Drunken Marmot Farm and Forge

Pop-up Market at The Grove, Bend, OR, Sept 8, 5:30-7:30 (confirmed)

Oregon Whiskey Festival @ Oregon Spirit Distillers – Bend, OR, Sept 19, (confirmed)

Oregon Guns and More Show, Deschutes County Fairgrounds, Redmond, OR, Oct 3 (9-5PM) and Oct 4 (9-3PM)

Classic Car Show at River’s Place, Bend, Oregon, Oct 10, 11-3 (confirmed)

Sip and Shop at Wild Ride Brewing, Redmond, OR, Dec 5, 11-4PM

Oregon Guns and More Show, Deschutes County Fairgrounds, Redmond, OR, Feb 7 (9-5PM) and Feb 8 (9-3PM) (confirmed)

9th Street Village Maker’s Market @ Bevel Brewing – Bend, OR, May 9, 12-4pm (Confirmed)

Sunriver Brewing’s Solstice Market @ Sunriver Brewery – Sunriver, OR, June 20, 12-5PM (Sunriver Brewing Taproom @ 56840 Venture Lane, Sunriver) (Confirmed)

Summer Haunts Makers Market @ Funky Fauna Artisan Ales – Bend, OR, July 11, 1-6PM (Confirmed)

9th Street Village Maker’s Market @ Bevel Brewing – Bend, OR, August 8, 12-4pm

(Confirmed)

Pop-up Market at The Grove, Bend, OR, Sept 1, 5:30-7:30 (confirmed)

Thor even makes an appearance once in a while! And Teddy will make frequent appearances this spring/summer.

Last Minute Holiday Makers Market at Boneyard Pub, Bend, OR, Dec 19, 3-7PM (confirmed)

Previous Markets This Year:

“Love Local” Maker’s Market @ Bevel Brewing – Bend, OR, Feb 8, 12-4pm (Confirmed)

Mother’s Day Market @ River’s Place – Bend, OR, May 10, 12-5PM (Confirmed)

9th Street Village Maker’s Market @ Bevel Brewing – Bend, OR, May 11, 12-4pm (Confirmed)

Blade Show @ Cobb Galleria , Table 26V – Atlanta, GA, June 6-8 (Confirmed)

Custom and Handmade Knife Show @ DIY Cave – Bend, OR, July 5, 6 (Confirmed)

9th Street Village Maker’s Market @ Bevel Brewing – Bend, OR, July 13, 12-4pm (Confirmed)

Summer Haunts Makers Market @ Funky Fauna Artisan Ales – Bend, OR, Aug 9, 4-9PM

9th Street Village Maker’s Market @ Bevel Brewing – Bend, OR, August 10, 12-4pm (Confirmed)

Oregon Whiskey Festival @ Oregon Spirit Distillers – Bend, OR, Sept 20, 2-7PM (confirmed)

Classic Car Show at River’s Place, Bend, Oregon, Oct 11, 11-3 (confirmed)

Holiday Makers Market in the Barrel Room at UPP Liquids, Bend, OR, Nov 15, 3-7 (confirmed)

Central Oregon Metal Arts Guild Holiday Show, at Open Space Events Studios, Bend, OR, Nov 21-22, 10-6PM (confirmed)

Holiday Makers Market at The Grove, Bend, OR, Nov 29, 11-3 (confirmed)

Shop Local Holiday Market at Bend Brewing Company, Bend, OR, Dec 5, 4-7PM (confirmed)

Sip and Shop at Wild Ride Brewing, Redmond, OR, Dec 6, 11-4PM (confirmed)

Bevel Holiday Market at Bevel Craft Brewing, Bend, OR, Dec 7, Noon-4PM (confirmed)

Craft-O! at Desert Rose Cactus Lounge in the Old Ironworks, Bend, OR, Dec 13-14, 9-5PM (confirmed)

Inspired by Lin Rhea’s “X-RHEA” knives, this is my take on forging skeletonized handles. The handles are formed by punching a hole, drifting the hole (enlarging the hole by forcing a conical drift(s) through it), further expanding the hole on the horn of the anvil (similar to forging a bottle opener, but quite a bit larger loop/hole) and then collapsing the loop to form the handle. This is a very different process than the X-RHEA handles where the tang is stretched out, folded back on itself and then riveted back to the base to close the loop.

The photos below shows the process progression of forging the handle for a smaller blade (1/4″ x 1″ bar stock), and an intermediate sized handle in progress (for larger handles I’ve been forging the loop to around 3 inch diameter.)

Couple finished examples in CruForgeV, 1095 and 1095/15N20 Damascus, varying the handle thickness/size/weight depending on application:

Craft-O! at Mud Lake Studios (Old Ironworks), Bend, OR, Dec 14-15, 9-5PM (confirmed)

Boneyard and Friends Maker’s Market, Boneyard Pub, Bend, Oregon, Dec 20, 1-7PM (confirmed)

Previous Events:

Valentine’s Day Makers Market at Bevel Brewing , Feb 10, Noon-4PM (confirmed)

Maker’s Market at Boneyard Pub, March 23, 2-7PM (confirmed)

Crux Fermentation Project’s Spring Maker’s Market, at Crux Fermentation Project, Bend, Oregon, May 4, 11-4PM (confirmed)

Father’s Day Pop-Up at The Grove, Bend, Oregon, June 12, 5-8PM (confirmed)

Crux Twilight Market at Crux Fermentation Project, Bend, Oregon, July 24th,5-9:30 PM (confirmed)

9th Street Village Maker’s Market at Bevel Brewing, Bend, Oregon, May 5, June 2, July 7, and Aug 4, Noon-4PM (confirmed)

Oregon Whiskey Fest at Oregon Spirit Distillers, Bend, Oregon, 21 September, 2-7PM (confirmed)

Hoptoberfest Fresh Hop Fest and Market at Crux Fermentation Project, Bend, Oregon, September 28th, 2-7 PM (confirmed)

Blade Show West at The Salt Palace, Salt Lake City, Utah, October 4-5, 10-6PM, Table 12N (confirmed)

Sisters Harvest Faire, Sisters, Oregon, October 12, 10-5:30PM, October 13, 10-3PM (confirmed)

Classic Car Show at River’s Place, Bend, Oregon, Oct 19, Noon-4PM (confirmed)

Boneyard and Friends Maker’s Market, Boneyard Pub, Bend, Oregon, Oct 25, 1-7PM (confirmed)

Jubelale Jubilee, Deschutes Brewery and Tasting Room, Bend, Oregon, Oct 26, 1-5 PM (confirmed)

Boneyard and Friends Maker’s Market, Boneyard Pub, Bend, Oregon, Nov 15, 1-7PM (confirmed)

Central Oregon Metal Arts Guild Annual Show at Open Space Event Studios, Bend, Oregon, Nov 22-23, 10-8PM (confirmed)

Worthy Brewing Holiday Market at Worthy Brewing, Bend, Oregon, Nov 30, Noon-4PM (confirmed)

Holiday Maker’s Market at The Grove, Bend, Oregon, Dec 1, 11-3PM (confirmed)

Sip and Shop at Wild Ride Brewing, Redmond, OR, Dec 7, 11-4PM (confirmed)

First Friday at The Ale Apothecary , Bend, Oregon, Dec 1, 4:30-7:30 PM (confirmed)

Bevel Holiday Makers Market at Bevel Brewing, Bend, Oregon, Dec 2, noon-4PM (confirmed)

Cascade Lakes Brewing Holiday Makers Market at Cascade Lakes Brewing (Century Drive location), Bend, Oregon, Dec 9, 1-4PM (confirmed)

Crux Holiday Market at Crux Fermentation Project, Bend, Oregon, December 10, 11-4 PM (confirmed)

Winter Market at Oregon Spirit Distillers, Bend, Oregon, December 16, 1-7PM (confirmed)

Pronghorn/Juniper Preserve Winter Market at Pronghorn/Juniper Preserve, December 17, 11-3PM (confirmed)

Previous Events this year:

Portland Holiday Market , Portland, Oregon, November 17 12-8PM, November 18,19 10-6PM (confirmed)

Central Oregon Metal Arts Guild 9th Annual Show, Open Space Event Studios, Bend, Oregon, August 4 11-7PM, August 5 10-7PM (confirmed)

Sunriver Art Fair at Sunriver Resort, Sunriver, Oregon, August 11-12 9-5PM, August 13 9-3PM (confirmed)

Spring Vendor Market at Juniper Preserve (formerly Pronghorn), Bend, Oregon, March 19, 11AM-3PM (confirmed)

9th Street Village Makers Market at Bevel Brewing , May 7, May 14, May 21, June 4, and Sept 17, Noon-4PM (confirmed)

Macho Market at Juniper Preserve, June 15, 5-9 PM

National Cherry Festival Arts and Crafts Fair at Downtown Union Street, Traverse City, Michigan, July 2, 9AM-5PM (confirmed)

Cheba Hut Summer Market at Cheba Hut, Bend, Oregon, August 20, noon-5PM (confirmed)

Fall Pop-Up at River’s Place, Bend, Oregon, September 30, 12-5PM (confirmed)

Sisters Harvest Faire, Sisters, Oregon, October 7 10-4PM, October 8 10-3PM (confirmed)

Last market of the holiday season, I’ll have a booth at Juniper Preserve for their December Winter Market , Sunday December 18, Noon to 3 PM

I forged this kitchen set this summer, all from one large damascus billet, to donate to Oregon Adaptive Sports https://oregonadaptivesports.org/ for their First Chair auction. This is a great opportunity to upgrade your kitchen while supporting a great local organization. The auction is now live and will close Oct 12th: https://cbo.io/bidapp/index.php?slug=oas#

There are plenty of different ways to sharpen simple carbon steels, just about every abrasive will work. Simple carbon steels form primarily iron carbides when hardened, which aren’t as hard as other carbides that make ‘super steels’ a pain to sharpen. Simple carbon steels can be hardened to low 60’s on the Rockwell C scale and will hold an edge extremely well when cutting normal materials (I don’t consider sandpaper to be a normal material, although I do cut it regularly sizing sandpaper for a 9″ disc grinder).

I strongly recommend learning freehand sharpening, it’s simple to learn with good instructions/guidance and a great skill to learn. Once you’ve got the muscle memory down then just about anything harder than the steel will work for sharpening a simple carbon steel blade if you don’t have a sharpening stone with you but want to touch up an edge.

Murray Carter has a great DVD on sharpening that he uploaded to youtube for free viewing – I highly recommend this as a starting point for learning freehand sharpening, practice a few times a week with your least favorite kitchen knife:

For kitchen knives and finer slicing knives this is more/less the method I use, starting with 1k King stones and then moving to 6k King stones to finish. As the King stones need to be saturated, I store them in water on the counter next to the laundry room sink (change the water every 6 month or so to prevent small civilizations from forming in there.) When traveling (camping/roadtrip/backpacking/knife shows) I usually opt for diamond stones or ceramics where I don’t need so much water. They just need to be cleaned frequently with a little water and Barkeeper’s Friend or Comet powder, otherwise the removed steel clogs up the abrasives.

For general use knives I prefer a bit of a convex edge that can take a bit more abuse. To define the edge bevels, I use a rotary platen on my 2×72 belt grinder with 220 grit belt. The rotary platen is belt supported and lets me set the half-angle by rotating the set of wheels and checking the angle with a digital level. This lets me dial in 30, 35 or 40 degree total angle bevels quickly and easily by grinding with the edge facing down and perpendicular to the ground.

Once I build up a burr along the entire length of the edge then I remove that burr on a buffer. I prefer a medium felt wheel with pink scratchless compound but white or green compound work fine as well as will other buffing wheels. Quick and easy way to put a bevel and final edge on a blade. Just clean off any compound that built up on the blade.

One thing to keep in mind with sharpening – the finer the edge, the more frequently you will need to maintain it… Strops loaded with compound (diamond, buffing compounds/rouge etc) are a quick way to touch up an edge that just lost it’s hair-popping sharpness.

If you keep your carbon steel clean/dry/oiled or build up a nice patina on it, you won’t have any issues with rust.  But…  if you do get surface rust or minor pitting, it’s pretty simple to clean up and may leave a bit of character to the steel (the residual pitting and tarnish left after cleaning up the rust, not the rust).

Cleaning rust/pitting

Unless it’s a relic that was buried for a while, most rust is just minor surface corrosion.  For light surface rust a simple polish like Flitz may be enough to clean things up.  But if there is pitting, then fine steel wool (000 or 0000) along with some WD-40 is a better approach and quickly cleans down to base metal.  Steel wool will remove your patina too.  Naval Jelly is another option, but if you think that’s the best route, then sending it in for spa treatment is likely a better idea (contact me about spa treatment.)  Vinegar, lemon juice and other mild acids will also do the trick, but that’s not what I use so can’t recommend it.

Creating Patinas

Patinas are a surface layer that helps prevent rust – it’s a more rustic alternative than keeping a layer of oil, wax or polish on the steel.  One of the simplest methods to force a patina on carbon steel is application of cheap yellow mustard.  Clean the steel first with Dawn or equivalent and then apply a thin layer of mustard and let it sit for a while, 10-20 min is my starting point before rinsing/wiping clean, DRYING, and applying another coating.  I try to avoid putting mustard on the edge and after applying wipe the edge clean.  You can also mask areas with nail polish if you want to create patterns or simply apply mustard to limited areas and/or apply a range of thicknesses of mustard.  Forcing a patina like this (mustard) works both on carbon steel and carbon steel damascus.  Basically you repeat the cycle until you reach the desired patina, and then coat at least the edge with oil.  Note: I just rinse/wipe off the mustard with water (no soap) between applications, I only clean initially before starting the process.  Patinas will change over time with use, but this is the traditional way of prevention corrosion on carbon steel that has worked for 

If you decide to go the patina route over regular use of oil/wax/polish, then I’d encourage experimenting with it on a simple mono-steel (non-damascus) blade first to get the hang of it, getting a feel for how thick of a coating to use.  I don’t generally force patinas on damascus steel with mustard – usually they just develop over time with kitchen knives or knives used for eating/food prep.  It’s more common to force a patina on something that could use some corrosion resistance but wouldn’t patina during normal use (e.g. woodworking blades.) 

Here’s my personal leather knife as an example.  I left the logo side free of mustard as a reference and then applied expired French’s Yellow Mustard for 10 minutes at a time in thin coatings (thin enough I could still see most of the metal).  Here’s the results:

And here’s similar treatment on a 1095 blade – 4 rounds and only oiled the edge:

Next up, which will “probably” next week – either sharpening or (re-)etching damascus.

This will be the first of a set of posts on maintaining carbon steel and pattern-welded carbon (Damascus) steel tools.  Other posts will include rust/patinas, sharpening, re-etching, leather care and whatever else I think of including over the next few weeks.

Blade Basics

First off, a couple quick knife and carbon steel basics:

– Don’t leave a carbon steel knife wet (or most stainless steels) – wipe them dry when not using them.  

– Don’t put a knife through the dishwasher…  If you need to clean it, clean it by hand and dry it immediately.

– Don’t cut on surfaces harder than the blade like ceramics or glass as this will very quickly dull an edge.

Otherwise, use a carbon steel or pattern-welded blade like any other knife.  I use mine regularly for cutting up cardboard boxes, cutting hay bale strings, for food preparation, as a dinner utensil and for making kindling (we heat our house with a wood stove that I start every morning around 5).

Cleaning

I don’t clean my knives often since there’s no good reason after most cutting tasks, really only after cutting something like raw chicken or if the knife got bloody.  Blue Dawn soap is my standard go-to, both for cleaning dirty knives as well as cleaning steel in preparation for etching.  Other solvents like acetone, isopropyl alcohol and tert-butyl acetate also work well.  Tert-butyl acetate is the best as it won’t leave any residual moisture…  but WD-40 after cleaning will also ensure no moisture stays on the surface, as will compressed air. 

Protective Coatings

After cleaning, which exposes the surface to the environment, it’s important to apply some sort of protective coating.  Even if you haven’t cleaned a knife it doesn’t hurt to apply a protective coating regularly, especially if you live in a humid environment.  There are a wide variety of coatings available, both food-grade (food safe) and ones not approved for use with food.  The products I use and recommend include oils, waxes and polishes.  Follow the manufacturer’s instructions for their application, using clean paper towels, toilet paper and microfiber cloths.

Oils

I believe oils are best for blades primarily used for food preparation, as well as pattern-welded blades where darker etched areas are desired.  Mineral oil is the standard and available both in food-grade and non-food-grade (usually for horses, available at farm stores).  Mineral oil is the main ingredient in a lot of knife/gun oils out there (e.g. Ballistol, Rem Oil.)  Camellia oil is another that I currently use and is common with Japanese carbon steel cutlery.  I haven’t switched completely to this from mineral oil, but I’m headed that way.  WD-40 works fine as well, but does tend to evaporate relatively quickly compared to the other oils.

Waxes

I like waxes for bushcraft knives as well as long term storage.  Renaissance Wax is my go-to for longer term storage, but good carnauba wax works well too.   Polishes
For me, polishes usually do a bit of cleaning as well as being a protective coating.  Flitz and Simichrome are my favorites.  The USDA-approved Flitz seems to be a bit more abrasive than the blue variety of Flitz or Simichrome, and typically it will reduce the contrast slightly on pattern-welded steel as the darker areas will lighten up a bit (although the bright layers shine up a bit, so it’s a trade-off).  I find polishes best for brighter blades like mirror polish or pattern-welded blades where there are more bright layers than dark, typically in higher layer count patterns).  Polishes may also remove a bit of patina, but are a great first step if a blade starts to discolor or rust.

Next week – rust and patinas.