going home when I enter this arboreal fortress. If I had more time, I would delve further into the symbolism of the hemlock tree—especially its longevity given the right circumstances including ample sunshine, rain, and fertile soil. In any case, the writing of this paper was an experiment in self awareness which I found helpful in connecting my thoughts and emotions into a seamless whole.

Works Cited

Lewis, Clyde Staples. The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe. Harper Trophy, 1994.

Sendak, Maurice. Where the Wild Things Are. Red Fox, 2000.

Wolfe, Linnie Marsh. John of the Mountains: The Unpublished Journals of John Muir.
University of Wisconsin Press, 1979.

.22 Rimfire Ammo Face-Off:



Penetration testing on a wet phonebook of three different types of .22 ammunition.

Cheers,
PMZ