Middle Earth Ranger Forum

Whooo Hoooo
yay comune i am sooo there guys.
when do we leave? (seriously sounds good to me)

Wow, that thread got carried away. "Teacher, Cedric totally started it!"

To be perfectly honest, I don't need anything right now, but believe me, the moment I do, I'll let you know. And it'll probably be sooner than later.

LOL. yeah this'un jumped the tracks But thats part of the fun, everyone is being conversational and tangents are part of conversation. Its all good.

Honestly, I dont even know if you were talking to me,another blacksmith or bladesmith, the ship builder or a residential contractor ...but if you were talking to me, thank you for your interest in my work.

~RDM~

Gareth wrote:I do leather work... Though my tools are on the other side of the country and I won't be joining them for a bit. *sigh*

I know a ranger who's working on the commune plan, but I'll let him bring it up if he likes.

~G

Oh hey, that's me. We're doing a medieval/tolkien aesthetic commune. Primary tennets are community, arts, and the environmentm which translates into "Developement of solid local community to support the enactment and preservation of traditional arts and trades while promoting the preservation and respect of the environment".

Basically we have a small village set up, something like hobbiton meets Breightenbush, meets Penland (craft school). In that village will be a slew of studios for different trades, and artists are welcome to live on site, visit long term, or come for short seminars/lessons/apprenticeships/etc. This is of course long term. To start it will be a few people in the woods building homes and doing traditional trades in both traditional and modern forms (ie blacksmithing with a billows forge and mig welding).

It's in super young stage, but mostly because we're all super busy and can't seam to get stuff moving. We need to get non-profit status so we can get grants, but its slow going right now...

www.ramaloke.org if you're interested. We're looking at getting a good 40-80 acres to start, and then either purchasing neighboring plots as we grow or purchasing more plots at other locations, preferably within horse-ride of each other (right now we're thinking of spreading along the PCT corridor so we can sue it to ride between villages).

Who's comin?

Sounds like a new thread to me.

Just as an update a guy backed out on a Thors hammer, This peice is based on the Danish Hammer on the top of this page: http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/hammerpix.html

Not quite as well ornamented but a large solid iron hammer. Anyone interested can e-mail me: Ulfhednar29@aol.com

I'm also beginning work tomorrow afternoon on a Nordic dagger project, I already have the blade forged to shape. She is 5160 2 1/4" broad with very little profile taper, about 8" of blade, when finished she will be sporting a curly maple/ antler grip and a tri-lobed pommel....I aint decided on the cross yet.

There is also a penannular broach coming up.

Pics are coming soon. I've recently learned they can put the film from a normal camera on a disk instead of the plastic paper, so you dont have to shove pics into the cd rom or have HDTV/ABC with 3 bazillion gigobytes of rum...or whatever the kids call it. Heck, the last time I went to circuit city I felt like I was on a space ship so anything that simplifies computing is fine by me

R.D.Metcalf wrote: Pics are coming soon. I've recently learned they can put the film from a normal camera on a disk instead of the plastic paper, so you dont have to shove pics into the cd rom or have HDTV/ABC with 3 bazillion gigobytes of rum...or whatever the kids call it. Heck, the last time I went to circuit city I felt like I was on a space ship so anything that simplifies computing is fine by me

Wow that had me laughing pretty hard. I was giving my mom a hard time over the weekend because every time you take a pic of my daughter she wants to see it on the camera but mom my mom only has one of the old time cameras with weird round tube looking memory stick thing called film (I think) so she couldn't see the pics.

well you gotta admit this whole tech thing can be confusing. I still cant, for the life of me, figure out how they get those little people in a camera or how they paint those pictures so fast

Alrighty, it's time. I told you I'd be asking you about some custom work eventually, and it's time.

In preparation for this weekend's trip, I've found myself needing to pack a pair of modern needle-nose pliers because Bass tend to get hooks buried quite far down their throats.

Question is, could you forge a scaled-down pair of blacksmith tongs that have a more needle-like shape for hook removal, maybe about 6" long including the handles?

That sounds doable. You've got a P.M.

Update:

I now have a proper shop and am making my own charcoal, this means a price drop on everything as I no longer have to drive 40 miles for coal and my shop is now self sustaining as far as fuel is concerned.

I will also be offering carved and lined scabbards as well as staves and cudgels available in either figured hard woods or locally cut hardwoods such as cherry, birch oak etc. As well as my standard fare of shield bosses, cloak broaches, buckles and rings.
there will also be a few Scandi knives cutlered on lauri blades with carved scabbards and figured hardwood and/or antler grips

Leather and iron projects in the works include a quiver, another belt and a belt bag as well as a customized hanwei Tinker XII for my future wife.

I am also obtaining several much needed tools for my shop that will allow me to begin working on a line of swords made with a combination of forging and stock removal. So I am interested in finding reveiwers for these blades, these blades will fall into the price range of the old Albions and A-trims $300-$650.00 *including* a plain wool lined scabbard. I will be beginning work on this line late fall or early winter, I believe sword enthusiasts will love these blades, and semi-custom at this price point is almost unheard of. Once I'm satisfied with the heat treat I will be releasing them for reveiw and go from there.

Thanx for looking,

~RDM~

So, you're looking for volunteers...

lolz, kidding. Unless you are, of course. I'd love to give a go at handling something forged by a sword enthusaist such as yourself; I'm positive they'll be engineered with nothing but performance in mind, aesthetics not forgotten, of course.

sounds great count me in and don't forget pics.

Greg, I am of the firm belief that aescetics and performance are not mutually exclusive and both can be had at far more reasonable price point.

Willrett, You are the type of customer I want: a family man without alot extra to spend on arms but you still love the hobby, that counts for alot in my book. The very reason you get up to go to work every day is the same devotion to kin and duty the sword represents.

My thanks to you both for your responses I am certainly excited to have the oppertunity to hopefully give a bit back to a community that has given me so much the last 15 years. I genuinely love the sword and all it represents and if nothing else I have had alot of fun conceptualizing these blades. There is still alot of work to do especially in the heat treat department I want to fully satisfied and settled on a process before releasing a blade for review. However good bad or downright ugly I will photograph and post the testing stages, once it passes muster at my shop I will be submitting blades for reveiw to interested parties.

again I thank you for looking

~RDM~

I don't suppose you would be up to forging a kriegsmesser? It's about longsword size with a sabre shape. The only people with production versions are Albion (that I can find) and they want $1600 for one. Even if you don't make one, I would be interested in a new usable blade sometime in the future, maybe a falchion or grossemesser.