What happened

I moved to Taiwan in August to teach English.  I don’t want to go into my reasons here except to say that I was unhappy and bored living in the US.  I enjoyed my life in Korea, so I decided to give Taiwan a try this time.  I was sad giving up my great studio, but that is about the only thing I liked about my life in the US.  I am setting up a work bench here in my apartment in Taiwan so I will be making things here soon.  I brought or shipped a lot of tools here already and will be buying more here or having my parents send them to me.  I plan to buy a workbench this month.

I have been here about 3 months now.  Things are going well so far.  I spend most of my free time studying Chinese.  Right now there is no plan about how long I will stay here.

Lindsay Airgraver Classic

I recently bought a Lindsay Airgraver Classic.  I like it a lot so far.  I like how the power can be adjusted on the handpiece.  It feels different from my Gravermax, not better or worse, just different.

Airgraver Classic with foot control

Here is the Airgraver regulator and my old Gravermax.  The power is controlled in the handpiece of the Airgraver, while the Gravermax uses an air pulse from the control box.  They both have a connector for a high speed air handpiece, but it is controlled with a foot pedal on the Airgraver and with a knob on the Gravermax control box.

Airgraver regulator and Gravermax

Another You Tube review

Lock Picking Lawyer, who has a popular lock picking You Tube channel reviewed one of my picks. 

This is the pick he reviewed. This wood is called tambootie.

Recent Lock Picks

Here are some lock picks I finished recently.  I have made a lot more than the ones I have been posting in this blog, but I usually don't take nice photos unless I really like them. 

Selling custom lock picks has been going really well since I started promoting them more in October.  It's not a full time job, and I didn't expect it to be, but they have been selling better than I ever expected. 

Of these three I like the first one the most.  It is paper micarta with an inlay of some kind of knife handle spacer material.  I don't know exactly what the stuff is because I bought it about 20 years ago and didn't keep any record of what the stuff was. 

Micarta lock pick

Ebony + holly lock pick

Tambootie lock pick

Cocobolo and holly pick set from last year

I finished this set and photographed them in December, but forgot to take the pics off my camera and process them.  They are cocobolo and holly.

Cocobolo + holly lock picks

Pt, 18k, Garnet pendant

Here is a piece I recently finished. It is Platinum, 18k yellow gold, and a garnet.

The platinum parts are hand fabricated, the gold parts were modeled in ZBrush, 3d printed and cast.  The garnet was cut by John Dyer.  I bought it in Tucson in 2017. 

Some of my recent lock picks

These are some of the picks I have made recently.  I am very happy with the way the first one turned out.  That was the first time I did silver inlay.  Simple to do, but somewhat time consuming.

Ebony with silver inlay

Ebony + tagua nut

Ebony with silver inlay