Birthday trip

I had thought long and hard about what I wanted to do for my 50th Birthday, from the exotic to the plebeian, in the end I decided to take a week off, actual Birthday was on the Monday, and head to my favourite part of Scotland, if not the World, the West coast of Scotland.

As a “few” of you are aware, I like my toys, and one of them is my Boxster, it has a lot going for it, but one thing its not renowned for is its luggage space. Recently I had purchased a inflatable canoe, its maiden voyage was with Groovski and Shewie on Loch Fyne a few weeks ago, and I wanted to take it along, so along with a LJ and a few small items one man tent, stove etc, that filled the front boot, Porsche engine is situated just behind the seats, and so luckily there is also a rear boot.
That took a surprising amount, including my fishing gear, camera tripod, rucksack, leaving just a cooler bag, hotel bag and my camera gear in the passenger well/seat.

With our recent trip to Tarbert on the Argyll/Kintyre peninsular fresh in my memory, I decided to head back that way but travel further on to the West coast and Taylinloan, which is opposite Gigha an Island just off the coast.

I had stayed overnight in Tarbert, but was on the road just after 8:00, sky was overcast,

but as I reached the coast it started to brighten up, to this.

Seals sunning themselves

Mermaids purse (Dogfish egg sack)

I had thought I’d wild camp somewhere along the coast, but the campsite just north of Taylinloan, was right on the beach, so I decided to spend a few days there.

The land mass in the distance is Gigha. The weather was glorious, at least on the Saturday and the Sunday
On Sunday I drove down to Campbeltown and back North on the east side so I could get some pictures of Davaar Island

The weather couldn’t have been better

This is back at the camp site, late afternoon, things were about to change however ! a storm front came in from the South,

Amazingly for all its temper, not a drop of rain fell on the camp site, spectacular to watch tho, as it travelled up the coast.
I took heed of its warning, and battened down the hatches, the tarp (Kathmandu) I had deployed as a sunshade, now was pressed into service for the rains that were to come.

Sunday evening we were treated to an amazing sunset, I have lots of photos of this; here are a few of the highlights;

Monday, my Birthday, was a washout, it rained almost continually all day, never mind, drove South again, this time West from Campbeltown to Machrihanish Bay,

Met this cute little fella on the way back

Very strange weather patterns on this coast

Shortly after

That night

I decided on the Tuesday that I’d head North up the coast to Oban, when I got there first port of call was the seafood place on the quay, crab sandwich, just for a change, lovely stuff.

On the spur of the moment I checked the next sailing to Mull, which turned out to be in an hours time, so I decide to head over, leaving Oban

I always really enjoy my visits there, and last time saw a few otters, although the photos of them were dots in the distance, I was determined to do better this time. The weather for the rest of the week was to be changeable at best, so I decided to forgo camping for the rest of the trip and base myself in a hotel in Tobermory, yeah, yeah, wimp, its my Birthday I can do what I want. I have a few favourites when I visit Tobermory; the Tobermory hotel, and the Park Lodge, I got into the Tobermory hotel for the first night, but they were fully booked for the rest of the week, as was the Park, luckily a guest house next door had room for me for the rest of the week.

On the Wednesday I headed out in search of Otters, my last visit, I had come across them in 3 places, the harbour in Tobermory, (which I found out now had 2 there on a regular basis), just outside Salen, where 3 old fishing boats are tied up, and Calgary bay, which was my first port as I had only been there by boat before.

 I was walking along a track from Calgary bay, past the quay, maybe 200 metres when I came across a water cut heading for the sea, I had just thought to myself, that’s a perfect entry for an Otter, took another step, and there’s a (turned out to be a Mink) heading towards me along the cut, we both stop, have a look at each other and the Mink decides to carry on, meanwhile numpty me still has his camera in the bag, so he’s walking straight for me, I'm trying to get the camera out and turned on.....velcro...riiip, Mink jumps about 2 ft in the air and disappears, bugger, bugger, bugger, take the camera out anyway, and up he pops for another look :D 

He/she was a decent size, perhaps over 2 ft nose to tail tip.

The second encounter, was one coming in from the sea, I didn’t know they did that, so was sure I had an Otter in my sights, but when it reached the rocks, you can see by the body shape its not an Otter

Third encounter I didn’t get a photo, the little beggar was moving too fast in the rocks, less than a foot long, but it jumped in and out of the water with no problem, it did take time to shake itself every time it reached another rock.

Forth encounter, this is in one day within maybe 100 metres of the first sighting, over maybe a 3 hr period. And I think this is an Otter, look at the whiskers, unfortunately it saw me, dived and disappeared.


Next Day, I had arranged a visit to Loch Frisa to see the Sea Eagles, but that was in the afternoon so I drove down to Salen, I know there was Otters there as I saw them there last time I visited, about 300 metres back towards Tobermory from the 3 old fishing vessels. I had only been there maybe 15 mins, there seems always to be seals on the small Island, and the Otters fish all around it, there were 2 in the bay that morning, but one decided to come ashore, I figured out where it would come ashore and was there to greet it;







It used a storm drain pipe to access the woods behind the road, very clever.

BTW This was a definite in between the rain week, the rain would be bouncing off the road one minute, and the same road would be steaming in the sun a few minutes later, very strange.

That afternoon as I said I had a ranger led trip to Loch Frisa to see the Sea or White tailed eagles, the big ones have a ten foot wingspan. They are related to the American Bald Eagle, and are bigger than the Golden Eagle.

I must admit this was a disappointment, although we did see the Eagles it was at extreme range, there were no nest cameras, or hides near the nest, the lodge we were taken to must have been half a mile away from the nest (which wasn’t visible), and both female guides seemed more interested in spouting politics than anything else, but I suppose for the princely sum of £4 not really much to complain about.

The best out of about 200 photos, most with a 600mm cat lense, not a happy bunny :(

On my last day, Friday, I decide to do a tour of the coast cutting across the Island from Salen to Laggan Bay with Ulva Island just off the coast then along the coast road back to Calgary bay, hopefully to see more Otters and perhaps Mink.
My only regret this trip was because the visit to Mull wasn’t planned I didn’t bringing OS 1:25k maps along, there are loads of Archaeological sites on Mull, most of which I probably drove past because I didn’t know they were there. There are standing stones, duns(forts), stone circles, even Brochs on the Island. Ah well next time ;)

The coast route didn’t disappoint, seriously spectacular views, again, the rain came and went, in the photos it may look like they were taken on different days, they weren’t, a couple of hours at most. A famous saying in Scotland “If you don’t like the weather, wait a minute, it’ll change”, another is “The only place where you can see all 4 seasons in one day”.









No Otters today, but like I said the scenery was spectacular.

A place I'll return to, again and again.

Cheers
Stephen

Sgian Dubh

Sgian Dubh

I foolishly said I would make a Sgian Dubh for a mates upcoming wedding, a few years back, this is its and my journey.

The brief was;
Pewter with an aged look, with celtic motif, particularly a celtic dog. Everything else was up to me.

In a moment of absolute madness I decided on Water Buffalo horn for both the handle and sheath, with a cast or etched bolster and pommel.

I’ve only ever made one knife before this, an SC_Barker PSK blade that I handled and sheathed. I know, I’m an idiot ! Oh and the Sgian Dubh blade was a stick tang, never done one of those before either.

3 weekends to go and I was still at the design stage, I had etched some pewter, and got good results;


But I wanted to try casting, (more on that later).

Next the Buffalo horn, I had some but they were quite thin in cross section, so I bought some more pre cut sections (and the blade) from here.

The Handle was first; I measured the stick tang on the blade and found it was all over the place, so squaring and flattening that was my first task.
Then I took a section of horn and flattened and squared off 2 sides, really just to give me something familiar to work with, and off. I also squared (or so I thought) one end.

I used drills smaller then the thickness of the tang, (2mm) and drilled 3 holes close together to create the basic shape then used 2 junior hacksaw blades taped together to open it up, (I didn’t have needle files small enough to do the job).

I opened up the hole enough to fit the tang, and found it wasn’t running parallel with the faces. However it was the only decent sized piece I had for the handle so I wasn’t going to bin it. Light bulb, use the other end and try again, which is what I did.




Next came the sheath, I actually though this would be fairly easy, as I was splitting it and fitting the blade into both sides, silly me.

My first attempt is documented on BritishBlades, it didn’t go well, one side bowed out after cutting and smoothing, presumably with tensions built up inside the horn.

So I tried again, this time when I cut the horn section in 2, I made sure the 2 half's were approx the same cross section, and after flattening both faces using oxide paper on a flat marble tile I clamped them back together again, and left then for 3-4 days to acclimatise.

When they were separated they were still flat.


Next stage was the cut-out to accept the blade and shaping the sheath, I had decided early that I would use jigs, if I could, so I had made various ones up using off cuts from a laminated floor I had had laid a few years back, very stable, the jigs were;
• To do the cut outs on the 2 sheath sides, BTW the blade was not symmetrical.
• To rough cut the outside shape of the sheath leaving 3-4 mm all round as a gluing surface.


As you can see that worked quite well.




Now to roughly cut out the shape of the finished sheath






The 2 half’s epoxied, and the blade inserted to check fit.



Time now to cast some pewter, I had found a supplier here, they also provided me with plaster of Paris and casting sand.

I had cast some bit and pieces, basically just trying out the equipment I had, nothing fancy, old small camping pots, a camping gas stove and my brazing torch, did the job admirably. From a small off cut I hammered flat a small piece to about 1mm, this would be the sheath bolster.


Two weekends ago (02-05-09)

Here's where I stood on the build

I can just see my mate walking down the aisle with that strapped to his leg !

I was REALLY under the cosh now! and I still hadn’t really got it together, time to get busy;


I had decided, due to time constraints that the bolster on the handle would be plain, (originally it was suppose to be either an etch or cast Celtic rope detail). So I cast an approx 3mm disc, maybe 30mm diameter, seen on the left hand side of the pic above, its rough there, I cut it out roughly to shape then took it to 8000 grit using Jeds magic paper.

That was epoxied to the blade and handle, also the sheath bolster was epoxied to the sheath, all fitted together and checked for fit will the epoxy was still wet.


I screwed up here, I let the epoxy cure to long, and damaged the handles bolster finish getting the epoxy off.

Time to sand, I decided to do the handle first and fit the sheath to it, I used a mechanical sander, thru to 240 grit.


I then mated the 2 together, and shaped the sheath again using the mechanical sander to 240 grit.




Sunday, now I was stuck, I hadn’t received the moulds I needed for the pommel, and I didn’t want to take the sanding any further than 240 until the pommel was in place.

Monday, The moulds arrived from Kerne, absolutely beautiful, works of art. I made up some plaster of Paris, and produced a negative, after it had gone off I remove the mould and dried it in the oven at a low setting.

Tuesday, casting day, set up the mould, melted some pewter and cast it, unfortunately Kerne’s concerns came true, the detail was too fine, it didn’t cast.

Luckily I had produced a backup, another 30mm disk of pewter, this time with a 5mm dia by 5mm high hub on the back. I dug out my etching equipment, (9volt battery and some wires basically) I had some PCB transfer sheets made up with various motifs, so utilized that to make a pattern, and etched it into the new disc.

This was then epoxied into place then shaped


Wednesday, I have 2 nights including tonight to finish this knife, I have to deliver it Friday morning, sanded to 600 grit


Thursday, last night, delivery tomorrow, sanded to 1600 grit

I had been seriously annoyed with myself when I got home, the handle bolster had deep scratches on it, ( I think I must have dropped it on something), typically on the side facing out, nothing to do but re sand from 240 grit to get rid of them.

I had used ferric chloride to etch the pewter, now I used it to lose the shine and age it, it worked very well.

This is the finished article, I’m not happy with it, I can see, and had made mistakes making it, but hopefully that means the next one will be better.






I’m going to go drink a lot of beer and then go lie down.

Cheers

Stephen