I'm about to start a project building a propane metal forge. This is the latest in a flurry of activity brought on by tragedy. I recently lost a very good friend at work when he unexpectedly passed away. This left a coveted opening on day shift that I was able to move to. This change in working hours has had an unexpected effect on me after working night shift for 14 years: I have energy again. My wife just thinks I've gone crazy. Maybe it's because I build a spud gun last week, I dunno.

Finally I have returned to trying electro etching again. I had several goes at mild steel using concentrated sodium chloride. The last attempt involved two small pieces, side-by-side, using identical preparation (cleaning, negative pattern transfer by Press-n-Peel, re-touch with Porcelaine pen and back-spraying with Dupli-color primer.)

This is a piece I made in the last few months. It is a tiered relief with steel rods pegging it together. They are attached to the other pieces that protrude at different heights from the large half circle panels, which are wood.

This art piece I created rcently. While I was working on it the name Xanadu came to mind. I looked the word up and it said - "an idyllic, exotic, or luxurious place". I think the name fits.