ye-olde-devilfish

[ye-olde-devilfish]

[ye-olde-devilfish]

Every hobby-based subreddit has a version of this

been getting really into rockhounding lately and the subreddits are great

[ye-olde-devilfish]

Is it just me, or does every moment of joy feel stolen lately, when you reflect on it in the quiet of your heart? The apocalypse continues, but so do my little activities.

[ye-olde-devilfish]

1949 Bad Luck Blackie, a Tom & Jerry short about a white cat who hires a black cat who brings bad luck when it crosses the path of a tormenting dog. Black cat gives white cat a whistle, whenever white cat blows the whistle the black cat will appear and walk in front of the dog, and then something instantly falls from the sky and smashes the dogs head. The dog does not continue walking forwards, so its literal path is never crossed, implying concrete vectors of motion that exist outside of intent. Then the black cat gets painted white, and its trick no longer works, indicating it is not the genetics or traits (inherited or acquired) of the black cat that bring falling objects but the appearance of the cat. This is reenforced when the white cat dives into a can of black paint and instantly takes on the abilities of the black cat in re crossing the dogs path and subsequent falling objects. But then the dog accidentally swallows the whistle, which gives him the hiccups. And now even just the act of blowing the whistle brings heavy objects falling from the sky to smash the dog, sans any involvement of any cat, black or otherwise. Any meaning has been removed from the premise of the entire universe by an idiot god who can be fooled by housepaint and it ends in a place of madness and shifting symbols that mean nothing, where no pattern exists for the mind to cling to and the only rule is pain.

[ye-olde-devilfish]

Maker Journal

April 10th, 2026

I'm going to start tagging posts of stuff I made with "Maker Journal," to appropriately frame how I want to talk about these posts. I aim to put out some rambling thoughts and track my progress, and talk about how making makes me feel, not aiming to impress. If you don't like it, stop reading my journal, geeze!

I finished two projects last weekend that I'm pretty happy with. The first was a matched (ish) pair of mandolin hooks, on commission, and a leather axe sheath for a friend.

Mandolin Hooks

The customer wanted these as "nails," like you see. The two specific dimensions he gave me were the overall length & the width between the prongs. That was 4 1/2" and 1 1/2", respectively. I was targeting roughly 1/4” diameter for the prongs & spike.

Two maths later, and I landed on needing a little over two inches of 1/2" square bar. I cut it at 3" instead so I'd have something to hold on to and got to work.

Split one end, turned it into a T, upset some material back into the junction, forged it down to the target size & shape, cut off the excess, & fiddled with it forever until it was right. I'll try to get more progress shots going forwards, but this blog will probably never be a full how-to. I only included dimensions at all to celebrate the magic of how the forge can transform material. Maaaagic

Here's one more shot of the finished hooks, along with quick & dirty "driver" I included just in case the customer had trouble hammering between the tines.

Final thoughts on this project:

I'm happy I was able to work to dimension so closely. I like the overall Forged look of these, and I always enjoy doing "tranformative" smithing. There's a flaw from a cold shut on both of these, in the same spot, from an error in initially spreading the material that became the tines. It doesn't hurt the strength of it, but it bothers me. I like the octagonal shaft on the spike, but I wish it was more controlled, crisp, and even. Lastly, I should have brought the spike to a finer taper. If I was to make more and stock them for general sale, I'd probably tennon this onto a back plate with screw holes instead anyway.

Overall project feeling: 8/10. Would forge again.

Next: this axe sheath.

Made from a single piece of 7-8oz leather, with a thermoplastic insert. (Okay, the insert is black worbla, but it works)

I've made a few of this style before so when a member at my make space asked if anyone could help him out I jumped on it. He's a great guy who does a lot of unpaid work restoring and maintaining our machine shop, so I told him I'd take care of it.

Now, when I'd done these before, it was always for throwing axes, which have a very straight edge. I didn't realize how much the curve of a normal hatchet was going to mess me up. In the end I couldn't quite sculpt the leather all the way to the curve, so at the lower end there's a filler piece of leather between the main body & the worbla insert.

Not much else to it. Sculpted, dried, dyed, stitched & glued, added the button, gave it a waxing.

Final thoughts on this one:

I'm annoyed with how uneven I cut the end of that strap, but it was pretty far into the process at that point. I left it long through the molding & stitching process, then cut to size just before dying. If this was a paid gig I'd have probably restarted. After waxing poetic about how much this guy does for the shop, I probably should have treated it like a paid gig & redone it anyway, but there's only so much time.

Overall project feeling: 6/10.

Overall overall

I'm super happy that all of my time at the workshop lately has been on stuff for other people, commissions and favors. It's nice to feel useful and to have this part of myself "wanted" by the community. It's still a long way off from being more than a hobby, but the vibe is currently that if I can find more time to get to the forge, the projects are there and customers are waiting.

Next up is two draw knives (commission), and ~40 coffee scoops (wedding favors).

[ye-olde-devilfish]

In context, it reads like an Always Sunny intro

I love Wikipedia subsections that are just absolutely unhinged out of context

Peak comedy right here

[ye-olde-devilfish]

Forged this froe for my buddy the other day. Since these are used for splitting, not cutting, plain iron / mild steel is appropriate to use, which saved me a headache.

Forged this out of 1018, to prevent any possibility of a weld issue that A36 can run into. I had the benefit of working with a striker for the final flattening & trueing of it, which is always a blast.

[ye-olde-devilfish]

Constantly expanding: Buttercup Festival 3-308

[ye-olde-devilfish]

people talk all the time about “primal instincts” and it’s usually about violence or sexual temptations or something, but your humanity comes with a lot of different stuff that we do without really thinking about, that we do without being told to or prompted to

your average human comes pre-installed with instincts to:

Befriend

Tell story

Make Thing

Investigate

Share knowledge

Laugh

Sing

Dance

Empathize with

Create

we are cholk-full of survival instincts that revolve around connecting to others (dog-shaped others, robot-shaped, sometimes even plant-shaped) and making things with our hands

your primal instincts are not bathed in blood- they are layered in people telling stories to each other around a fire over and over and putting devices together through trial and error over and over and reaching for someone and something every moment of the way

[ye-olde-devilfish]

Holy shit, oh my god! 50 of them??

[ye-olde-devilfish]

[ye-olde-devilfish]

Looking at the US polling demographics has me wondering an age old question.

Fellas, is it gay to LIKE women?

[ye-olde-devilfish]

Hand forged candle holder. Forged from 1" round mild steel & 3/16" plate.

I like my forgings to have the texture of a child's first ceramics project, and I think this gets close.

Burned the finish a bit, in a perfect world I would strip & refinish it. Oh well.

[ye-olde-devilfish]

I want so very badly to see the rest of the notes.

[ye-olde-devilfish]

Forged this little camp serving fork yesterday. Really just practicing a forge weld with some scrap, but I'm happy with how it turned out.

This is the kind of thing most blacksmiths forge at some time in their first year of practice, but I've always avoided forge welding when possible because it's "scary." This is a good time to mention that while I am probably the worst blacksmith in the world, factoring in how long I've been at it. That's okay, I own that.

Anyway, big shout out to the North West Blacksmithing Association and the two guys in the corner of a barn at the spring conference who were just doing forge welds over & over & over again. This was definitely my cleanest & easier weld yet thanks to their advice

[ye-olde-devilfish]

Had to do it to 'im

[ye-olde-devilfish]

Hex Inverter Amulet

This hex inverter amulet formerly belonged to the esteemed thaumatologist Malinor 4.1, who famously said "two wrongs don't make a right, but six ones or six zeros can make six zeros or six ones, respectively."

Laser cut on walnut, with brass inlay. In electronics, an inverter is a type of logic gate that outputs the opposite of what it receives. When an integrated circuit has 6 of something, it's called a hex (whatever), so an IC with 6 inverters is called a Hex Inverter, which just happens to also sound like an important bit of protective magic. The center of this amulet has a circuit diagram for a hex inverter IC, surrounded by electronic & alchemical symbols

The inlay's a little sloppy, so here's one without it. Maybe it's better this way?