Hmm. Not sure what I´m reading here. What is the purpose with those holes?

That's great!





I think you have to screw the blade into place inside the handle, don't you?

Ah! Haven´t encountered that design myself. I´ve only dealt with regular axes. Axis? Axi?

The axe didn't have holes in the handle, he drilled them to accommodate the knife blade ... I think.

Precisely. The tang of the blade isn't wide enough to accommodate the usual scales and pins setup so Khajiit is doing what is called a "Hidden Tang" handle construction. You drill the holes in the handle material (for which this one is using the tomahawk handle head because it has a good shape to it) in a straight line in the center of the material: one straight down and the two on the outside at an angle towards the center hole to accommodate the shape of the knife blade tang. You then clean out the areain between the holes and you are left with a slot that will envelope the knife tang. The tsuka of a Japanese katana is a good example of a hidden tang hilt construction.

I´m waiting for mALX to say "pics or it didn´t happen" but I suspect she only does that to me

Heh heh, pics Khajiit has!

Ooh, a projects thread, eh? Bought 96 year old house last year, so I've always got something to do. Remodeling the master bedroom, at the moment.

Here is what Khajiit is working with.

Aaaah, now I understand the need for holes etc!


Are you making these to sell?

Hmm, Khajiit hasn't considered that. This one did give a Morakniv blade with a custom made handle to his father for his birthday last year. Perhaps after Khajiit's skill level and capability (need more tools!) increases he will start to sell them. What this one would like to do is get into forging his own blades.

Khajiit has Morakniv?

Had. Khajiit bought this blade from Amazon and put a guard and a handle on it. Then gave it to father as a birthday gift.

Nice gift

This sounds Awesome!!!! And yes, I actually would love to see some pics of your work!







Maybe, lol.

What's going to retain the blade? The Morakniv blades have a notch that a screw or rivet can catch, but the one you're using now has nothing. If it's a good steel, it will be hard to drill a hole in it, so you're left with clamping in some way.

I bought my son a 30 year old house last year off an internet auction and have spent the last 6 months re-plumbing the entire house, new central heat and air, new roof, new wiring, and new insulation. It needs painting, wrap-around deck and porch repairs, a retaining wall, and driveway repairs.

But when all is said and done, the house is a Builder's special made for his own personal home, so it has some awesome features; and it is in a neighborhood where all the homes are valued at 250% what I paid for it - and hopefully after fixed it will give my son a nice return on the investment to start his future with.






How will you be able to keep the blade in the haft? It doesn't seem to have a way to anchor it.

The best gift evah, mALX!

Yeah the blade was very sharp. The handle was the first this one attempted.

I love seeing your projects, from shields to sheds!








That blade looks wicked sharp!

Wow, Khajiit. That thing turned out great!

Epoxy is what is used to hold it all together. Khajiit has seen examples of hidden tang blades that had a pin to hold the blade in the handle (like aforementioned katana tsuka), and this one has made a hidden tang pinned hilt for an old crappy machete he had laying aroun, which turned out ok, if a little loose.


Khajiit can personally attest that it was! Cut this one quite a few times, lol


Thanks! It was a fun little project. Learned a lot from it.

I´ve had a project in mind for months if not years; to make a longsword + scabbard out of one single piece of wood. Have problems finding a good piece of wood though and not to mention a workshop with at least a bandsaw

Here is the pinned hilt machete Khajiit mentioned, for any interested.

Nice. Been meaning to get me a machete at some point.

Ugh, Khajiit wishes he had a nice workshop! Khajiit's tool wishlist:
Band saw
Drill press
Bench grinder
Belt grinder
A dedicated workbench, lol


That one was a crappy Coleman machete this one got at walmart over a decade ago. Khajiit hated the one handed handle so he made a new one for two hands! (Mainly for looks; Khajiit has better machetes for real work)

I would like that too, but I could settle with the workshop, band saw and the tools I already have

Khajiit agrees, a bandsaw would be a big help.

Mirocu has an awesome work shop, I've seen a lot of his projects! (Including the last shed he built; a gorgeous driveway, shields, etc.

Yes, Khajiit has looked at some his stuff. Mirocu is quite talented!

Yes, I wish he lived in the US, I would kidnap him to help me with my house, lol. He does excellent work, and (even though he refuses to work for money) he has an amazing work ethic!











This is so cool that you are making your own knives and swords! Awesome !!!!!

Lol, kidnapping and forced labor. You are hardcore!


Well, this one doesn't claim to be *making* swords and knives, simply putting his own touches to someone else's work, but Khajiit appreciates you saying his work is cool. Thank you!

Well, at least he is of age so it isn't child labor, lol.

Lol, yeah at least there's that!

Today's big project was visiting a laundromat and washing/drying six loads of clothes, bed linen and so on. I dreaded it. The laundromat I've used for years (since the one in my small town was forced to close for not properly maintaining the facility) cost and arm and a leg. A good portion of its machines tended to be out of order, as were the money changer and other dispensers. It had gotten so bad I was seriously considering buying my own washer and dryer!

Searching the net the other day, I noticed a second laundromat listed for that town/small city. I recalled that there had been a laundromat at that location some years ago, but thought it had closed. I drove there this morning. It was a good thing I did so. I was right about the closure, except that it reopened about a year ago. Washing machines are very reasonable, less than half the cost per machine than the other place. Dryers are much much cheaper. The youngish fellow on-duty was very friendly... we had pleasant chat for much of my stay.

Stopped at Walmart for groceries on the way home.

Tomorrow morning I drive in to town for a TMJ appointment. I'm hoping they'll let me not have to wear my mouth splint during the day. (I'll still need to at night.) Not gonna hold my breath. That was supposed to happen last month. Only, I was told my jaw was still shifting too much. So far as I can tell it behaves no differently now than it did then. But what do I know?

Thursday I eat T-day lunch with my brother at a local (for him) all-you-can-eat buffet. I suspect this year will be something of a disappointment. The buffet we've eaten T-day lunch at for some years closed. The food at this other place isn't as good. At least it wasn't when I ate there every now and again years ago.

Laundromats are big in the U.S, yes? I have never seen such a thing over here. Plus, I prefer to do the washing while hanging on the net

Most houses in the US have a washer and dryer, but not all. Apartments rarely have them in the actual apartment. Usually they are in the basement, or not there at all. The ones in the basement are coin fed, and cost a lot more than going to the laundromat. So a lot of folks here do use the laundromat.

That was the only thing I hated about apartment living. Cost damn near three dollars in quarters to do my laundry.

Today's project was composing and mailing holiday snail-mail letters to the four people I still send them to. Three are for old military buddies. One goes to an aunt and uncle in their early 90s. Normally one generic letter suffices. This year my aunt and uncle get a separate letter due to age sadly beginning to take its toll on them. The other three continue to receive identical letters, though I did add about half a page for the friend I keep in closest contact with.

I would likely have procrastinated for some days before composing them except that my brother wanted me to copy HIS letter to our aunt and uncle on my printer. He called last night to remind me that he wants his letter mailed ASAP. We planned to share the same envelop. I was pretty much forced to get mine done or waste money on an extra stamp. Once that letter was out of the way, it only made since to whip out the other(s).

This morning I took my first stab and a long contemplated but never before attempted tidying and simplifying of my Oblivion Bash Installers directory. As a certain US politician might say, it's a mess, especially texture and mesh BAIN packages. I run a mix-and-match combination of a great many different downloads, added piecemeal over the years. Each download normally has its own package. Some packages partly overwrite others. Some house a good many files, only one or two of which are needed. I found one package thus far that is totally overwritten by other packages and thus useless. And so on. None of this does any in-game harm as BAIN is smart enough to know which conflicting files need to take priority, so long as they are arranged in the right order. But . . . it's hard as heck for "me" to keep track of what's what. Plus, should I ever need rebuild my Oblivion installation, it'd be next to impossible reconstruct exactly what I have now, assuming I want it to do so, which for the most part I would.

I started out with some relatively simple (though it took hours) organizing. I combined separate BAIN packages for caves, Ayleid ruins, sewers, and forts into one "Dungeon Texture & Mesh Late-Load Combo" package, making sure to keep my preferred file choices in those few cases when individual packages conflicted. Also made an "Odds & Ends - Texture & Mesh Late-Load Combo" package. It's built, as is the Dungeon package, in true BAIN format, as follows:

01 Cook Steaks
02 Better Ham
03 Better Potion Bottles Reduced
04 Rugs & Tapestries - Mgtr
05 Dinnerware Combo v1dot7
06 Road & City Signs (this itself a combo of two separate sign downloads)

I could have lumped these together in traditional format, but categorizing them as I do makes it easy to see exactly what I have.

The last combo made thus far today is another true BAIN package, consisting of:

01 Cascade Foaming Falls Redux
02 Foaming Falls Elsweyr
03 Enhanced Beach Foam

My plan is that, from now on, when I download texture/mesh packs that relate to the above I'll modify the appropriate Combo package to house 'em, rather than pile on separate packages.

Sooner or later I'm gonna have to tackle wilderness textures/meshes and Landscape LOD files. THAT's gonna be a chore. Over the years I experimented with a great many of those, with lots of little BAIN packages cluttering my install folder. Wrye Bash keeps track of it all, but I go snow-blind just looking at 'em. Gonna make those the last of my combo projects. Hopefully it'll go easier once I'm more comfortable with the process. I don't intend to make one HUGE unwieldy wilderness package, but am not yet sure how I intend to sub-divide.

Benefit thus far... 18 BAIN packages removed (including the one that was totally overwritten and one I stopped using some time ago but forgot to delete), 3 Combo packages added, making my installer folder 15 packages lighter.

At some point I found myself replacing mail with the telephone, and can't seem to make myself go back. The words written may be reread (and so remembered long after the moment has passed) - but in my memory the sound of their voices touches deeper and lingers even when the words they spoke are forgotten.

Heh... indeed. Spent a few hours this afternoon compiling a LandscapeLOD color-map combo pack for my self-created files. Man o man that section was a mess. They were originally housed in somewhere between 18 and 23 separate BAIN packages. (I forgot to write the number down.) To my own amazement, those old packages contained so many variants of the same files that, once redundancies were eliminated, my Combo Package consisted of a grand total of seven files. Seven!!!! I will next tackle a complementary combo package for self created LandscapeLOD normal maps. Those too are a mess, but are a least housed in far fewer individual packages. On the other hand, those old packages aren't well labeled, making the files difficult to decipher. (Unlike other Oblivion textures and meshes, LandscapeLOD file names are written as numbers rather than letters, giving no clue which section of the map they correspond with, especially to someone like myself who has absolutely no head for numbers.

As to correspondence, I'm too slow witted these days to trust myself to spontaneously extemporize orally with any guaranty of success. Leastwise I'd rather not have to depend on being able to do so.

Can't believe that after those Awesome vids you made! Ad-libbing at its finest!

Small project this evening: glue a jigsaw puzzle I put together about a year ago onto a board. Got the board from "work" a few weeks ago so I could do it. Some trouble getting the puzzle on the board since it was round but I managed.


The motive is animal wildlife from the poles.

Penguins?!

And polar bears, walrusses etc.

Lost me after penguins.


<3 Penguins.

You´re a penguin guy?




Fancy that

I half love this idea and half don't. You immortalize the memory of the fun you had putting the puzzle together; (good) - but I like doing puzzles over again if I have enjoyed doing one. (so wouldn't want to glue them to a board in that case).

So, maybe if you did the puzzle with someone who you particularly wanted to always remember that time (like if Taylor Swift came and did the puzzle with you - would most def want to immortalize that moment) - otherwise I'd want to enjoy the puzzle over and over again.

I would certainly enjoy doing another puzzle, but dismantling a finished one and do it again? No thanks