ok - I get it now. I am a tex-mex food man, but anything hotter than that is out of my league. Jalapenos, not habanero's. They are really mostly used in Cuban and some farther south stuff, as well as Indian and S.E. Asian.
I am a wimp by those standards.
I am a loooooong ways from a master smith, but I can forge weld really well and I have just gotten a hydraulic press. So, I have been bitten very hard by the damascus bug, and I have been doing multi-bar constructions by hand for the past year, and now I will be doing them by press (thank God).
I haven't had any real experience except what I could derive from the net or make up in my garage. I need tons of time watching and doing with real folks.
I have started working a little with jd smith in Boston, but only a little.
I will definitely drop by some time in the next few weeks. I am not teaching this summer, so I am open all the time, almost. Also, I do not get paid if I don't teach, and people are willing to pay me to make them p-welded seaxes and stuff, so I am working a lot. The hobby has turned into a way to make up the pay gap since my class did not have enough enrollment this summer for the univ. to let it go forward. Graduate students are too broke these days to go to school in the summer, they are working and trying to pay for the rest of the year. This leaves me with a lot more time and a little less money that I was supposed to have.
On the bright side, I am getting a lot of knifemaking done.
thanks for the warm greeting....
kc