So I have this large sculpture that I have kept with me, moving around the country, that I made in college what feels like a hundred years ago.

it is a 3' x 5', aluminum, lost-wax casting. i remember EVERYthing it took to creating this piece.

I just got this great little tool that is promising to be very handy, so I thought I'd share. You can get all sorts of expensive GRS stuff on Rio Grande - which is really great stuff - but you can't beat the price of this little Panavise. I got mine on Amazon for $25.

Things have been a bit slow on the 'net for several days now so I thought I'd share with you all my latest shop project.   The propane forge I've been using for the past five years has just about run its course and I decided to make a new and better one.  The old one has been good, but it is a bit on the small side sometimes and isn't as adaptable as I would like.  I put a 2" square port in the rear of it, but too often that isn't big enough for what I need to put through it so I'm forced to build up firebricks at the front of the forge and use the exhaust heat to get something up to temperature.  Also, this little freon can forge can't accept the middle of a scroll, for instance. Such shapes are best done in a solid fuel forge, but most of the time I don't want to fire up the coal forge just to do one heat.  I've been thinking for some months now of a new design for a forge that would solve some of my issues and still not be a huge, gas-guzzling monster that would drive me out of the shop with the dragon's breath and the waste heat.  That waste heat is a significant factor in the tropics where I work, believe me!

Each chisel (tool) has a history, a master, then handed from generation to generation .. The logos show the owners. There are tools with 6 or more logos .. It means that they are lost in time - date back to 1500/1600.The