Wood Carving Knife

          Lately I have been playing around with wood carving, and looking in to carving tools,  knives, gouges, draw knifes etc...  At the same time I have also been wanting to try my hand at making a knife, so this seemed like the perfect opportunity. I took a blacksmith class a few years back where I  made a knife from a railroad spike. So even though I have never really tried my hand at knife making since then, I knew the basic principles from the previous class.
 This knife is primarily a wood carving knife, I cloned the design from a Mora 106 knife blade. All in all I thought it turned out pretty good for my first shot out the gate. I made the blade from an old chop saw blade I had laying around, and the handle from some left over oak scraps, the sheath is from some scrap leather. So even though this is knife and sheath are not perfect or works of art, they are functional and serve my desired purpose, and that is what really maters.

I hope you enjoy the post, and as always never stop creating!
Thanks.

Oak Celtic Mash Paddle

             Awhile back I did a post on a mash paddle I had carved out of a piece poplar, it was a completely aesthetic piece. The soft poplar wood is great for carving, but for a usable mash paddle it is to absorbent and fragile.  I loved the design of the poplar paddle so much I decided to remake it using a piece of oak. I'm not going to go in to a big explanation of the steps I took to create this paddle. I did however use a wood burner this time around for the decorative features. I hope whoever is looking at this page, likes what the see and if so please re-post any pictures on Pintrest or Facebook. Thanks!

Again Thanks for checking out the blog, and as always "never stop creating"

Silk Screen Board

Last semester I took a silk screen class, that I really enjoyed. While looking in to the supplies needed to make a screen board, I realized I could make due with supplies I had laying around my work bench. There is really nothing special about this project, and the only reason i'm even writing about it, is because buying the clamps online can be pricey. Technically this project was zero cost for me, but if you were gonna buy supplies you would need a piece of plywood,  2 cheap C clamps, a scrap 1x2, 2 cheap door hinges, and some screws. Now this is not a tutorial on the process of silk screening, its just an idea for the screen board, and the image I used in the photos was not my original design.

Sorry for the blurry pictures, I took these with my phone. Anyway all this is, is a way to lift the silk screen so you can swap out paper, shirts, or what ever your printing on. If you notice I cut a section out of the back of the plywood. That is so the C clamps have room to clear the board.

I'll I did was attach the 1x2 to the hinges, and then clamp the silk screen frame to the 1x2. Like I said this was a super easy project, but is your in to or getting in to silk screening this is a quick project that works just as good as the 15-20 dollar clamps. 

I'll post a few pictures of my prints, to give you an idea of the kind of things you can do. When I took this class it was my first introduction in this medium, so if your a silk screener don't be to critical. Silk screen is a crazy cool process, and if you ever get the chance I highly recommend taking a silk screen class.  

These pictures are gonna be a little out of order, I guess I didn't take pictures of all the steps.... whoops

SO AS I ALREADY STATED THIS WAS NOT MY ORIGINAL DESIGN. But never the less they turned out super cool. 

Well I hope this helped a few people that need an idea fulfilled. As always thank you for looking at the page and please share the photos on Facebook or Pintrest, it helps me out with getting foot traffic on the page,

Thanks!

Keggle Mash Tun

Hey, so its been months since my last post. That doesn't mean I haven't been busy though. I'm going to try and pay more attention to the blog this year. I've been an extract home brewer for about a year and a half, and finally wanted to get my hands in to all grain brewing. All grain is just cheaper per recipe and it allows for more personal input of your beer.  A buddy of mine had a keg laying around his place, and was nice enough to part with it.

Now a mash tun can be made out of all sorts of things, coolers, pots, and kegs. The reason I went the keg rout was because I prefer metal over plastic, its easier to clean and it will last forever.

So the first step is to release the pressure inside the keg, this accomplished by pushing straight down  on the ball valve. I would recommend placing a rag over the ball to keep stale beer from spraying you in your face. After the pressure is released you can do one of two things. 1 is to use a screwdriver to pry out the retaining ring, this can be a pain in the ass. 2 is to use your angle grinder to make a cut s to split the ring in half, this makes it very easy to pop the ring out. You don't need the top anyway as your about to cut a big hole in the top.

Once the dip tube is removed, make a circle around the top with a marker. I used the lid off my 5 gallon kettle as a template, although I did make it slightly smaller so I could use the lid on the keg, I think it was 11 inch diameter. Your gonna want to use stainless steel cutting discs on your grinder, I barley used a quarter of an inch of my disc.

Just go slow, there is no rush. Once the top drops, take a file and some sandpaper to the cut edge and smooth out the edge. Be careful metal splinters suck!

Next step is to install the valve, this is just as simple as drilling a home and tightening down the valve nuts. I'm not going to go in to great detail about this step because its really simple.

Just make sure you don't make the hole to big, because if you do your in for some extra work to correct the mistake. I suggest picking up a caliper at Harbor Freight for $3, Trust me you'll use it more often than you'll think.

Go slightly smaller, and ease it to the right size.

Pre-drill a hole to make the bores work a lot easier.

If your using a valve from a brew shop, its pretty standard install. 

And last but not least, do leak check and that's it.

So you might have noticed I didn't install a filter, and there is a few inches from the drop tube and the bottom of the keg. I still have some fine tuning to do before I cook up a batch.  I opted out of a false bottom, so I will do an update when I put on the filter.

Thanks for reading and looking at the page, I hope you got something out of it.