Maker Journal
April 10th, 2026
I'm going to start tagging posts of stuff I made with "Maker Journal," to appropriately frame how I want to talk about these posts. I aim to put out some rambling thoughts and track my progress, and talk about how making makes me feel, not aiming to impress. If you don't like it, stop reading my journal, geeze!
I finished two projects last weekend that I'm pretty happy with. The first was a matched (ish) pair of mandolin hooks, on commission, and a leather axe sheath for a friend.
Mandolin Hooks
The customer wanted these as "nails," like you see. The two specific dimensions he gave me were the overall length & the width between the prongs. That was 4 1/2" and 1 1/2", respectively. I was targeting roughly 1/4” diameter for the prongs & spike.
Two maths later, and I landed on needing a little over two inches of 1/2" square bar. I cut it at 3" instead so I'd have something to hold on to and got to work.
Split one end, turned it into a T, upset some material back into the junction, forged it down to the target size & shape, cut off the excess, & fiddled with it forever until it was right. I'll try to get more progress shots going forwards, but this blog will probably never be a full how-to. I only included dimensions at all to celebrate the magic of how the forge can transform material. Maaaagic
Here's one more shot of the finished hooks, along with quick & dirty "driver" I included just in case the customer had trouble hammering between the tines.
Final thoughts on this project:
I'm happy I was able to work to dimension so closely. I like the overall Forged look of these, and I always enjoy doing "tranformative" smithing. There's a flaw from a cold shut on both of these, in the same spot, from an error in initially spreading the material that became the tines. It doesn't hurt the strength of it, but it bothers me. I like the octagonal shaft on the spike, but I wish it was more controlled, crisp, and even. Lastly, I should have brought the spike to a finer taper. If I was to make more and stock them for general sale, I'd probably tennon this onto a back plate with screw holes instead anyway.
Overall project feeling: 8/10. Would forge again.
Next: this axe sheath.
Made from a single piece of 7-8oz leather, with a thermoplastic insert. (Okay, the insert is black worbla, but it works)
I've made a few of this style before so when a member at my make space asked if anyone could help him out I jumped on it. He's a great guy who does a lot of unpaid work restoring and maintaining our machine shop, so I told him I'd take care of it.
Now, when I'd done these before, it was always for throwing axes, which have a very straight edge. I didn't realize how much the curve of a normal hatchet was going to mess me up. In the end I couldn't quite sculpt the leather all the way to the curve, so at the lower end there's a filler piece of leather between the main body & the worbla insert.
Not much else to it. Sculpted, dried, dyed, stitched & glued, added the button, gave it a waxing.
Final thoughts on this one:
I'm annoyed with how uneven I cut the end of that strap, but it was pretty far into the process at that point. I left it long through the molding & stitching process, then cut to size just before dying. If this was a paid gig I'd have probably restarted. After waxing poetic about how much this guy does for the shop, I probably should have treated it like a paid gig & redone it anyway, but there's only so much time.
Overall project feeling: 6/10.
Overall overall
I'm super happy that all of my time at the workshop lately has been on stuff for other people, commissions and favors. It's nice to feel useful and to have this part of myself "wanted" by the community. It's still a long way off from being more than a hobby, but the vibe is currently that if I can find more time to get to the forge, the projects are there and customers are waiting.
Next up is two draw knives (commission), and ~40 coffee scoops (wedding favors).
