A lot of travel last week for work, but it was all good as it gave me some extra hours on my time card! Got to listen to some Greg Laurie and Captain Capitalism during the hours on the road (talk about polar opposites, but both are good listening). Had some rain at one job site that left everything drenched and muddy. The dirt out on some of the job sites is super, super fine, almost like baby powder. When it gets wet it sticks to the bottom of your boots like dough, sometimes an inch thick! Since your out in the middle of nowhere there isn’t really a way to get it off, either.

Well I went ahead and started a Patreon account, you can find a like to it on the right hand side of the page, if anyone is interested. I’ve been considering taking it down and going with a GoFundMe account in an attempt to buy a Shaper route (http://www.shapertools.com). It’s almost a necessity at this point if I want to continue making wooden swords that involve any type of small and intricate pieces, as the recent Curtana build has proven to be rather difficult and frustrating, but not so bad that I have given up.

A few pics from the build:

The detail pieces for the blade and handle were a bear to cut on the router. Now, I have templates for both, but because they are such thin pieces I had problems with breakage.

  • First one side of the sword hand guard broke while trimming excess, but I glued it back on.
  • Then the other side broke during routing, and I couldn’t glue it back on!
  • I bought another board ($$$) and successfully routed out the main body (see above)
  • I actually routed the sword deco pieces without issue, other than they are small.
  • Got one side of the handle detail completed without issue.
  • One arm of the other handle detail broke, but I glued it back on.
  • Things went fine during routing, but during the separation of the template and the finished piece the OTHER arm broke off! Luckily I was able to glue THAT one back together too!

Altogether it has been frustrating but rewarding to see things coming together. I will do some edge routing and spray painting before I begin assembly of the piece, but I have already spent nearly 100$ on this thing, and right now is not the time for me to be messing up. This is part of the reason for starting the Patreon – research and development of router templates can be costly when you want to keep them long-term. The MDF templates fall apart with each use, the plywood ones are difficult to cut out and even they suffer from damage after being used. I think the HDPE plastic templates are the way to go, unless I can get a Shaper, in which case physical templates are moot.

This coming weekend I will also be starting on a requested build – the Dark Knight sword Cronus:

cronus

This bad boy is going to be nearly six feet tall and almost ten inches in width. Overall it should be a pretty simple build, and a nice girl from Canada has asked for it so she can carry it at a ‘con in September. Should give me plenty of time to get it done!

My wife will be flying back to Oklahoma this coming weekend which will leave me with a lot of free time. I’m hoping I can get a few projects done, but nothing too pricey. Our house desperately needs some shelving, as does the garage. It shouldn’t be very costly, just time consuming. She is headed back to help her mom deal with some medical issues and for a general visit. I know she enjoys it, but she also loathes it because she has to deal with family members she doesn’t like. My son and I are going on a Final Fantasy 15 style road trip next month to go pick her up, and I have a feeling her mom will probably be coming back with us for a time to get away from everyone for a time. We get along well, and she is welcomed in our home.

I enjoyed some Gears of War with my youngest son last week until my Xbox Live expired. The Xbox One in our home actually belongs to my oldest son, who is in North Carolina getting his military training for a couple of months until he gets his permanent station. He is hoping to get stationed either here in California at Pendleton or Japan, but Japan doesn’t seem very likely. He asked me to PLEASE send the Xbox back East to him because he and his buddies NEED it. Yes, NEED! Apparently they have been there on base in N.C. for a couple of weeks just waiting for school to start, bored out of their minds. The thing will probably fit in a 10$ USPS box, so I’ll send it to him this weekend.

Other than that my youngest son and I have been continuing our Final Fantasy 14 journey with the Palace of the Dead, which is a fun past-time from the main storyline. The main story in FF14, however, is great, and I’m kind of bummed that I wait so long between sections because I tend to forget the flow of things. Fortunately I can go back and view all the storyline cut scenes in my digital hotel room.

I have been concentrating on getting my relic weapon for my Paladin job class. It’s almost pointless now, as there are much easier to obtain and stronger weapons, but I’m driven to go through the grind. Back when I played FF11 I was never able to get my Red Mages relic weapon and it always irritated me. Back then, of course, it was impossible to get one without support from a large group of people, and very few people carried a fully realized relic. We are talking about a handful PER SERVER. Though it’s quite different in FF14, and nearly everyone has at least one relic, I feel the need to obtain at least one of them through the dreadful process of grinding, just so I can say I did it.

I will likely play a little more while the wife is gone, though I have limited myself lately to two days per week, with the off days being dedicated to woodwork and other past times.

I have been considering, recently, finding another church to attend. At the moment I do not attend a church, having left our previous church (which is documented on this blog somewhere). I’m remiss to find one because I don’t think I will be able to find a church that actually does what the bible says. It seems like everyone “believes what they believe the bible says”, but doesn’t actually care about what the bible says. There is always something that allows them to sidestep the more difficult parts of scripture and make them more palatable to human acceptance, but nothing at all like what the words actually say. I have been reading up on the orthodox church, but I would have to visit one and ask questions first. There is an orthodox church around the corner from my house, actually, but I haven’t worked up the desire to go attend a service yet. I may head down there and see if I can speak to someone directly and ask questions, but some of the things I have read online give me reason to be cautious. I know the orthodox church has been around for a very, very long time, and can even trace itself back to the original disciples (or so it is claimed), but if I understand correctly they still pray to saints and hold Mary (the mother of Jesus) in a weird quasi–goddess type place in the grand scheme of things. Unless someone can tell me otherwise, that doesn’t jive with scripture. Of course, the internet being what it is, I could be reading a bunch of loopy garbage, which is why I think Ill go pay the church an actual visit and talk to someone face to face.

Well that’s about it for now. I’m sure I could go on and on a bit more, but I will cut this one short.

I apologize for not having a Final Fantasy Friday post – again, but I will try and get one started during the week and have it ready by Friday. I know some people read the blog for gaming stuff, since they send me messages about it, and that’s cool.

OH! Also, I did some live streaming over the weekend while cutting out the Curtana, which you can view at my Facebook page. You can find the link on the right hand side of the page. I’m new to streaming and FB live, so forgive the production quality, poor sound, etc. As I learn a bit more I hope it will get better, and I will do more live streams as I get more projects.

Thanks again for visiting the blog, and please post any comments or questions in the comments section!