Back in Korea

I came back to Korea March 1st.  I'm teaching at a public high school in Pyeongtaek.  It's about an hour south of Seoul.  I'm really glad to be back. 

2011 review

2011 started out great, and stayed good for about the first half of the year, after that it really started to suck. 

Korea was really good, I came back to the US at the end of April thinking I would be here for 1-2 months.  Now it's the end of December and I'm still here.  

Traveling was good this year.  I think of my time in Korea as an extended trip.  I took a three week trip to Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia in January.  In May I finally went back to San Diego to visit after being gone for over 6 years. 

I didn't complete any interesting pieces in 2011.  I wasn't really able to focus on making new work because I was too stressed and thinking too much about going back to Korea.  I made lockpicks, aluminum training blades, and some small pieces.  I am working on a belt made like the scale neck piece I finished in 2009.  I'll post photos of that once it's done. 

I'm glad 2011 is over. 

aluminum training blades

In October I started making aluminum training knives and swords for people I practice martial arts with.  The martial art we do is called kali, and that often involves training with knives and swords.  The weapons are 1/4" thick aluminum, I wrap the handles with paracord.  I have anodized some of the knives.  I can't fit anything larger in my anodizing tank, but I am thinking about setting up an anodizing tank using those long tubs used for wallpapering. 

I still need to find a good place to photograph them.  They are too big for my light tent.  

Setting up my anodizing equipment again

Yesterday I finally set up my anodizing equipment.  My friend sent me this article about using pickle (sodium bisulfate) for the anodizing bath:
http://www.observationsblog.com/4/post/2011/10/anodizing-and-dying-aluminum-without-battery-acid.html

I was already planning to set up my anodizing stuff when I got the article and thought I would try it so I wouldn't need to find sulfuric acid.  But I didn't have enough pickle left so I just went ahead and got battery acid at an auto parts store instead.

The author of the article talks about how much safer pickle is than sulfuric acid.  Personally I have always hated pickle since I first started doing jewelry work in my apartment while I was at GIA.  I didn't have a crock pot to heat the pickle, so I put some in the microwave to heat it.  I guess some got in the microwave, and later when I heated some food it had sort of a pickle taste to it and it made me kind of sick. 

Maybe I'll try pickle next time I have to set up anodizing equipment.

September update

Lately I've been working more on some tools. I made some more carving knives, and some handles that I have not put blades in yet.

I had pics of this one in my last post:


Here is a random process photo, below. I don't know much about wood working so I just put the wood on the lathe and treat it like metal. It's working ok so far.  


The handle below is ebony and ivory. I still need to properly photograph most of these handles. After I get all my handles and blades made then I will decide which blades to put in which handles. 


I also ordered some more wood and started on some saw handles. The top one is leopard wood, the bottom one is ebony.


I made two graver handles so far. They are finished except for the ferrule, which I will make out of silver.


It's still unfinished in this pic. The little thing sticking out on the left side is just something I left on it to help hold it in the lathe.


Cocobolo on the left, ebony on the right.




I got a commission from my neighbor recently to make a belt like the scale neckpiece I finished in 2009.  It's going to be much thinner and shorter than the neckpiece so it won't take nearly as long. 


To keep the cost down she gave me some silver things to melt down to use for the belt.  She gave me these two sterling goblets, but I think rather than meting them down, I will keep at least the big one and use some of my own silver instead. 


She also gave me six of these hand engraved napkin holders. 




I'm happy to get the work, but not all that happy about doing more scales. 

hidden wood stash

I was cleaning my room tonight and found a small box full of wood, all cut and milled and ready to be made into lockpicks. I thought I was missing some wood, but really I thought it was only a few pieces, not 19 cut pieces and one piece that has not been prepared. Among the wood was 4 pieces of boxwood, a thick piece of ebony, one piece of dalmatian ebony, tulipwood, snakewood, and one piece of sandal wood.



Also found a lot of small tools, carving wax, and several other non-tool things I had been wondering about.

new tools and new wood

Recently I have been making some small wood carving knives. The blades are made of either drill rod or old burs.



In the photo below, the top knife I made over a year ago. The blade is really good, I think it's probably my favorite, but the handle is not that nice looking. I am going to make a new handle for it later. The one below it is snakewood, I made it recently. The ferrules on both of them are sterling. The handle at the bottom with no blade is ebony with ivory at both ends. I really like that one, I just haven't decided which blade to put in it yet.



I would like to make a handle completely out of ivory, but it's a little expensive for me right now, and I might get in trouble with customs if they find me trying to bring it into Korea.

I received some new wood today. Some I got to make lockpicks, and some I got to make more tool handles. I got more ebony, snakewood, and boxwood. I am not sure what I was thinking when I ordered the boxwood in that size. I could have ordered cheaper thinner pieces, since I'm going to end up cutting most of it away.

I also got some lignum vitae (two light brown pieces on the right), which I used once before in a hammer handle, and two woods I have never used before, pyinma and buckeye burl. The longest piece is the pyinma, I sanded and oiled the right half of it so I could get an idea how it will look when it's finished. The buckeye burl is the black and white piece below it.



I ordered it all from Griffin Exotic Wood. I have ordered from them several times now and have always been happy with them. I ordered from another company a couple times that wasn't very good. They didn't have their wood graded. They just had "ebony", they don't say anything about the quality, if it's black, or brownish or has brown streaks in it. I don't want ebony with brown in it. If I wanted brown I would buy some other kind of wood. Griffin has most of their wood priced and sold according to a grade they give it. Since I am just buying these little pieces I usually buy the best quality. There may be other companies better than them but I don't order wood very often so I just stick with one I like.

Below are all the picks I am working on right now. The types of wood are, from the top down:
ebony
holly
zircote
micarta + wood handle scales x2 (I can't remember what type at the moment)
ebony
cocobolo x2
boxwood
snakewood
boxwood



The two picks at the top I probably won't finish. They both require a lot of detailed carving, and I don't even like them that much, so I think there's better things I could spend my time on right now.

In the low quality photo below are a pair of picks I am keeping for myself. I just finished the ebony one last night. It was almost finished before I went to Korea last year, but I never epoxied it together for some reason. The white pick is holly, I need to find something to seal the wood so it doesn't get dirt worked into the grain of the wood from being handled.

I cannot remember if I mentioned it before, but some Chinese or Korean company is making plastic copies of this design.