New pics on my site.

I think that it is beautiful.

Love the work.

I checked out all the images and thought for a moment that you guys were a bunch of stuffed shirts...

Fortunately I saw the comic gallery, and am glad to say that you're a bunch of loons like the rest of us :-D

Regards Charles

Andrew Mol> Hey!

Good work. Like the mixture of bending stamping and smithing.

Mart> Hey!

Hahahahaha. Us stuffed? Well maybe, but we certainly spend as much time picking on ourselves as we do picking on others. I think that balances out on some cosmic scale.

I became rediculously pretentions and snooty about smithing over the years. Only recently (past 2 years or so) have I become more laid back. I have been reminded O so many times how little I know that I think it has gotten into my head.

We are always being idiots in the shop and I am always trying to take smithing seriously. *It is a bit of a dichotomy but thta is the way life is. I see a lot of crap that people think is smithing I feel responsible to maintain some sort of dignity in the craft. In the states anybody who picks up a hammer and hits a (often not) hot peice of metal calls himself a master. It kind of makes me sick. I have learned to bite my tongue and encourage people instead of rip on them.....except for my apprentices. Someday though i am going to pull a "Kramer" and get myself in a whole lot of trouble.

OK rant done. Now you really think I am a "stuffed shirt". Don't let it get out. My wife will be devastated.

Hi Andrew,

I was looking at your work and it's huge (huge being good).

I've never been snooty, as I don't consider myself comfortable with blacksmithing yet... I'm more of a cutler anyway so there's still lots for me to learn.

However I would only consider myself an expert in leather work, as I've been doing it for a long time and there's not much "new" for me to learn. I have been called master, but it's usually by people that want to employ me, and not pay my hourly rate for this skill set.

One day I hope to be as comfortable with hot metal as I am with leather (geez that sounds kinky), and of course the woodwork is coming along nicely also ;-)

Keep up the excellent work, and keep it documented so us poor schlubs can have something to aspire to.

Regards Charles P.S. Got an inflated ego the other day, one of my knives was shown to an experienced knife maker. He said "This is a good knife... is the maker known"... still floating a bit :-)